Grass roots strategies for a hung parliament

1. Grass roots strategies for a hung parliament

2. What is the new landscape? • What is the coalition government? • How long will the coalition last? • A third of MPs are new • Potential debate on policy issues • The role for each MP has now been amplified • NGOs need to keep voice heard • Encouragement for social action

3. Think about the targets and the targeting • Are MPs members of committees or the cabinet? • What interests do MPs have either inside or outside politics that could relate to your campaign? • More localised ‘asks’ or constituency based campaigning • Target by political party or activity • Get personal with your MP and do your research!

4. Redirect and filter If MPs are part of different groups, committees or parties they should get different supporter messages This will help to increase the message’s impact to the campaign target and the supporter too Use these ‘filtered messages’ to help influence politicians. You’ll know that they have been receiving specific questions from their constituents so there is no excuse if they don’t reply!

5. Data mapping and conditional content • Find out who your supporters’ MPs are and then send them segmented emails • This could be especially important if you know that certain constituencies are vital to your campaign’s success (e.g. marginal seats, wavering support etc) • The outbound emails to your supporters will need to explain the urgency of the situation and tell them they need to take action now • You can create actions with different copy blocks which can dynamically be pulled in depending on the supporter profile that is met. • This should help to increase your email open rates and e-action effectiveness

6. Call your MP! • This could be an ask for your ‘super activists’ • Based on ‘profiles’ you can just send emails to these supporters asking them to take action • If you have a strategy for your ‘supporter journey’ in place, this could be a good test • The action should be linked to a feedback mechanism so your supporters can let you know what the MP said • You can then feed this information into your campaign • It will also help to engage your supporters!

7. Direct emails to politicians • Send emails directly to MPs, rather than getting your supporters to always do it • Ask them to support your cause directly, invite them to events, send them information etc… • Use similar tactics to supporter emails. Follow up if they have yet to reply and thank them if they have taken action or if they are interested in specific issues • Use reporting tools to analyse open rates, click through rates of emails • Let your supporters know what their MP’s responses are – pull this information into supporter actions

8. Use of webforms • If an email address isn’t available for a politician, set up an action that submits into a web form instead. • The form fields that are on your action will need to be the same as the form that they are submitting into • And the character limit for the message will need to factored in. • For example the limit for the Number 10 site is 1,000 characters including any salutation or address blocks

9. Summary • Different messages for different MPs - ‘redirect and filter’ • Communicate with your campaigners using conditional content • Get your supporters to call their MP • Direct communications with MPs • Use of ‘webforms’ if you can’t get email addresses

10. Contact Jonathan Purchase Head of UK Market Development, Advocacy Online jonathan@advocacyonline.net 020 7287 6864