An Attitude of Gratitude: Thanking Legislators with Social Ads

You’ve just finished a political digital communications campaign for a client trying to pass a critical bill in the state legislature. Throughout the campaign, you petitioned legislators, directly or indirectly, to sign on to the legislation through newspaper articles, press conferences, and advertisements. Now your client has won and the bill is law. What’s your next step?

Enter the “Digital Thank-You Ad.” I’ve run these ads for many clients and have seen great success. But why on earth would you want to spend money after a campaign ends and you’ve already achieved great results?

For most politicians, re-election is never far from their thoughts and demonstrating to constituents the great work they’re doing is a constant goal. Besides just being good manners, publicly thanking legislators helps forge strong connections with them by building goodwill.

These ads can benefit both your client and the legislator, allowing you to highlight the work the organization has done and the broad coalition that supported it, while spreading awareness of the legislator’s work on key issues.

Thank-you ads also have the benefit of being relatively cheap to run and produce. You can build a basic format featuring simple text and an image of one legislator, then swap out the image as needed for each of the legislators you need to thank.

The key to the success of these awareness ads is smart targeting. Whether you’re using a programmatic ads approach or running social media ads, microtargeting to each specific legislator’s district is critical. After all, those are the people who can actually vote for the legislator in the next election.

This level of specific targeting allows your message to reach people who care about what this specific legislator is doing. These ads communicate a clear message to legislators on behalf of your client: If you take the time to support our work and mission, we will take the time (and invest the money) to make sure you receive proper recognition.

Next time you’re preparing to wrap up a successful political campaign, consider ending on a high note with digital thank you ads that can help set your client on the road to even more success in the future.

Interested in running a digital or social ad campaign? Contact sami@thehatchergroup.com and let’s talk!

by Sami Ghani, Digital Director