How To Run A Sheriff Campaign 101

This guide is going to be fairly extensive. That’s because we ran a Sheriff Campaign using mostly free tools. Inside this guide, you can expect step by step instructions on how to run the digital marketing part of a Sheriff’s campaign race.

No, you do not have to hire an expensive branding agency. Your chances to win are not based solely on who has the best brand, but it certainly helps. Voters are easily swayed by a clean looking brand, remember, not every voter cares about the Sheriff’s election. Your goal with creating a great campaign should be to not only spread your message in a positive way, but get voters to remember your face come time to vote.

Here’s how to set up a sheriff campaign marketing strategy.

  1. Decide on a name for your campaign.
  2. Create a logo (cost = free).
  3. Grab your social handles (free).
  4. Buy a domain name (cost = $11).
  5. Build your website using Flywheel + WordPress ($75).
  6. Create a content calendar.
  7. Create highly engaging visual content (MOST IMPORTANT)
  8. Schedule posts on website and social platforms.
  9. Find a volunteer campaign manager.
  10. Enjoy the race.

This guide is going to get long. The single most important part of your entire campaign is staying true to your brand guidelines. Just like Target.com wouldn’t randomly turn green, or use different fonts, you shouldn’t either. You’re running for Sheriff, you should be able to create a quality looking product.

If you’re not capable of coming up with a brand you love, hire somebody to do it. Use a website like 99Designs to create a logo ($299) or hire a graphic designer on Upwork.

Important NOTE: for this campaign, every single piece of graphic content was designed using Canva.com (we had a pro subscription) and photos were purchased from various stock photo websites.

Sheriff Campaign: How To Run One Yourself, for free

First things first, you absolutely do not have to hire an expensive marketing company to run a sheriff marketing campaign. You’re going to need to start with a great logo, brand strategy, and color scheme first. We’ll dive into that later.

Quite note: this election was ran in the 3rd largest county in Minnesota. If you’re researching on whether or not you can do the entire campaign yourself, the answer is 100% yes. We’ve included links to files we used, so feel free to click and edit them with your branding information.

The purpose of how to run a sheriff campaign guide is going to cover the digital marketing portion of your campaign. This breakdown will include actual stats from an election campaign we ran in 2018.

What’s the cost to run a Sheriff Campaign?

  • Website Hosting: $15 a month (We used GetFlywheel.com, the best wordpress host for Sheriff websites in our opinon)
  • Godaddy: to buy the domain ($11 a year + privacy)
  • Canva Pro Subscription: ($12 a month) this is THE most valuable marketing tool to run any political campaign hands down
  • Facebook ads: this is discretionary. You decide how much you’re going to spend, this is the ONE part of your campaign you may want to consider hiring somebody for.