Stop Trying to Say Everything at Once
You know that phrase - everything but the kitchen sink? It might be how you approach packing for your next vacation. But it shouldn’t be the way you approach your advocacy campaign’s main message.
Over the years I’ve definitely written campaign messaging that tried to squeeze in way too much information. How could I tell? When I was reeling it off to an elected official and could see their attention fading fast…
Developing your campaign messaging is hard. Advocacy campaigns are complicated and the policy solutions are nuanced. Campaigns run for years (or decades!). Your campaign includes many coalition partners and volunteers. It’s natural to want to honor all of these perspectives.
It’s also important to remember that you are immersed into the day-to-day details. But your audiences – whether it’s elected officials, donors or volunteers, or reporters covering your issue – are not.
Keep Your Advocacy Campaign Main Message Simple and Short
An effective advocacy campaign's main message is simple and short. It’s helpful to think of it like a jingle for a commercial. Every communication related to your campaign returns to it. You’ll repeat it over and over (and over and over) throughout your campaign.
The purpose of your campaign’s main message is to quickly orient new audiences to your issue, giving them an entry point to ask questions and learn more. And it serves as a shorthand reminder for audiences who may have heard about your campaign in the past.
You’re not “dumbing down” your message. Instead, you’re helping listeners – busy people who aren’t immersed in the day-to-day of the problem – quickly hear and understand your topline points.
The Formula: Problem + Solution + Action
Your main message should quickly and simply state the problem, identify the solution, and deliver a call to action. Your supporting messages are the place to get into all of the details, not your main message.
You should use plain language, with short words and action verbs. And you’ll want to keep it short, about 50 words or less. You’ll want to find the simplest words you can use to describe your problem, avoiding jargon, acronyms, or other insider language.
The Problem
Every advocacy campaign contains a million small details. Your main message should give your audience the “gist” of the issue you’re worried about, without wading into the weeds. You want to grab attention, not overwhelm.
Let’s work through an example:
Original: Mayberry’s Department of Planning and Zone is assessing a permit application submitted by the law firm of Wilson, Stanford, & Cook on behalf of Acme Company to build a 1 million square feet fulfillment hub within the Cedar River riparian zone and in the city’s most high-density residential neighborhoods.
Revised: Acme Company wants to build a massive warehouse on Mayberry’s west side, next to the Cedar River.
It’s ok to skip a lot of details at this point. For instance, the name of the law firm or the city department isn’t really needed to understand the gist of the problem facing Mayberry. And most people can’t really envision 1 million square feet, other than to think it sounds really big. Warehouse is a simpler way to help your audience quickly understand what a "fulfillment hub” is.
Leaning into commonly known facts about your issue will also help shorten your message. In this example, the community knows that Mayberry’s west side is a densely populated residential neighborhood.
The Solution
Too often advocates are labeled as “complainers,” because sometimes our campaign communications are too focused on the problem and don't identify a solution that we support.
Your main message should guide people through a (very brief!) journey on how to fix the problem you’ve identified. You only need to give them the topline solution, and avoid technical details. Your supporting messaging can fill in additional information.
Let’s look our example again:
Original: Properties that meet or exceed Acme Company’s identified acreage and access requirements exist in areas of the cities that avoid encroachment in R1 or R2 residentially zoned areas and riparian zones, limiting the need for extensive Phase 1 mitigation.
Revised: Alternative locations exist in industrially zoned areas in the city, away from neighborhoods and sensitive environmental areas.
The simple solution for Mayberry is to put this warehouse in an area already industrially zoned. Focusing on that clear fact, without getting into the jargon-y details about the city’s zoning and environmental rules, helps your listener clearly see a positive, common-sense way forward to solve the problem.
The Action
Now that you’ve identified the problem and a solution, it’s time to give your audience the big action that needs to happen to reach your solution, not just the immediate next step.
Here’s a before and after:
Original: Mayberry’s planning board should heed the legal and scientific recommendations of the PAC, which identified both section 3.5 of the municipal zoning code and the deficiencies in the SEQR Form 73 submitted by the applicant as grounds for denial of this permit. The city should set a public hearing to begin the SEQR process.
Revised: The planning board must deny the permit.
In this situation, the immediate next step may be for the planning board to set the date for a public hearing. That’s not important for your campaign's main message. You want to reinforce the final action that is needed: denial of the permit. You can use your supporting messaging to call for the public hearing.
Giving a clear call to action reinforces the simple next step for the city to take. It doesn’t overwhelm your listener with details. Instead, it reinforces the path to reach the common-sense solution.
Here’s the final messaging put together:
[problem] Acme Company wants to build a massive warehouse on Mayberry’s west side, next to the Cedar River. [solution] Alternative locations exist in industrially zoned areas in the city, away from neighborhoods and sensitive environmental areas. [action] The planning board must deny the permit.
That’s it. As a reader, you have a topline view of what this campaign is about and the change you want to see happen.
Developing your supporting messages
Your supporting messages will give additional details. If you try to pack all of your supporting information into your main message, it’ll become too unwieldy for your audiences to digest and remember.
In your supporting messages, you will want to:
List key facts that support your main message
Think about different angles that might move different audiences.
List points that counter arguments against your campaign.
You’ll want to create a messaging document for your campaign. In it, you should list the campaign main message at the top, and bullet point out the supporting messages below. If you have a lot of supporting messages, it is helpful to add categories or audiences to group your supporting messages.
You won’t use every supporting message for each communication. But a campaign message document provides a really helpful message bank to pull from.
A note of caution
Be forewarned…You will get bored of this message and want to change it up. Resist that urge.
It’s important to remember that the audiences you are speaking to aren't immersed in your campaign. They’re living their busy lives and only catching bits and pieces on social media, in the news, or from your campaign emails. Only a fraction of your communications are read and remembered by your audience.
Your campaign’s main message is the entry point for new people to ask questions and learn more. And it’s helpful shorthand to remind people who may have heard of your issue but haven’t kept up to date on the campaign.
If you need hands-on support to build out your advocacy campaign messaging, or just a sounding board to help you think things through, that’s exactly the kind of thing I help with. If either sounds helpful, let’s find a time to chat.