Paul Hirschbiel for Congress
Designed and developed by New Media Campaigns on the HiFi Content Management System, Paul Hirschbiel's Congressional campaign site is an excellent example of NMC's ability to quickly build out a robust political site, with this one coming together in under two weeks. Running in Virginia, Mr. Hirschbiel's campaign website features several calls to action, imagery from his home district of Norfolk Virginia, integration with popular social media, and leverages the services of NGP VAN for donor and data management.
The site's many calls to action are highlighted in prominent yellow (against the blue background), and strategically placed everywhere on the site. One such feature is the "Sign Up for Updates" tab which allows visitors to fill in information without forcing them to go to a different page. This feature also keeps the design clean and straightforward. The registration forms are all integrated with NGP, allowing the campaign to cleanly maintain a single database without having to sacrifice the design on the site. The donation feature also leverages the NGP donation API to accept contributions on the site but process and record them into NGP.
Other helpful design elements are the use of visual thumbnail buttons for the action center on the homepage and on interior pages, making it easy to, for example, to follow Mr. Hirschbiel on Facebook or contribute to his campaign. The graphics are relevant and eye catching. Similarly, the integration of background photos from Norfolk tie the campaign closely to the district and its voters. The images change on refresh between images of an aircraft carrier, the beach, and crab traps in the Virginia marsh.
Back on the homepage visitors will find "The Latest From the Campaign"-- with different tabs that reveal the latest press release, tweet, and Facebook update from the campaign. These updates are all tied into their respective channels and update automatically when Mr. Hirschbiel makes a press release, tweets, or updates his status. Below these Features is a signup footer to grab visitors as they scroll down, in case they like what they read.
As with most political candidate websites, this site features an "About Paul" section that provides some information about the candidate, and then an Issues page that outlines his overall position, and then provides tabs with information about some of the important individual planks of the candidate's platform.
Paul Hirschbiel's site illustrates how a site can be rapidly and easily implemented while still providing premium features and content. Relying on donations, contributions, and fundraising, candidates have finite budgets and time constraints. It is therefore important to be able to design, develop, and implement a website as efficiently as possible. HiFi is a great candidate for this sort of work, providing excellent framework that streamlines site development and allows for the implementation and adaptation of a wide variety of APIs and other custom tools. It also features centralized content management, which saves important time for candidates and their teams, as site content is automatically updated, even when they make updates indirectly through other social media channels.
We wish Mr. Hirschbiel luck on his campaign trail, and we are proud to include his site amongst the many other political campaign websites that we have designed and developed.
