Making the Transition from Rapid Response to Campaign

Since the Trump Administration was inaugurated we’ve been in a near constant state of rapid response to policies that threaten our progressive values. Rapid response is much needed and we shouldn’t stop the reactive actions but we need to turn these rapid response messages into cohesive campaigns to engage our supporters. We must give people meaningful actions that have a solid theory of change so our community continues to fight back over the next four years and connects to the mission of your organization.

Here’s a list of questions that I ask myself when thinking about whether a rapid response message can turn into successful long term campaign.

Will this continue to be in the news?

If this answer is yes then you should definitely develop an action arc so you have several actions to put in front of your audience, particularly your most engaged supporters and people who are joining your list through your rapid response campaign.

What will move the needle on your issue?

Is it sending letters to Congress? Taking it to the streets ask asking your supporters to march or host house parties? Is it financial support so you can put up a billboard to influence policy makers or directly provide services to those impacted by the policy? Once you know what the targets of the campaign are then you can determine what support you need, which will help you develop your arc of actions and theory of change. A pro tip is that if it takes you more than one sentence to explain how the ask connects directly to the issue then you haven’t picked the best action yet.

Do you need a different strategy for certain segments on your list?

Prospects who haven’t taken action yet often need to be treated differently than those who have already taken action. I recommend resending the action to non-action takers at least once with either a short liftnote above the original email or an email that uses a different messaging tactic to resonate with the prospects. At the same time you’ll want to provide more actions that can be higher-bar for your action takers. This could be donating, starting a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign or calling their members of Congress.

Rapid response moments are also a great time to recruit new supporters and donors. If you’re running an advocacy action then a cost per acquisition (CPA) buy, where you agree to pay a certain price for new leads through an organization like Care2 is a great options since the people on their website and email list are likely to be good activists. You can also run Facebook ads promoting either an advocacy action or a fundraising ask. Facebook ads often take less time to launch than a CPA buy and can allow you to experiment with different audiences modeled off of a donor file, email list, donation page traffic, page likes, or Facebook interests to list a few options.

Can you connect this to a campaign or program your organization is already running?

Connecting the rapid response issue to a current program or campaign is one of the easiest ways to leverage the situation into a longer term campaign. It can create a new messaging opportunity within the campaign or a new action to re-invigorate your current supporters. This is also important for people who joined your list through this campaign so they can feel connected to the broader work of the organization. If you bring in a large number of new supporters its important to think about whether you need to customize the content of your welcome series or send them entirely different content.