Deep Canvassing: The Ultimate Act of Persuasion and Negotiation to Win Elections

The deep beliefs of the human generation cannot be changed overnight, and the same is the case with voters.

Convincing a conservative voter can be tricky by a rather liberal politician, despite putting every fiber into the campaign effort.

The long-lasting beliefs can only be impacted through deep canvassing, a strategy that is promising to win you long-term voters.

This campaigning method can also help you in winning ideological supporters, who are one of the most valuable assets for any political campaign.

However, this campaigning strategy has its own limitations, and putting too much energy into it can often backfire.

What is deep canvassing, and what are its pros and cons? Let’s see.

Through in-depth discussion on important matters, your political campaign volunteers can do deep canvassing to impress potential voters.

Deep Canvassing: Taking Persuasion Powers to Another Level

As the name suggests, this is the campaigning tactic that is used to influence someone’s beliefs and shape them to align with your campaign goals.

Now, here is the key. If you ask conservative voters to vote for the liberal party, they won’t do that at all.

No matter how much you reinforce the message, everything will be a waste of resources. But what you can do is to change their views completely by indulging in discussions with them.

Gathering Manpower for Deep Conversations

Deep canvassing approaches can be of varying nature, and gathering persuasive people who would engage in this campaigning tactic can be a herculean task.

One of the ways is to utilize the human resources that you can gather through grassroots activism.

Once you are equipped with individuals committed to run deep canvassing campaigns, a relational organizing strategy can also yield positive results when applied combined with the deep canvassing efforts.

When to do Deep Canvassing

Like any other canvassing method, deep canvassing should also be pursued only at times when you have an actual need for it.

Following are the scenarios in which you can pursue this campaigning methodology.

• When you are the victim of a public relations crisis, it’s time to pursue deep canvassing.
• When you find that a significant portion of the voters stands against your ideology, you must find potential avenues in this methodology.
• When you are new in politics, and people don’t know much about you.
• When you believe that a potential ideology is a danger if left unattended

Pros of Deep Canvassing

Deep canvassing works and data are in its favor. For instance, the success rates for Joe Biden’s deep campaign efforts were measured as three percent in general, while 8.5 percent in the case of independent women.

This may not seem a big number to many; however, in such a close election where swing states were decided by narrow margins, these voters matter a lot.

You might have heard about the disadvantages of low voter turnout; however, with this campaign, you can convince neutral voters as well, instead of targeting your competitor’s stronghold.

This method helps you in: 

• Winning ideological voters for the future elections as well.
• You can win undecided voters also.
• With assertive negotiation skills, your volunteers can pursue vote skeptics as well who never cast their votes.
• Every convinced individual acts as another volunteer for your campaign who will start deep canvassing for you in his own capacity.

Cons of Deep Canvassing Campaigns:

While deep canvassing provides huge returns, however, you cannot rely on it if you:

• Are under time constraints.
• Do not have an expert and persuasive team to rely on.
• Are using people who are not well aligned themselves with your ideology.
• Don’t have enough data to see who is against your policy measures.

Important Aspects to Consider for a Deep Canvassing Election Campaign

• Persuasion: The Only Way to Launch a Winning Campaign

Without persuasive volunteers, deep canvassing is bound to fail. The whole point of this tactic is to convince your campaign skeptics through conversation. So, your campaign volunteers must polish their skills to pursue others.

• Listening Capability: The Backbone of the Deep Conversation Strategy

When you indulge in discussion with some stranger on a particular issue, they will also present their point of view on that specific matter.

Without having the proper listening ability, your volunteers will never develop negotiation skills that are the backbone of deep canvassing.

• Knowing the Other Side of the Coin:

Command your volunteers to engage with the voters as much as possible, and inquire about their opinions while engaged with them.

This way, they will get to know more about them, with which they can make a separate canvassing strategy for everyone.

Final Thoughts

While deep canvassing can also be carried out on phone calls, face-to-face conversations are proven to be more effective.

Managing the online forums and running these campaigns presents an emerging way to convince new voters. 

Whatever strategy you are adopting, just make sure that you are engaging the voters as much as possible in the discussion because establishing an emotional vow and human connections are the only ways to drive positive results in deep conversations.