BallotReady's Best Practices for Promoting Your Civic Center

Landing Pages

Get started by setting up creative, inspiring and accessible landing pages that prompt visitors to enter their address in the widget and start making their voting plan.

Multimedia Content

Promotional videos outsmart the algorithm on every social media platform, and are pushed to the top of users’ feeds. From TikToks to short YouTube films, multimedia content is one of the best ways to engage your audience and promote your resource. 

Social Media

Run social media campaigns across platforms to get your audience excited around the elections and link directly to your tool.

Pinned Content

Pin a link to your BallotReady tool right at the top of your profile using pins, without the help of algorithms. You can use Instagram highlights or pinned posts on Twitter and LinkedIn to draw attention to your BallotReady tool. You can also sponsor social media content to push it to the top of social media feeds. 

Link in Bio

Add a link to the landing page where your CivicEngine widget is embedded to your bio on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn so that every visitor has easy access. Use a linktree to feature your CivicEngine tool alongside other links on your site.

Specific Call to Action

Make sure that all communications about your CivicEngine site instruct users to enter their address in the widget. For example, instead of saying, "Go to the link in our bio to find out how to vote" try, "Click the link in our bio and enter your address to make a plan to vote."

Search Engine Optimization

You can use keywords to help your site appear prominently in search engine results, like Google. Many platforms like Squarespace, Wix, Wordpress, etc. have back-end settings to optimize your SEO. Adding UTM codes correctly to ad campaigns, emails, or links will help you analyze your distribution strategies and track your efforts.

Relational Organizing

Utilize your CivicEngine tool in your phone-banking & text-banking scripts to help voters find their polling places and make plans to vote! Or, add a CivicEngine QR code on your postcards to voters. Texting campaigns have been the most effective way to engage voters, with a relatively low bounce rate.

Related Content

Link to your landing page across your site, on blog posts, or articles about the election to attract interested viewers to take action.

Email Campaigns

First is better than best. 

Let's say a state legislature passes a restrictive voting law. Would you rather be the first organization to send an email to your list - with a pledge to vote and a link to the a polling place tool - or the fifth? The sooner you reach out, the more likely you are to pique their interest.

Test, personalize, and segment

Test multiple emails that link to your tool to find what your list responds to most. Getting demographic information is typically prohibitively expensive, so work with what you've got. Try segmenting by in-state vs. out-of-state, donors vs. non-donors, donation history, (1x vs repeat, recent vs lapsed), or past actions (type and topic).

Digital Ads

Invest in Digital

The impact mail has on voters declines precipitously after the first few pieces. TV ads are expensive. Digital ads will give you more bang for your buck than TV or mail.

Invest early, if you can

Don't wait for late money to invest in digital. Try to make smaller buys further in advance, so you can test and iterate.

Authentic is best

The more authentic you can be –whether it's sharing a selfie-style video, a local news story, or a personal story– the more likely you are to find users engaging with your information. This has the added benefit of being cost-effective.

Texting

Texting is a great way to reach communities of color and rural communities with limited access to broadband.

Have a mobile opt-in box on ALL of your forms

Including a mobile opt-in isn't a barrier to option - you should test, though, if requiring it is.

Add a short link to your tool

This gives you a concrete ask and a reason to follow up in a few months. Texts with links get 4x as many clicks as emails with links.

Keep your texts varied

We recommend the 1/4 approach: 1/4 advocacy, 1/4 fundraising, 1/4 education, 1/4 announcements, or whatever categories you're focused on.