Starting an advocacy campaign — whether for a religious, cultural, historical, or political cause — is critical in changing the way things are handled by decision-makers and everyone else involved in a cause or issue. For several millennia, people have been championing causes that have helped shape the world as we know it today. Whether it’s a small group of healthcare advocated calling for changes in the healthcare system or an entire church sounding a trumpet-call to end religious biases, advocacies are part and parcel of cultures across the world.
As an agent of social change, advocacy campaigns have the unique power to influence the implementation of laws to benefit community members who belong to the vulnerable sector, such as women and their children. This power to influence, when used properly, can make positive changes across the fabric of societies in countries across the world.
Now, if you’re embarking on personal advocacy, getting your message across is a critical first step towards achieving your goals. Here are some tricks to make your cause stand out in a sea of advocacies with similar intentions:
1. Flesh out a strategy on what your message would be and how you’ll promote it. Among the keys to making your advocacy stand out is to craft a strategy that would get the message across to the decision-makers and target audiences in a way that they could easily understand. You have to decide whether you’ll use humor to promote your cause or you’ll go for a shock-and-awe technique instead. Whichever method you choose, just remember that your choice could make or break your entire campaign.
2. Test your message strategy. After fleshing out a strategy and manner by which to get your message across, you should then test out your message strategy, preferably on a small sample group first. This litmus test is critical as it would give you tremendous insights on how you would implement a full-blown advocacy run. This is also the phase where you have to make adjustments to your strategy and message if deemed necessary.3
3. Combine online and offline efforts. An effective advocacy campaign combines online and offline efforts. Here, you have to employ concepts and techniques used in data-driven digital marketing campaigns by commercial companies that run online marketing campaigns. You should also fuse your online efforts with offline ones — the part where you go down to the grassroots level to connect with your beneficiaries and the people who call the shots.
4. Find great advocates. Advocates are pretty much like Poster Boys and Girls of any advocacy campaign since they serve as the faces and voices of a certain cause. The advocates that you should choose must possess a level of high respect from community members and a charisma that just draws people in. Incidentally, local customers and community members are the perfect advocates to get since they know the community well and what community members want. This guarantees constant connectivity, which will make the process of getting your message across effortless.
5. Establish a value proposition with a focus on what people would get by supporting your advocacy. Another critical trick to launching a successful advocacy campaign is to identify unique value propositions that target beneficiaries would get when they support the cause. This is human nature and you should play to it to get the support that you need. Just make sure to make your value propositions realistic to avoid disappointing your supporters when you fail to deliver on your promises.
With these five great tricks as your guide, you should have an easy time making your advocacy stand out towards the successful achievement of your goals.
