Election campaigns are a frenetic flurry of announcements which take up a lot of the air time in traditional media.

If your organisation wants to get its message across by welcoming an election funding commitment, here’s some of the things you need to consider: 

1. Stay close to your sources – if you have contacts in a Minister’s or MP’s office, keep in contact with them to see if you can get advance warning about when an election commitment announcement is likely to be made so that you can be ready to respond.
2. Be prepared – write a media statement welcoming the election commitments, even if you don’t have all the details – you can fill them in once the announcement is made. Make sure your statement explains what difference the funding will make to your organisation or sector.
3. Send out the statement as soon as the announcement becomes public – time is of the essence in what may be a crowded space, so make sure you have your media release and contact list of relevant journalists ready to go.
4. Follow which journalists are reporting on the story – you can send the statement directly to them if they haven’t included your comments in their coverage yet.
5. Be bipartisan – welcome the announcements of both sides of politics if they’re making a similar commitment that will benefit your organisation.
6. Be realistic in your expectations – even though the announcement might make a huge difference to your organisation, due to the number of election commitments, space in media coverage is limited. This means the journalist may only be able to fit one or two quotes from your organisation into their story.
7. Use your socials – welcome the announcement on your organisation’s social channels even if it doesn’t get mainstream media. This will enable you to release your full statement and communicate with your stakeholders. If the announcement does appear in traditional media, you can share it on your socials.

For more details on our media and government relations services, please contact ReGen.

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