Advocacy campaign strategies & best practices

Advocacy Campaign Strategies

Best Practices for the Planning, Development, Execution, and

Follow Up

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Presented by

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Michael O’Brien Founder & Principle, MOB Advocacy Over ten years experience as a state and local lobbyist. Michael has lobbied governors, mayors, legislators, state and local agencies and regulators in more than 40 states.www.mob-advocacy.com

Carole Mahoney Sales & Marketing Consultant Ten years of experience as a digital strategist and practitioner for technology businesses in both the for profit and for purpose (not profit) sectors.www.carolemahoney.com

Sponsored by

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Agenda

Housekeeping IntroductionCreating the advocacy strategyDeveloping the toolboxExecuting the strategySharing resultsYour questionsAdditional resources & next steps

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Introduction

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Creating the Advocacy Strategy

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Goals

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• How it in alignment with your mission and business goals?

• Do you want to impact legislation to increase funding, pass a bill or act, or repeal a bill or act?

• Inform and shape opinion on pending or proposed legislation?

• Build a list of supporters for future action?

Criteria

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• Does this impact the core mission and primary stakeholders?

• Are there other organizations this is closer to?

• Leave personal politics out, match with business goals.

Research, Track, Monitor

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• What legislation is out there?

• How do we determine our position?

• Who is in opposition? Why?

• Who is an ally? Why?

• Who is affected? Why?

Resources

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• People

• Direct lobbying

• Grasstops (high quality influence)

• Grassroots (high quantity influencers)

• Technology

• Monitoring & alerting

• CRM

• Online activism

• Financial

• PAC?

• Fundraising?

Messaging

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Qualitative

Quantitative

• What?

• Who?

• Why?

• When?

• Where?

• How?

Communication Plan

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Use an alert system

Internal (training)

External (campaigns)

Developing the toolbox.

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Technology and people

Website

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• Centralized location

• Easy to find

• Easy to share

• Educational

• Actionable

Legislative Landing Pages

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• Short actionable headlines

• Sub headlines for scan ability

• Bullet points for facts

• CTAs above the fold and repeated

• Socially & email sharable

• Short video to educate & engage

Social Media

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• 2 way communication

• Automated and real time

• Gauge sentiment

• Short attention spans

• Cocktail party rule

• Evaluate often, apply to general messaging.

Email

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• SEGMENT!

• Opt in only.

• 50 characters or less subject line.

• 1-2 sentence intro

• Bullet points

• Repeat Call to Action

• Mobile friendly

• Consistent

Content

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• Educational blogs & articles with supporting third party data.

• Visual info graphics

• 90 second personal and emotional video

• Reports that don’t bore or overwhelm

• Style to match audience

Events

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• Grassroots events- “flash mobs”

• Press conferences

• Site visits

• Build and maintain momentum before and after through social.

Executing the Strategy

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When to start?

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Depends on:

• your goals and the legislation

• impact on members/audience

• Resources

• Marathon not a sprint.

Website example

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Landing page example

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Messaging example

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CTA example

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Build list

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After form submission

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Sharing Results

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What? To whom?

• Are legislators working for or against you?

• Share the stats you’ve been tracking and tie to big picture successes.

• Next steps if not successful.

• Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

How?

• Updating the website

• Email and social

Additional Resources

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Questions

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?