High Peak Liberal Democrats

Volume vs quality in campaigning: the trade-off is different from what you think

A not infrequent comment by Liberal Democrat campaigners is: "We should do fewer X and concentrate on higher quality instead", where X is usually leaflets but can cover pretty much any form of campaigning.

For a tired, defeated activist in particular it has a certain logic. Do less and do it better.

But it gets the quality versus volume trade-off the wrong way round. Low quality leaflets rapidly stop being read. Low quality emails rapidly pile up the unsubscribed. Low quality text messages burn out your mobile phone list quickly.

For the voter, low quality means low volume (even if you think you're pushing out high volume).

Higher quality means a greater interest from the voters - and hence a higher volume works. Do things better and the point at which things become 'too much' is also higher.

The better you do, the more willing the public are to listen - and there's always another campaign or another step in an existing campaign you can tell them about and involve them in. Until you've reached community politics nirvana in your patch, there's always potentially more to say and do.

So better quality is definitely good. Just don't go after it thinking it means doing less. Better quality means better campaigning, not less work.

• Display: Accessible
• Switch to: Desktop (requires cookies)

• My Account.
• Privacy Policy.
• Other Party Sites.