Lean Method of Political Campaign Management: A Strategy to Make Your Next Elections Memorable

Political parties need proper management and crucial strategies to penetrate voters' minds. In this regard, the lean method of startups is crucial in realizing the true potential of political parties.

As a matter of fact, all political parties resemble the model of startups and businesses. They have to gauge their audience through a lot of surveys and craft their strategies as per their audience's responses.

Just like big businesses, political parties also have to counter the reputation crisis that they may face from time to time.

So, the lean method of business management is equally applicable to political parties as well.

The primary assumption of lean methodology is that we have little knowledge about our audience. Being a new political party, this stands true to a significant extent.

When political parties are launched, they have no information about the whereabouts of their voters.

They have never conducted political surveys which would help them in organizing activities in their constituencies.

The key goal of the lean strategy is to optimize your political campaign in terms of both resources and efforts.

Lean Strategy of Political Campaigning 

The six basic principles of the lean strategy include,

• Reducing monetary waste
• Minimizing time and effort 
• Get rid of any rework
• Multiplying productivity
• Analyzing existing strategy
• Embracing mistakes to bring change

Applying these principles to any political strategy can do wonders for your election campaign.

Reducing monetary waste

Monetary resources impact political campaigns more than anything else in today's electoral setups.

Wasting money is the last thing that you can expect in your political campaign. Stay assured that you are optimizing your money to the maximum possible extent because fundraising efforts can become difficult at times.

Cut off all expenses that are not necessary. Sometimes investing in something can save you money in the long run, so try to invest in those avenues to get long-term, political, financial security.

For instance, if you can develop your canvassing app, you can save money in the long run from various recurring expenses and clerical work.

Minimizing time and effort

While you optimize your campaign in monetary terms, it is also recommended to have a look at your time and physical efforts put in the campaign.

Sometimes, the thing that can be done quickly takes forever just because you are not using the latest technologies.

This ultimately strains your resources because you become unable to focus on the actual things that matter.

Under-reliance on digital election tactics is a classic example in this regard, where, despite having the potential to reach unlimited people in no time, you spend a lot of resources reaching out to people physically, thus misdirecting your time and efforts.

Get rid of any rework

The lean method of political campaigns requires eliminating any rework that you may have to do time and time again.

For instance, if you can use your previous campaign material again in your next election cycle, what is the need to build your campaign from the very start?

This is where the role of your own website comes in, where you can write about your point of view, policy measures, and about all the issues, and use the same material in the subsequent elections with little editing.

Multiplying productivity

When you optimize your campaign to the fullest, it in itself is a way to multiply your campaign productivity.

Increasing productivity is a long-term plan where you analyze potential shortcomings in your political campaigns and try to avoid them in the future.

This may include getting rid of underperforming volunteers and giving a raise to frontline workers.

Analyzing existing strategy

This is probably the most important aspect of lean methodology, where you have to analyze the existing data using modern techniques.

As data analytics becomes part of conducting political campaigns, realizing its true potential can only come in the lean strategy of political marketing.

Embracing mistakes to bring change 

In the end, it is extremely crucial to see where you lack in your political strategy; when you analyze your data, make sure that you gauge your shortcomings religiously and do not hesitate in removing them.

This is crucial considering the fact that political campaign tactics can change from time to time, and the one who is not embracing the change can be left behind in politics.