A PUBLICATION OF THE CAMPAIGN WORKSHOP

DECEMBER 2015©2015 The Campaign Workshop. All rights reserved.

GUIDE TO

ADVOCACY

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FORWARDBy Lizzie Kendrick

Joining together as a group to exert pressure on decision makers and influence policy is nothing new – it’s an age-old tradition. Advocacy campaigns have certainly evolved, however, from the first time people marched in the streets, to the first organized sit in, to the first email to a lawmaker asking them to take a stand on an issue. As with most things these days, digital strategy can and should play a crucial part in any advocacy campaign. But the world of digital tactics is diverse and doesn’t come in a one-size-fits-all program – that’s where this book comes into play.

At The Campaign Workshop, we have been working on advocacy campaigns for years. Our team has been on the forefront of implementing digital strategy since before it was a trendy and commonly employed advocacy tool. As digital integration becomes more commonplace, it’s more important than ever to do your homework and make sure that you’re spending your digital dollars wisely.

This book lays out the groundwork for you to blend digital strategy into the overall goals for your advocacy campaign. It starts by helping you outline your goals for your campaign and figuring out how digital tools will help you achieve those goals. You’ll then be walked through creating a presence for your organization online and why it’s important to be creative in your efforts. This book gives a deeper dive into both digital advertising and list building, as well as how to best use social media for advocacy. In short, you’ll be getting a clear picture of how best to incorporate digital strategies into your advocacy campaign.

Whether you’re looking to start an advocacy campaign from scratch or include digital tactics into an existing program, this book will help guide you in the right direction.

GUIDE TO DIGITAL ADVOCACY

GUIDE TO DIGITAL ADVOCACY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL ADVOCACY CAMPAIGNS 4Goal Setting for Digital Advertising 5Establishing a Nonprofit Web Presence 8Why Creativity Online Matters 9Digital Advertising Doesn’t Mean Instant 10

DIGITAL ADVERTISING-HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? 11How Cheap Is Digital Advertising for Advocacy? 12Digital Targeting Options and Your Budget 14

LIST BUILDING AND CPA 17List Building Best Practices for Nonprofits 18Is CPA Right For Your Nonprofit or Advocacy Campaign? 19Your CPA Campaign Is Over, Now What? 20Advocacy Email Post 22

USING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ADVOCACY 24Facebook for Advocacy: What Are You Buying? 25Leveraging Your Facebook Audience 26Twitter for Your Advocacy Campaign 28

OTHER DIGITAL STRATEGIES & TACTICS FOR ADVOCACY 30What Is Digital Programmatic Buying? 31Native Ads Are Going Digital 32

Content Marketing for a Nonprofit 33

 

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INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL ADVOCACY

CAMPAIGNS

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5

GOAL SETTING FORDIGITAL ADVOCACYCleary Define Metrics for Success.

Setting goals early on in the development stages of your advocacy campaign is a great way to stay organized and on a path to success.

Primary and secondary goalsFrequently, organizations leave their goals implied for a digital advocacy campaign. Yes, your broad goal is probably to win, but leaving the details up for interpretation will likely mean missing out on opportunities to make long-term advances. Before you formulate your digital plan, take a 30,000-foot view and flesh out your primary and secondary goals. To do that, answer these two questions:

Primary goalWhat is the primary objective of your digital advertising campaign? Secondary goals Even if you don’t win your advocacy campaign, what are the relationships and tangible assets you’d like to come away with (e.g. list growth, increased fundraising capacity, improved relationship with a decision maker, etc.)?

Cost per acquisitionCPA campaigns are the most efficient way to grow your list, and they’re also a wonderful way to apply pressure to decision makers. In order to set goals for a CPA campaign, you need a good sense of your:

• Budget • Geography • Timeframe

Typically, the smaller the geographic target, the longer the acquisition campaign will need to be. A good rule of thumb is that most campaigns should allow for a minimum of 8 weeks. You should also think about the number of names you need in order to have an impact. If you simply want to grow your list, how many new names do you want to add? If you’re trying to make a statement that will get the attention of an elected official, the number of names will be different, if, for instance, you’re targeting a state representative in Montana versus a U.S. Senator from New York. Figure out how your budget, geography and timeline fit together and your goals will likely be quite clear.

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EmailIf you’re running a CPA program, you should also be running a regular email program to keep new (and existing) supporters engaged. This will also help you make sure that CPA is a long-term investment rather than a short-term fix.

With both CPA and existing supporters, you should make sure that you’re sending email with a purpose. Long, over-detailed emails with no ask or multiple, disparate actions aren’t going to help you in the long run.

As you’re designing your email program, think about what you want to achieve, when you want to achieve it, and with whom.

The what means your asks – are you fundraising? Asking people to contact a legislator? Forward to a friend? Obviously, there may be some changes to your advocacy program as events unfold, but having a basic drumbeat established so that you understand the overall progression of your campaign will help keep you on track. That advance planning will also ensure that you can respond more nimbly when the unexpected happens.

When and with whom means that your goals should reflect your list, and that timing and list segmentation will help to increase your advocacy campaign’s success. This means you should know how people came into your list, and what actions they’ve taken, and that information should inform your planning and goals. For instance, you may want to send all new opt-ins a fundraising ask (as that first sign-up is likely the most excited a new supporter will be about your organization) and set a basic goal of $5 donations from a certain percentage of those new supporters. But, there may be other groups within your list for whom a fundraising email won’t be effective or even appropriate.

TestingAnd lastly, any digital program should have some sort of testing component so that what works and what doesn’t is backed up by more than anecdotal evidence. Ask anyone who handles an email program, and they’ll likely tell you that the most successful emails are often not the ones they would have predicted. Similarly, you can’t always predict which digital ad will yield the most clicks, and that may not correlate to the highest number of completed actions. Testing will help you to identify patterns and high-yield tactics you might otherwise miss.

It’s difficult to put new procedures in place while you’re in the thick of a campaign, so planning ahead will be helpful in terms of integrating testing into your day-to-day email activities.

Social mediaSocial media is a great tool – it’s comparatively cheap to have an impact, it’s interactive, and it’s a great way to create an audience for your message. A lot of people come in the door saying that their goal with social media is visibility, maybe also engagement. Those are certainly important pieces of the puzzle (social media platforms are probably the cheapest

and most pervasive tools you can use to plaster your advocacy campaign across the internet), but they should not be the only things you come away with.

In other words, your secondary goals are critical here. How is social media (both the paid and unpaid portions of your program) uniquely positioned to help you achieve those goals? Can strong engagements and repeated interaction help you to bring an online supporter to an offline, real-world volunteer event? Does a certain amount of social media engagement trans-late into an increase in the likelihood that a follower will donate? Take stock of your interactions and examine what’s driving the types of conversions you’re looking for to help optimize your plans, ads and interactions.

Digital advertisingThere are a lot of different ways to approach paid digital advertising for advocacy. Typical metrics for success include click through rate (CTR), conversion rates (e.g. petition signatures, or another action that goes beyond simply clicking the ad) and impression levels. You might also be looking to increase quality site traffic (people who take the time to look through your site, take an action, etc.).

With paid digital ads, it’s important to formulate your goals with your budget in mind. For instance, if you’ve got $10,000 to spend, you’re not going to be able to saturate an entire state with your ads, or even target multiple legislators in their district. You may, however, be able to run ads in highly targeted publications or choose a very narrow audience to serve ads to (e.g. running ads in a political newsletter with a high open rate that you know is regularly read by political staffers). You’re never going to be able to do everything, so it’s better to be strategic and do one or two things really well. Above all, your metrics for success and your digital strategy should track with your goals and your budget.

Website analytics Another important tool at your disposal is Google Analytics. It’s free for almost everyone, and it provides a wide variety of information about a site’s traffic. Digging into your site’s analytics can be illuminating, providing you with information that basic ad metrics likely won’t. For instance, you may be achieving a CTR that’s off the charts, but a look into your analytics may reveal a high bounce rate as well, meaning that you’re getting a lot of traffic, but that it’s not sticking. That may indicate that your ad’s ask doesn’t match the content on your landing page, or that most of the bounces are coming from mobile traffic and are attributable to fat finger syndrome – without a peek into your analytics, you wouldn’t necessarily know these things.

These are just a few of the things you should keep in mind when setting goals for your digital advocacy campaign.

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ESTABLISHING A NONPROFIT WEB PRESENCEIncrease Your Reach and Authority A strong website increases your reach and helps to establish your organization as an expert in your issue area(s). Both of these things are integral to success in the world of issue advocacy. There are a few key things to consider as you optimize your website to drive traffic and gain momentum:

Create content based on your internal expertiseYour site should be a resource for people looking to learn more about the particular issue (or issue areas) you specialize in. This means harnessing your internal knowledge and talent to create content that proactively answers all sorts of questions you see in your day-to-day work. That content should start in the form of a regularly scheduled blog, but as you increase your site traffic, that may also mean creating webinars, eBooks and other downloadable content.

Dominate the search enginesThe best way to gain traction in search rankings is to increase your backlinks. A backlink is essentially any link received by a web page, directory, website or top-level domain from another web page, directory, website or top-level domain. Linking to other sites can help bring in additional people who may have otherwise not found your page. Backlinks from high-quality publications and websites are even more helpful as they speak to the quality of your content and increase your site’s authority, making it easier for you to rank higher in search results.

Keep it simpleWhen people visit your site, they most likely want answers to difficult questions. Make it easy for them to understand, so they do not immediately move on to the next website. Use simple terms and be helpful. Also, make it easy to find these answers. People are busy, and they don’t want to spend all day searching your site.

Expand your relationshipsDevelop good relationships with the press, other issue groups, and other link generators. Focus on developing relationships with other sites that have a high authority ranking. Educational institutions and big media sites will be a good place to start for your nonprofit web presence.

Understand what’s really importantYour focus is more important than money. You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a website and still get little traffic. By becoming focused on putting out good content on a regular basis (and promoting that content), you can harness your team to bring people to your site.

Is this hard to do? Sure, but most nonprofits spend very little time thinking about how they can become more reader friendly. Follow the above steps to better your nonprofit web presence and you’re likely to see a real increase in your overall site traffic.

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WHY CREATIVITY ONLINE MATTERSCreativity is Key

When was the last time you saw something particularly eye-catching online? We spend so much of our time online these days, for work and for play, that it’s easy for content to get lost in the shuffle.

Which is why it’s more important than ever to be creative when posting content online. From social media to digital ads, creativity is key to getting noticed and remembered.

Let’s take digital ads as an example. When you’re reading an article online or searching for something on Google, there’s a lot of content competing for your attention. Many ads will go unnoticed by the average reader. To break through the noise, it’s important to have an ad that pops out to the reader. For online display ads, this can be accomplished with the design and/or the movement of the ad. For Google text ads, it’s important to have a headline that grabs your attention, while also paying attention to the makeup of the ad to ensure that it’s position is high enough in the search results to get noticed.

The next time something catches your eye online, take note of it. Take a screen shot or save a link to ads that succeed in breaking through the clutter. This can become a resource for creative ideas when you’re posting online.

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DIGITAL ADVERTISING DOESN’T MEAN INSTANTFast and Instant Are Different

While it’s true that the world of digital advertising is fast-paced, and it certainly gives us information much more quickly than any other medium, banking on instantaneous traction is a good way to fall short of your goals. This is because digital advertising is not a synonym for instant. Planning ahead will give you time to really define your goals and make sure your campaign has the right components and the right timeline to achieve them.

Where some sites, like Facebook, get ads up and running quickly with very little turnaround time, others, like Google, have an internal review process that can sometimes take a couple of business days. If you’re trying to run a digital advertising campaign that lasts a week, and you’ve only given yourself 24 hours lead time, you will end up eating into some of that run time.

What’s more, if you look at a basic graph of the progress of most digital advertising campaigns (whether you’re looking at clicks or impressions), you’ll find that the first few days or even weeks are a time for building traction (especially if you’re targeting using a matched list). In other words, it’s extremely unlikely you’ll have a high volume of clicks and conversions within the first few days of going live.

The same principal applies to Facebook likes. If you already have a wide audience for your page, advertising and increasing those numbers can indeed be a fairly quick process. If you’re starting from scratch, however, those numbers take more time to build. One of the most effective ways to advertise on Facebook is to serve ads to the friends of people who’ve liked your page. If you don’t have a critical mass of followers, those ads aren’t really an option.

That ramp up time also means that a shorter buy is less likely to give you what you want. This doesn’t mean that it’s always a bad idea to be up for just a week, but generally speaking, that’s likely to be far too little time. If you have the time to run a more protracted buy online, it’s often a good idea.

If you know that you have an important date coming in three months, and that you want to run ads around whatever that date/event is, start talking about it now – don’t wait until a week before to get the ball rolling. That lead-time will allow you to manage your time and resources in a way that will be more efficient and effective when it comes to achieving your digital advertising goals.

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DIGITAL ADVERTISING:

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

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HOW CHEAP IS DIGITAL ADVERTISING FOR ADVOCACY?The Answer? It Depends

Per unit, digital advertising is comparatively cheap – while you may spend several hundred dollars (or more) per point on TV, your cost per thousand impressions (CPM) can be as little as a dollar or two for digital advertising. That means that digital advertising can be a fantastic way to reach out to supporters and promote your advocacy campaign when you’re working with limited dollars.

That said, cheap per unit doesn’t necessarily translate into a small price tag. While you might not have to come up with the several hundred thousand dollars (or more) that an effective TV buy may require, it doesn’t mean that you can get away with spending $5,000 on digital advertising and call it a day. There is no magic number in terms of efficacy here (and digital advocacy is scalable in a way that other mediums are not), but there are several factors it will be important to consider before spending your resources:

• Buying in a market like New York City is going to be a very different beast than buying in, say, Sioux Falls. Does your budget reflect your market?

• A good rule of thumb is to think of what you should spend on television advertising, and apply at least 10% of that budget to your digital advertising buy. This isn’t always doable, but if you can’t meet that threshold, it’s important to at least explore whether there are other tactics that might be a better fit for your goals, or if waiting until you do have more money is a better strategic decision.

• Sometimes it’s impossible to wait for more money to roll in because that would mean dropping out of the fight. Still, there are times when other tactics can stand in while you amass the resources required for a robust digital advertising buy, and it’s important to consider the option carefully. If you’re spending $2,500 here, $5,000 there without a cohesive plan tying it all together, and if you’re not spending at levels that give you the ad density you need in order to break through, digital advertising for advocacy becomes incredibly expensive, as you’re flushing money away without creating impact.

• Prices among publishers can vary greatly. Pay attention to the CPMs you’re quoted. For example, some specialty publications (i.e. newsletters that circulate primarily to people working in capitol buildings) may charge you a flat rate of $785 for a one-month placement that is estimated to yield 10,000 total views over the course of the month. While $785 isn’t a huge fee in and of itself, that breaks down to a $78.50 CPM, which is a really expensive per unit. Some publications may be worth those costs, but many won’t be. Take the time to examine the costs of your digital advertising buy and think about whether you can accomplish the same things with another publication or network that will afford you a higher number of similar-quality impressions.

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• How long will your budget last you in the market you’re targeting? Digital advertising is fast, but it’s not instant. If your budget will only lend your buy strong density for a few days or a week, it’s likely not going to give you the impact you’re looking for (though obviously, this point is dependent on your overall goals, context and the content of your ask).

• If resources are limited, how can you fine-tune your goal and targets in order to create scale that fits your budget? For example, your goal may be to get progressive Philadelphia residents to take an action. Instead, maybe you layer in a voter list-matched element to your targeting in order to reach progressive Philadelphia voters and prod them to take action.

• Lastly, it’s important to ask if a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) campaign is a more efficient use of your resources. Digital advertising for advocacy can be incredibly useful, but if your goal is to create a strong group of grassroots advocates, CPA may be a cheaper, more effective method of communication (and there certainly is no more efficient way to spend dollars in pursuit of list growth).

This is a lot to think about, but in the progressive advocacy world, resources are precious. Under-spending for digital advertising campaigns can ultimately be more wasteful than impactful, which is why it’s important to remember that cheap per unit costs may still require a significant investment in order to achieve advocacy goals.

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DIGITAL ADVERTISING TACTICS, TARGETING AND YOUR BUDGET.Root Your Digital Decisions in Your Overall Strategy

There are many ways you can use digital advertising in your campaign. Which tactics you choose will likely depend on not only your budget (which is a large factor), but also the capacity and time you have at your disposal. If you’re running a relatively small campaign and doing most of the digital work yourself, you may not be running pre-roll ads or looking into native advertising with large sites. On the flip side, if you’re running a large, yearlong advocacy campaign and have the resources and ability to hire a firm to run your campaign for you, you’re in a different boat.

Below we have listed out a variety of tactics you can use online and how they might fit into your budget. Whatever you do, remember that your strategy should be formulated first, and it should be the ultimate arbiter of the tactics you choose.

Audience and behavioral targetingUsing third party data points, you can target people based on their demographic and behavioral traits. If you know your target audience is made up of women, age 45+, who are likely voters, you can use this type of targeting to reach them. This is a relatively inexpensive tactic to add and most vendors you will work with can accommodate this. It’s also generally available (in one form or another) in many self-serve platforms.

Pre-rollPre-roll ad buys will really help make an emotional connection with your targets. If you have the budget to invest in creating video assets (or are already planning to be up on TV), adding pre-roll is a no-brainer. As with other types of ads, pre-roll can be targeted in a variety of ways – by geography, by voter, and other methods listed here. They’re also a great way to get cheaper, more micro-targeted video exposure than television, though quality pre-roll CPMs are definitely a bigger investment than standard display.

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Unique ID and cookie targetingWhether you’re running a political campaign or doing issue advocacy work, direct, list-matched targeting is really becoming the norm for digital campaigns. With Voterfile 2.0, you are able to use segments of the voter file to target your ads to specific voters. This can be used across a variety of vendors and platforms and with a variety of creative units. You can also run matches against member lists (though we’d recommend layering in voter tar-geted lists as well in order to ensure you’re targeting people who are likely advocates). Just remember, list matching requires some additional lead-time (build in a week to be safe) and a significant target universe (you’re likely to get about a 50-60% match rate, so your targeted universe will be smaller than your initial list) in order to work well.

Lookalike modelingIn cases where your universe meets the threshold for a list-match, but isn’t as robust as you’d like, lookalike modeling is a great way to bolster your targeting. Essentially, providers build a model to find additional online users who look and act (digitally speaking) like the targets on your original list. What’s more, if there’s a specific population you know you definitely don’t want to communicate with, you can layer in a suppression file to help keep those people out of the modeled universe.

Mobile geo-fencingGeo-fencing allows you to choose a particular geographic location and serve ads to people who fall within a certain distance of that location (generally a minimum 1 to 5 mile radius). This type of mobile advertising can be incredibly useful if you want to reach people who are, say, at a rally or who frequent a particular place, like a job site. Geo-fencing can also be a great way to stretch a limited budget if you’ve got a very specific set of targets. For instance, if you know you just want to reach legislative staffers and key decision-makers, you could tar-get a state capitol complex and the district offices of lawmakers.

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Re-targetingRe-targeting allows you to serve ads to people who have visited your site. This puts them back into your funnel by serving ads that are related to the content they were just served, and helps increase the likelihood that they will complete actions on your site. We recommend us-ing re-targeting with most digital campaigns, as it is a cost-effective and easy way to engage supporters, but it does take time to build a retargeting list.

Native advertisingNative ads come in a variety of forms, but are essentially a type of ad that fits into the content of the media where the ads are being placed. In other words, it may take the form of a sponsored editorial on a news site, or promoted content in the sidebar based on the content of an article someone is reading. These ads can work well when you are trying to create and steer a conversation while boosting your campaign’s visibility and credibility. Native advertising isn’t cheap and it requires a significant investment in long-term planning. Broadly speaking, this tactic comes with a minimum investment of around $30,000 and a few months time.

List acquisitionIn addition to communicating your message to a custom-targeted audience with paid advertising, you can also build a list acquisition strategy into your campaign. This allows you to use email – one of the most effective and least expensive online advocacy tools – to communicate to a list of new supporters about the importance of your issues. There are many list acquisition tools out there to use, both free and paid options. With a free option, you may not have as much control over the look and feel of your petition. Paid options allow you to target your petitions geographically and, in some cases, demographically as well. Using one or both of these options will help you build your email list to your benefit.

Social media strategySocial networking tools like Facebook and Twitter provide campaigns with a quick, economical and effective way to communicate with supporters in real-time. In addition to creating a presence on these sites, you can also utilize them for paid advertising. Facebook and Twitter are great because you can use them with a variety of budgets (they’re comparatively cheap) and they come with a lot of the more sophisticated targeting tools that are available on other platforms. Social media sites are also unique in that a lot of their targeting capability is based on self-reported data, rather than appending commercial data to a file.

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LIST BUILDING AND CPA

LIST BUILDING BEST PRACTICES FOR NONPROFITSGreat Advocacy Starts with a Great List

List building for nonprofits is extremely important. These are people you can turn to for donations, actions (e.g. call a legislator), volunteering, and more. When list building, it’s important that you follow a few best practices. This will ensure you’re getting the best possible supporters and doing so in the best possible way.

Never, ever buy a listBuying an email list may seem like a fast and easy way to build a list for your nonprofit, but it’s almost always a bad idea. First of all, the people on a list you buy haven’t opted in to receive emails from you (email list purveyors use a passive opt-in method that is sneaky at best). They may not even know what your organization is or be a supporter of your cause. This will lead to a high unsubscribe rate. Second, most bulk email systems (the good ones) will not allow purchased lists to be uploaded into their systems. This is to prevent spam. Don’t be a spammer!

Always opt-in (or opt-out)When you add people to your list, you should always have a way for them to say, “Yes! I want to receive emails from you.” And a way for them to opt-out of receiving emails, should they not want additional communication from you. This helps make sure you’re getting real supporters and, again, that you’re not sending spam.

Update your database regularlyMake sure you go through your database and update it regularly. If people have sent you an email requesting to be unsubscribed, make sure that is happening in conjunction with an automatic unsubscribe through your mail system. Accurate, up to date records are the keys to developing a quality list.

Encourage more list growthKeep list building. Don’t stop! Ask your current list to recruit their friends and family. Send out emails with actions they can take (petitions, etc.). Ask for money. Keeping your list engaged will mean you have an active audience and will help you continue to grow.

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Yes!I’d like to receive emails.

IS A CPA CAMPAIGN RIGHT FOR YOUR NONPROFIT OR ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN?Put Cost Per Acquisition to Work for Your Nonprofit Advocacy Campaign

Building a strong list of supporters is an important step for any advocacy campaign, and one that should not be ignored. You will be able to go to these supporters for a variety of help – volunteering, getting out the vote, donations, and more. There are many ways to build a list of supporters, but the fastest, most cost-effective way to do it is through a cost per acquisition or CPA campaign.

Unlike traditional digital advertising, a CPA campaign adds people to your list by having them take an action on your behalf (often signing a petition of some sort). At first glance, spending $2.50 per name (or thereabouts) may seem like CPA comes with a hefty price tag compared to a regular CPM rate, but your conversion rates through a platform like Change.org or Care2 are likely to fall in the 9-12% range, which is much higher than you’ll likely see with a run of the mill conversion campaign on your website. What’s more, those sites generally guarantee a certain number of sign ups, and they’re fishing in a self-selected pool of advocates who are generally more likely to take subsequent actions than your average online signer.

Increasingly, CPA vendors are offering more advanced targeting, which is a huge asset. Not only are you able to target by state, but with some vendors, you are able to target down to the zip code. Some of this does depend on geography and population density however, so targeting a single zip code in New York City is likely much easier than targeting a single zip in rural Georgia.

When deciding whether to pursue a CPA campaign, there are a few questions to ask before you dive in.

1. Look at your budget to make sure it’s a realistic addition to your efforts.

2. It’s also important to look at the timing of your campaign. If you’re trying to put together a CPA campaign a few weeks out from an election or an important vote, you may not see the return you are hoping for. Generally, you should try to give yourself a minimum of 8 weeks to carry out a full CPA campaign.

You will also need to make sure you have the capacity to follow up with your supporters. You may be able to add 5,000 new supporters to your list, but in order to really engage new supporters and build a long-term relationship, you have to communicate with them regularly. This usually includes a welcome message within a week of adding names to your list, as well as follow-up emails at a regular interval to make sure they stay active and on your list.

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@NEWSUPPORTER!

YOUR CPA CAMPAIGN IS OVER, NOW WHAT?CPA Campaigns Don’t End with Reaching Your Supporter Goals

Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) campaigns are a great way to build your list while demonstrating public support for your advocacy campaign. But once the dust settles and you’ve reached your signature goals, what do you do?

No matter what, you should expect some list churn—it’s just part of the process of managing a supporter list. That said, if you don’t do anything, I guarantee that you’re going to lose more people than you’d like. There are a host of things you can do, both short, and long-term, that will keep your new supporters active and engaged.

Timely welcome emailsThe key word here is “timely.” Most CPA campaigns receive new supporter deliveries once a week (though you can usually set frequency of delivery with your vendor). You should be sending your welcome emails at that pace as well. The longer you wait to welcome people to your list, the more likely it is that they’ll have forgotten they signed up in the first place. Let them know how they came to be on your list, why it’s important, and what they can do moving forward.

Fundraise right awayIf fundraising is a part of your advocacy goals, the best time to do it is right after someone has signed up – they’re never going to be more excited about your organization and cause than when they’ve just completed an action on your behalf.

Cut to the chaseYour emails should not be tomes. Keep the word count under 250 (extra points for keeping it under 150).

Provide an actionThe supporters you have gained from your CPA campaign come from a pool of self-selected Internet dwellers who are generally more likely to take action—let them do what they love. There’s a fine line here though, as you don’t want to clog their inbox (or the email itself) with asks. Your email program and the accompanying actions should be planned in advance and should create a sense that your emails are important and deserve to be opened.

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Create sender trust The person sending and signing these emails is important. You don’t have to send every email from the president of your nonprofit. Instead, think carefully about who is communicating with your list and how you can cultivate a voice for that sender.

Make a plan!All of the above will be much easier if you write out a basic plan for your email program, including a calendar for your emails and actions. Obviously, this will be a fluid document that accounts for unforeseen news events and anything else that comes up, but having a basic roadmap will dramatically increase the viability and success of your post-CPA list.

Track performance over timeYou should know how people enter your list, including if they’ve come from a CPA campaign. Tracking their actions over time will give you a better picture of who your advocates are, what helps to keep them engaged, and of course, how well your CPA dollars have performed as an investment.

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EMAIL FOR ADVOCACY CAMPAIGNSBuild a Strong Email Program

Email is a powerful tool for many groups and organizations and when used for advocacy, can amplify your message in a positive way. As you are probably well aware, these days everyone uses email for both work and personal use, so communicating with your supporters this way is a logical choice. Email is fast, efficient and relatively cheap. You are also able to link your supporters to their legislators and other influentials as well as provide them with an easy way to take action and donate.

When you are crafting your email program, it’s important to take a look at the overall goals and strategy of your campaign. If you are looking to introduce legislation, you will want your supporters to contact their legislators to influence their decisions. If your organization works better in the field and you need money to make that happen, your emails will be focused on fundraising. Email strategy should be part and parcel to your strategy as a whole so everything can work together.

As an advocacy campaign, there are likely two main objectives you’ll have when sending emails to your supporters: taking action and donating. For donations, it’s important to keep emails simple and clear. Make the ask direct and compelling and make sure the link it near the top of the email and easy to use. Nothing is worse than when you are trying to give an organization money and the link you’re sent to is broken or hard to navigate. Or worse, it’s not mobile-friendly when you’re on a phone. Make sure you’re testing all the aspects of your email thoroughly so your supports have an easy time giving you money!

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Asking supporters to take action on your behalf is a relatively easy lift, as long as you make it seamless. Make sure you are using systems that connect constituents directly and easily to their correct legislators. There are both free and paid options for this. Sometimes you want your supporters to rally on your behalf in person. This may be a bigger lift, but with email you can make it as easy as possible. Include calendar links so supporters will have a reminder. Make it easy to share with friends and family on social media sites. All of these options and tools are easy to add to an email you send out to your list and will result in a stronger turnout for your cause.

One of the greatest aspects of using email is all of the testing you can do and personalization you can include. Regardless of your list size, you can test things like subject lines, images, different hooks, calls to action. These could easily translate into more support or more money for your organization. Testing with email can be incredibly simple and is free so take advantage of it!

Segmenting your list is a great way to make your emails more personal for your audience. If people on your list are giving $100 or more, they might not respond as well to your asks for $2,500. On the other hand, if people are activists, but not yet donors, you may want to craft their email messages to encourage them to donate. There are a ton of different ways you can segment your list and it’s another free tool you’ll have at your disposal.

There are a variety of ways you can use email to your advantage in your advocacy campaign. Make sure you are working with trusted vendors who can help you through the process and have the systems in place to keep your email program running well. Email can be another active supporter for your cause.

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SEGMENT YOUR LIST!

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USING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ADVOCACY

FACEBOOK FOR ADVOCACY: WHAT ARE YOU BUYING?Facebook for Advocacy Campaigns: What’s in a Like?

Here’s the pitch when it comes to using Facebook for advocacy and politics: “Facebook advertising is great because it’s cheap, and it runs on a platform that a massive number of people use on a daily basis. Using Facebook for advocacy campaigns has the potential to capture the attention of a huge number of viewerswith a particular message, and what’s more, turn those viewers into an audience with conversions through page likes.”

So far, Facebook for advocacy sounds fantastic – the panacea for all online advocacy efforts. But Facebook for advocacy campaigns is only a great remedy if your goal is cheap visibility and you see page likes as intrinsically valuable, in and of themselves, to your advocacy campaign.

The first question to ask: does Facebook fit your advocacy goals? If your goal is visibility, Facebook may be a great option for your advocacy campaign. That said, we would generally caution against visibility as a standalone goal, as it’s incredibly broad and doesn’t carry with it a concrete return that furthers your campaign (read: visibility alone doesn’t return tangible assets). What does visibility do to advance your campaign? If the answer is, “It gets us visibility,” think long and hard about what that really means.

If your goal is to put pressure on an elected official to take a particular action, you should also ask yourself how much pressure your advocacy campaign can exert via Facebook? Often, the answer to that question is very little. One of the challenges of Facebook for advocacy or other campaigns is getting people to act outside of the Facebook cosmos (and indeed, within it, beyond a like).

There are certainly always new ways to put the Facebook network to work, à la NGP VAN’s Social Organizing Tool, but that’s a strategy that uses likes as a means to an end, rather than an end goal. That’s also a strategy that would require additional budget, beyond advertising costs. If your Facebook advertising plan and budget do not account for how you’re going to move people to take action, it’s probably beneficial to think of other, more direct ways to exert the pressure you need.

At the end of the day the advocacy benefits of a platform like Facebook are still evolving. Facebook is cheap and has incredible reach and shouldn’t be discounted as an asset when it comes to building an advocacy campaign (including as a cheaper way to increase the reach of video content), but its use should always be weighed against other methods within the context of a clear and concrete goal.

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LEVERAGING YOUR FACEBOOK AUDIENCEGrow Your Email List from Your Facebook Followers

What’s all the rage right now? Leveraging your Facebook audience to grow your email list. A well-targeted Facebook campaign can obtain “likes” at a fraction of the cost of running traditional digital ads.

Facebook gives you an invaluable opportunity to turn followers into voters, volunteers, or even donors. Obtaining a Facebook “like” and converting that Facebook follower into an email subscriber can save you thousands on large-scale digital advertising. Here, at The Campaign Workshop, we are always looking for fun, new and effective ways to engage your Facebook audience beyond serving them straightforward Facebook ads.

Here are a few ways that you can convert your Facebook followers into email subscribers:

Online petitions We have all likely signed a petition to save the puppies (or the kittens, if you’re a cat person). But in all seriousness, online petitions are a great way to engage your Facebook audience and highlight issues you and your organization are fighting for.

Cards This is a fun way to get people to provide you with their email address. Simply offer up a “Sign [Insert Figurehead for Your Cause’s Name]’s Birthday Card,” or “Tell [Insert Name], ‘Thank You for standing up for our families.’” These kinds of cards give you a chance to leverage everyday goings-on as a means to engage your followers in your campaign.

Splash pages/Standard sign-upAdding a splash page or a sign-up field to your Facebook page is a simple and free way to give your followers the option to sign up for your email list when they visit your page. These people are already taking the initiative to get information about you, so it should be no surprise that they are also more than likely to sign up if prompted.

Incentive sign-upsPeople really like getting free things, but as we all know, nothing is ever actually free when you’re running a campaign. In the end, this means that most people will give you their email for a “free” sticker, a yard sign, or a chance for a photo opportunity with you or a well-known person at your next event. Make sure you balance the utility of adding names to your list against the cost of these freebies (remember, chum doesn’t vote, nor does it make phone calls to targeted legislators!).

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Event sign-upsGet your Facebook friends to commit to attending an actual event like a phone bank, lobby day or coffee with the candidate session. If you get them to show up for something, you are successfully building a relationship, which you can continue to engage offline.Now, not all of these will necessarily work for your advocacy campaign, but you can still have fun testing some of these strategies (and others – don’t be afraid to get creative) on your Facebook page to see which work best with your audience. 

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TWITTER FOR YOUR ADVOCACY CAMPAIGNTweet Your Way to Advocacy Success

Twitter is a useful, cost-effective resource for advocacy work. With a strong Twitter presence, you can reach large swaths of people, spreading your message quickly and effectively. Twitter can also be a great way to generate earned media, as a host of reporters and other members of the media use it on a regular basis. Perhaps the greatest thing about Twitter is that even if you’re a Twitter novice, it’s an intuitive, accessible platform that rewards creativity. It’s also an incredible tool for advocacy work. Here are a few tips to get you started on the road to Twitter domination.

Link accountsLinking your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to stimulate a steady flow of social media buzz is a great way to get moving. Don’t just pick a single platform – branch out to create the widest audience you can. The fast and competitive nature of social media means that your message may be overlooked if you are only using one platform.

Get it rightTwitter’s format encourages a level of informality and speed that can be a blessing and a curse. Don’t move so quickly that you sacrifice accuracy, professionalism or your message. We’re sure everyone can think of a few instances where someone has responded in the heat of a “Twitter moment” and lived to regret it. So, count to ten, check your post and sources and then tweet away.

RepeatThere was a great study in the New York Times on how they amplified page views by sending out the same content with a different headline. Give it a try, it works well.

HashtagsHashtags work well because people can easily track and search content using them. Hashtags will amplify your content around specific issues.

ConnectThe whole point of social media is to be social. Therefore, use Twitter as a means to connect and network. It takes time to build a following from scratch, but starting with a few influential followers could help get the ball rolling. Creating a list of opinion leaders and liking or direct messaging these leaders often works well. It takes time to build a following from scratch, but having followers who are influential helps.

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PressTwitter is a great tool to enhance your relationships with the press. Focus on posting valuable content in the hopes it will be retweeted by the right people.

Like and retweet postsIt is that simple folks: engage on Twitter by liking, favoriting and retweeting other people’s messages. Your followers will reciprocate.

Respond to postsAlways respond to comments made by your followers. This will open lines of communication and further discussion and connections.

Use tools Hooked on Twitter yet? Enhance your Twitter experience with tools like Tweetdeck, Tweepi, Unite Blue and others. These programs will make a big difference in your ability to grow your list by determining the influence of followers and clearing out folks that do not follow you.

Use images and other media in your tweets Tweets that incorporate images and other media (cards, video, etc.) often do better, plain and simple. Take some time to work strong imagery and other content into your Twitter strategy.

Don’t stop tweeting If you want a following on Twitter, tweet it up. Don’t go silent, keep tweeting relevant, consistent and interesting content and in a couple months you will notice a growing following.

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OTHER DIGITALSTRATEGIES & TACTICS

FOR ADVOCACY

WHAT IS DIGITAL PROGRAMMATIC BUYING?Programmatic Buying Helps You Find the Right People, Wherever They Are

There is a lot of talk these days about programmatic buying and how digital advertisers will be moving to it whole-scale going forward. But what does programmatic buying mean exactly? We’re here to help.

In the past, digital buying was done in a similar fashion to broadcast buying, where specific publications were contacted directly and ad space was purchased on a publication-by-publication basis. Programmatic buying is a term used to describe the automation of the buying process we use today and the move away from purchasinginventory for a specific publication.

These days, we are able to use a wealth of information to help target ads to the right people. With cookie matching and 3rd party data, we can ensure that ads are reaching our intended audience wherever they are online. This means that purchasing ad space on a specific blog or publication isn’t always the best way to reach your audience. Having an automated way to buy media means that we can buy more efficiently and more effectively, finding users wherever they are online.

In addition to automating the buying portion of a digital campaign, we can use a programmatic buying model for the creative and messaging portion of campaigns. This means that we can use multiple iterations of content and messages within one campaign, and ad servers automatically optimize for the creative and messaging that performs best.

All of this means that we can use programmatic buying to create and serve more effective and efficient campaign through digital than ever before. As the landscape continues to change and evolve, we continue to stay on top of trends in order to deliver the best product to our clients.

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YOU AREHERE

NATIVE ADS AREGOING DIGITALWhat’s the Deal with Native Ads Online?

Native ads have become the latest trend in the world of digital advertising, but what is native advertising exactly? Simply put, it’s a type of advertising that fits into the content of the media where the ads are being placed. An example of this is when you are reading an article about the tech industry – let’s say on your favorite newspaper’s website – and you see another article below about IBM’s innovations in the tech world. That article about IBM is actually sponsored by IBM, making it a native advertisement.

Native ads can work well when you are trying to become part of the conversation and want to interact with readers on a shared topic. This approach can be especially useful if you’ve got a healthy budget and are waging a long-term issue advocacy campaign. Let’s say you are an organization that is fighting for stricter regulations on e-cigarettes. You could write up an op-ed on the hazardous effects of e-cigarette use and place it on the health section of the Washington Post, becoming part of the conversation immediately. An even better use of this example would be to time your native ads with a similar news story on the topic of e-cigarettes (the FDA’s recent decision to tighten regulations, for instance).

In addition to placing these native ads on sites like a newspaper’s website, a fun way to use native advertising is on a site like BuzzFeed. The site’s iconic lists are a perfect fit for organizations and brands to create their own lists or quizzes that are geared toward a particular issue.

Of course, it’s important to curate the content of your native ad for the right audience. One major example of native ads going wrong is when The Atlantic posted a sponsored article from by the Church of Scientology, which seemed to be a bad fit for its readers.

Lastly, as we mentioned earlier in this book, native advertising generally requires a substantial commitment, both in terms of time and money. As always, it’s important to make sure the tactics you choose make sense in terms of your timeline and budget – native ads are a very attractive option, just make sure they’re right for your campaign. When used correctly, native ads can be an effective and fun way to engage readers on your organization’s primary issue.

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CONTENT MARKETING FOR A NONPROFITMarketing Your Nonprofit and Advancing YourAdvocacy Work

Content marketing for nonprofits looks pretty similar to content marketing for a for-profit company. The goal is to leverage the expertise inherent within your team to help market your organization and advance your advocacy work. One very common method of sharing this expertise is through blogging. The more people who view your blog posts online, and the more keywords you use in those posts, the higher your nonprofit will rank in Googlesearches. As you may have noticed, this is what we do at The Campaign Workshop, and it has worked well for us. Throughout the course of the last year we have compiled a few best practices:

Post the answer to frequently asked questionsIt’s likely there are a number of questions swirling around the interwebs regarding your organization’s area(s) of expertise and the issues you work on. It’s also likely that your nonprofit has several people who have the expertise to answer those questions. To get started, do some simple Google searching to determine what some of these questions are. You can even invest in software to help you determine which keywords are most frequently searched and will be most valuable to your site.

Use simple but compelling languageLike most marketing, we recommend that you strive to keep your content marketing based communication short. People don’t have the time or the desire to read long, drawn-out posts and you really don’t need a lengthy post to make your point. Two or three paragraphs is adequate.

Include an image As we’ve written before, images can often speak louder than words.

They also have their own distinct properties that can increase search engine optimization, or SEO, for your site.

Link to past content or to outside content Linking to outside content can help make your posts more desirable to Google and can help create an interactive experience for your reader. They also give your posts a sense of authenticity and authority.

Don’t be afraid to talk about and link to other organizationsDoing this will increase your SEO. And, as an added bonus, other folks may find your post when they search for the organizations you link to.

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Include a call to actionYour engagement doesn’t have to end with a blog post. Ask for reader input, comments, etc. to keep the conversation rolling and to help keep your post relevant.

Don’t reinvent the wheelSometimes it is more effective to comment on existing content on your site than to create new content. The more you utilize existing content, the less heavy lifting you will need to do to keep generating new and attractive content.

One person can’t do all the bloggingThe more you spread out the writing responsibility for your content marketing, the more effective your nonprofit blog will be as there will be more topics that can be covered.

Don’t be overly self-promotionalWhen it comes to content marketing the more selfless you are the better. If you are constantly selling a product, service or asking for a donation the quicker you will turn of your reader. The goal of good content marketing is to establish your organization as the expert or authority on a topic. By asking and answering questions that arise frequently in your field, you will build an audience for your blog and website. You may even raise some money in the process as you find other like-minded folks who are committed to your mission.

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For more information on campaign tactics, strategy, digital campaigns and direct mail, sign up for our blog.

If you’re interested in working with us and would like more information on strategy, digital or direct mail, contact us at:

Phone: (202) 223-8884 Email: info@thecampaignworkshop.com

Visit us at:1660 L Street, NW Suite 506 Washington, DC 20036

Want to talk more about digital advocacy work? Drop us a line here, and feel free to check out more of our work on our website.

Also, be sure to check out our toolkits and our infographics.