Most campaigns buy media before they have a message. A gameplan is the other order.
We sit down with you before a dollar is spent and build the whole thing on paper: the district, the message, the media, the calendar and the budget. Then you decide whether to run it with us or with anyone else.
A losing campaign usually isn't outspent. It's out-decided.
Here's how it goes. Somebody tells you that you should run. You say yes in January. By February you've got a logo, by March you've got yard signs, and in August you're buying television because that's what campaigns do — and nobody in the room can say in one sentence why a voter should pick you over the other person.
None of those decisions were wrong on their own. They were just made in the wrong order, one at a time, under time pressure, by whoever happened to be in the room. That's what a gameplan fixes. Every decision gets made once, up front, when you still have the time to make it well.
It starts with a long conversation and ends with a document your whole team works from. In between we do the research you don't have time to do — the ward numbers, the opponent's history, what the money actually buys in your market.
We start with the district, not with you. Turnout in the last three cycles, who actually votes in a spring election versus a fall one, which wards decided the last one, and how many votes it took to win it.
Then your opponent: what they've said, what they've spent, who's behind them, and where they're weak. By the end of this we can tell you the number you need — not a percentage, a number of human beings.
Every campaign that loses had four messages. We make you pick one, and we pressure-test it against the opposition's best attack until it holds.
You leave with the sentence you say at every door, the three proof points under it, and the answer to the question you're dreading.
Video, mail, digital, radio, doors. Each one gets a job and a number, and anything that can't defend its line comes out.
This is the part most candidates get backwards — they buy first and figure out the message later. The plan decides the spend.
Filing, the announcement, the first mail drop, the ad flight, the debate, the absentee push, the last weekend. Every piece gets a day it has to exist by, working backward from the polls closing.
It's the difference between a campaign that peaks in September and one that peaks the week people vote.
A real number, broken out by line, with the version you run if you raise what you expect and the version you run if you don't.
If the plan doesn't fit the money you can raise, we tell you that in the room instead of six weeks into it.
A written picture of the seat: turnout history, the wards that decide it, and the number of votes it takes to win.
Two hours with you and whoever else has a vote in this. We ask most of the questions.
Ward-level turnout, past results, your opponent's record and spending, and what media costs here.
We write the plan and send it before we present it, so you read it without us in the room.
Two hours going through every line, then the final version with your changes in it.
“Great work and attention to detail. We're very pleased with the results… and allowing us to work within our budget.”
Doug Diny · Mayor of WausauTell us the seat and the date. The first conversation is free and you'll know inside an hour whether this is worth doing.
Book a free consultation We take a limited number of gameplans per cycle.