Cllr. Johno Lee
“GetElected were brilliant at picking up the things I didn’t have time to do – or just didn’t want to do – so I could focus on what I’m good at: getting out there and campaigning. They brought in people who were great at the jobs I’m not so keen on, like the admin and phone work, which made a big difference. It meant nothing got missed, and I could put my energy into connecting with voters. Every campaign needs that kind of back-up – and they delivered it without blowing the budget.
As a politician, it’s about recognising what you’re good at – and being smart enough to bring in others to do the things you’re not, or just don’t have time for. You can either not do it and risk losing, or let someone else do it and give yourself the best chance of winning.
The difference between me winning and many of my colleagues losing was going that extra step.”
Cllr. Craig Smith
“In my younger years, I competed at the top level in sport. I learned that success doesn’t just depend on talent, it depends on the team around you. A great coach can extract that extra one or two per cent that makes the difference.
Political campaigning is no different.
So I went looking for someone to help, someone to act as a virtual campaign manager: a second set of eyes, a sounding board, someone to keep me focused. At the 2024 party conference, I met Matthew Goodwin-Freeman, who had just launched his new firm GetElected.uk. I was invited to the launch and ended up sitting next to Bob Blackman CBE MP, whose campaign Matthew had just run. And despite the exit polls predicting his defeat, he won and his majority increased – the only Conservative MP to get over 50 per cent of the vote! That got my attention.
Matthew and his team talked about campaigning differently, leaving no stone unturned, looking for those marginal gains. I knew immediately we were on the same wavelength, creative, maverick, with an eye on the next generation of voters. Together, we built a campaign that was hyper-local, relentlessly focused, and rooted in real-world engagement. Matthew would set me targets and send me out to go hit them, holding my feet to the fire and making sure the campaign stuck to track. This election became a referendum, all around “Craig’s track record” having been a good County Councillor the last four years.
And it worked. Against the odds, we held Coalville North, 41.3 per cent to Reform’s 35.5 per cent. Not only that, we denied Reform the keys to a County Hall majority, becoming a solitary Blue Bastion in the middle of a Turquoise Tsunami.”
Source: ConservativeHome
Cllr. Marcus Jones
“I was a late adoption candidate, so we kept our campaign stupidly simple... We identified relevant messages that people bought into... After my campaign, everybody recognised the name of ‘Marcus Jones’ and the local issues that I was talking about... Retaining our vote share meant our message cut through despite the national issues... We know that our campaign was noticed; the number I saw last was 59,000 impressions on Facebook from all the data streams... I'm very satisfied.”