Director of Government Outreach and Constituent Communication

Chat Topic: Successful Advocacy Campaigns
Date: May 19, 2008

Your Questions and the Hill Insider’s Answers

Q: Capitol Advantage recommends sending personal Youtube videos to elected officials -- how do staffers feel about that? 
A: Video is new forum for advocacy messages, so it is too early to tell how all staffers feel about Video Advocacy Messages.  Capitol Advantage and I think that video messaging to elected officials has a lot of potential for increasing the influence of your well-rounded campaigns.

Give it a try in conjunction with an e-mail campaign. Create two alerts, one Video Advocacy and the other a targeted e-mail alert. Give your advocates the option to create a video advocacy message. It also would be a good idea to call an office if a video message has been sent to them. Also, keep in mind that your audience (Legislative Staff) has limited time for each message, so a short 2-3 minute video is probably appropriate.

Q: Do the emails have to be an overwhelming number of petitions to have an impact (since we are a small non-profit)? 
A: No.  If you show an office you are organized and serious, you should be able to make your point through professional persistence.  Ask to meet with the Member (or staffer who handles your issue) and complement your grassroots with meetings.  Getting to know an office can aid your efforts tremendously.  Do not get caught up on number of messages, but instead focus on targeting the proper offices with personal advocacy messages. 

Q: What role do social networking web sites (i.e. Facebook) have in advocacy campaigns? 
A: Social networking sites are becoming more popular by the day. Many candidates and elected officials already have Facebook and MySpace pages. Social networking has not taken off in the advocacy world as it has for candidates, but mostly because it has not been tried nearly as much. Peer-to-Peer messaging is very effective and can be a great way to spread your organization’s mission and recruit new supporters.

720 Strategies also offers iConcur, an exciting new way to gather petition signatures for your issue on the world's fastest growing social networking site: Facebook. iConcur allows you to create a petition, share it with friends, and as an organizational sponsor, view detailed demographic information about your supporters. Contact 720 Strategies today and leverage the power of 40 million Facebook users to make a difference on the issues you care about. www.720strategies.com.

Q: Is there a number of messages that is sufficient to influence a legislator? What % of our users/members taking action should we use as a benchmark? 
A: While there is no exact formula for legislative success (see graph below), persistent efforts conducted in a professional campaign can be very effective. It is always good to set benchmarks for yourself from one year to the next and one advocacy campaign to the next. A great way to see how effective your advocacy messages are is by analyzing your Influence Reports, found in your Capwiz·XC admin site. Keep your focus on Influence Factors, rather than number of messages sent.

Influence Factors:

• Advocacy Message Content: Research has shown that effective advocacy messages are single-topic, include the bill or vote number where appropriate and the name of the organization behind the campaign. Effective messages also recognize the advocacy message recipients' current position on the topic of the message.
  
  Use the Smart Alert features in Capwiz·XC to have different advocacy messages sent to different recipients. For example, thank the co-sponsors of a piece of legislation with one message, and ask the non-sponsors to join on with another message.

• Advocacy Message Personalization: Advocacy messages in which the writer expresses his or her personal connection and passion about the issue are more effective than unchanged form messages. Did you provide an editable advocacy message and instruct your activists to add their own thoughts?
  
  In Reports, download advocacy message bodies to review the changed messages and make sure your High-Value Recipients received personalized advocacy messages.
  Turn on the Activist Photo Album feature to show the recipients the people behind the advocacy messages.

• Advocacy Message Length: Advocacy messages that are 1500 characters or less are more effective than longer messages. Do you have the Impact Meter turned on to make sure your activists keep their advocacy messages to an appropriate length?

• Advocacy Message Timeliness: Message content that is kept up-to-date carries more influence than stale messages. When did you create your advocacy message? Is the advocacy message text pertinent to the issue's current place in the political process?

• High-Value Activists: Activists who are the most influential participants in your campaign live in districts key to your issue or are connected users in Knowlegis. Review the list of activists linked from each report to make sure these important people have participated in the appropriate campaigns. Use custom fields to tag your High-Value Activists. Prepare and train your High-Value Activists by sending them special Mail Manager or Grassroots Toolkit messages.

• High-Value Recipients: Advocacy message recipients who are the most important decision-makers to your issue hold key leadership positions or serve on certain committees, have a personal interest in your issue or have yet to make a decision about your issue. Review the list of recipients in each report to make sure these important people have received your advocacy messages.
  
  Create Custom Smart Alerts to have your activists send special advocacy messages to the High-Value Recipients.

• Advocacy Message Coverage: States and districts that are key to your efforts are those represented by High-Value Recipients and those in which you have High-Value Activists. Review the list of locations in each report to make sure your advocacy messages have reached all the appropriate places.  Create user queries based on state or legislative district to make sure you have activists in all the locations key to your efforts. Recruit more activists by publishing your Action Alerts to the Capwiz·XC Media Network with Alert Blaster.

• Campaign Variation: Vary the way your messages are delivered. How many different ways do you try to reach the decision-makers you want to influence? For example, complement your e-mail advocacy messages with Call Alerts. Ask your activists to attend Town Hall Meetings or set up hill visit days to meet with their officials in person. Send e-mails to Congressional staff from your organization.
  
  Capwiz·XC offers five ways to deliver your advocacy messages to officials, media contacts, and other recipients that you specify. Choose from hand delivery, e-mail, fax, telephone, and/or postal mail. 

Q: We've successfully used Capitol Advantage in conjunction with a direct mail campaign.  How do you feel about complementing the email messages with a hard copy petition drop at a legislator's office? 
A: You need to be careful of being perceived by staffers as duplicating your efforts. It can be a good idea to drop by an office and meet the staffer who handles the issue.  Bring legislative resource materials for them and let them know who they can call on your staff if they have any questions.  Try to make yourself a resource to the office and an expert on the topic.  If you want to also bring copies of the letters sent to the official through your Capwiz·XC site, or a petition, go ahead.  Just don’t make that the reason you stop by the office. You want to add to your advocacy efforts, not duplicate them.

Q: What can we do using Capwiz·XC to promote our advocacy successes? 
Post an Info-Only Alert on your Capwiz·XC site promoting your advocacy successes. You can also send that Info-only Alert out as an e-mail to your supporters using Mail Manager.

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