This collective article examines the distinctive features of election campaigns in contemporary Russia using analytical research drawn from the Russian legislative elections of 2016 (the State Duma’s VII convocation); the authors also formulate practical recommendations for politicians participating in future electoral cycles. The necessity of creating effective tools for campaigning lead the authors to pay particular attention to developments in modern political science and to promising technologies that are currently not sufficiently used in Russia — particularly social networks, the problem-targeted approach, SWOT analysis and PEST analysis. The group’s research was presented at a political science department competition on the resolution of political cases held on May 16, 2016 by the department of political science at Lomonosov Moscow State Unversity.