When President Biden concludes his fourth State of the Union address on Thursday, March 7th, his night might be drawing to a close – but your advocacy work will just be getting started.
Celebrations, challenges and sidesteps during POTUS’ address mean different scenarios for your issue advocacy campaign. In the midst of it all, you’ll need to remain nimble with your grassroots strategy and ready to respond accordingly
Here’s how you should be prepared for how the State of the Union could impact your campaign:
Scenario 1: Your issue is celebrated and momentum is on your side.
Applauded by the President and members of Congress, your issue is the poster child for effective advocacy. But don’t let the limelight go to your head: capitalize on the momentum to strengthen your advocacy apparatus and build a robust army of supporters.
A couple advocacy tools to deploy from your advocacy toolkit (hint: missing any of the following? Let’s chat!)
- Lean into your targeting options: Individual targeting, state-based targeting, committee targeting. With a clear list of who you need to reach and why (i.e. lawmakers to shore up or applaud!), you need an adaptable advocacy tool that won’t dim the spotlight.
- Cater to lawmakers with Advanced Messaging: Celebrate lawmakers who support your issue and challenge lawmakers who don’t with Advanced Messaging. Send multiple message versions to pre-set audience groups with a single action.
- Channel the advocate momentum with Action Centers: Plug every supporter into your advocacy network using Action Centers. Allow advocates to visualize every campaign, across every state in one spot, and lean into FOMO to drive additional urgency for your issue.
Scenario 2: Your issue is challenged and you’re facing more scrutiny.
The President may challenge federal agencies to drive action against your issue. Even if there is no current, active threat to your campaign, your issue may soon be in the throes of activity (read: chaos). Against this backdrop, you don’t have a second to spare wondering if your advocacy tech can keep up to meet the challenges at hand.
Lean on these tools from your advocacy toolkit (and if need be, upgrade your toolkit) – so you can keep your eyes on the prize:
- Maximize advocate impact with multiple messages: What if a single advocate action could send two unique messages to lawmakers? Spoiler: with Send+, that exact scenario is possible. Provide advocates with the option to opt-in to scheduling a follow-up message to lawmakers with their first action – doubling your advocacy impact without a dollar or second more.
- Address agency concerns with Regulations.gov comments: Messages to lawmakers only represent part of the advocacy equation. You also need to advocate for your issue with comments to federal agencies via Regulations.gov. Speak4’s Regulations.gov integration provides real-time set-up and commenting capabilities so you can channel advocate action to every federal agency.
- Bide your time for strategic moments with Message Scheduling: Waiting for the opposition to strike first? Need to secure additional stakeholder support before messages are sent? Encourage advocates to take action, but hold messages for the right moment with Message Scheduling.
Scenario 3: Your issue is not mentioned, leaving you to fight for attention.
In the face of a SOTU sidestep from the Administration, there’s no time to sit back and lick your wounds.
Instead, consider one of the two following options:
One: You can attempt to elbow your way in front of federal lawmakers and make the case for action now.
Or, two: You can bide your time, preparing in the wings for when national attention shifts to your issue.
Regardless of your approach, you need a diverse and adept advocacy solution to support your strategy.
If your elbows are out and focus is on pushing your issue in front of federal lawmakers, here’s the tools you must have:
- Drive urgency and conversions with Landing Page Widgets: Users spend 30 seconds or less on a landing page before choosing to take action or leave altogether. Make sure you’re converting every user into an advocate with eye-catching landing page widgets – like countdown clocks or progress bars to drive action.
- Add variety with Message Variants: Catch lawmaker attention with unique message variants from your advocates. Populate an unlimited number of variants for advocates to send to your target recipients to keep your message fresh and top of mind. Bonus: you can add advocate personalization to your messages with Custom Fields.
Maybe you’re more keen on waiting your turn and using the distraction from your issue as a chance to collect resources and build an army of supporters. Here’s the non-negotiables for bringing your strategy to life:
- Add advocates to your supporter base with Recruit Mode: Collect advocate data without sending a message to lawmakers with Recruit Mode. Educate, engage, and learn about your advocates to speed up the activation process when the time is right.
- Collect advocate testimonials to share with lawmakers and community members alike: With tools like Storyteller Mode, you can collect advocate stories and experiences to shape earned media, advertising media and lawmaker engagements.
Facing a different scenario altogether? You need all hands on deck: starting with your advocacy tech.
We’re here to give you options and make sure your toolkit stacks up. Let’s talk.