Some notes on The Victory Lab by Sasha Issenberg

If you can’t measure what “works”, how do you know it does? Knowing what works means you can do more of it

Here are some points i found to be particularly relevant:

• Political parties tend to be over-reliant on in-house wisdom, often gleaned from the last successful war. They are reluctant to adopt new techniques or test their current ones.
• It is ok to run an indiscriminate GOTV effort for an age group that votes for you (16–24s). It doesn’t matter if you are finding some Conservatives because you will find more of your own.
• Gratitude works.
• The data scraping used to assemble voter profiles in the U.S would be illegal under the UK Data Protection Act.
• Spending too much time hassling your own voters can reduce their likelihood to vote.
• Don’t give your secrets away. The other side won’t want to either, so be wary of reports in the media about their secret techniques.
• Just 2–3 pieces of well-written, targeted direct mail can be effective. It does not need to be 30.
• The most effective form of voter contact is a knock on the door from a local volunteer.
• Volunteers produce more effective results than paid staff.
• Candidates can shape outcomes through their fundraising ability, application of campaigning techniques, and ability to win swing voters over.
• Fundraising is critically important in the Liberal Democrats, who are typically out-gunned by the Conservative party. A lack of cash limits your options.
• “We need your vote” is less effective than “71% of people voted last time”.
• “Obama’s new wave empiricism triumphed over the reactive clubby old campaign world”.
• Advertising and marketing skills are vital for success. Who has your target voters’ eyeballs? Private sector skills are often far ahead of the political realm’s.
• The book says that lawn signs don’t win many votes, except for maybe a small rise in turnout. Personally, i’m not sure this is their aim. They are effective at energising your own volunteers, energised volunteers are more likely to campaign, thus winning more votes. The same goes for some social media activities, even if great Twitter content might not win you any votes directly it does motivate supporters (who will go out and do so).
• Free badges, petitions etc make supporters more likely to engage further.
• A “Learn more” badge is more effective than “sign up”.
• It’s better to execute one new method effectively, than 3 poorly.