12 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR CAMPAIGN STRATEGY, Exams of Business

Download 12 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR CAMPAIGN STRATEGY and more Exams Business in PDF only on Docsity! 1 12 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR CAMPAIGN STRATEGY Summarised from Chris Rose’s www.campaignstrategy.com 1. Do you really need to campaign? Campaigning can be fun but it's often hard, dull, frustrating and unsuccessful. Campaigning is usually only done when all else has failed. It involves a conversation with society, persuading people to take an unusual interest in supporting a move that would not normally happen. It means setting up and sustaining processes that are not normal or 'business as usual'. If politics is the 'art of the possible', campaigning is the science and art of changing what is possible. Do it right and a campaign succeeds in inspiring its followers to go on to the next target. But unstructured or poorly focussed campaigns are hot air balloons kept aloft by burning idealism and goodwill, until they suffer 'burn out'. So before you go any further stop and ask yourself: do I really need to campaign? Or can I get what I want by other means - 'business as usual' - can I buy it, can it be delivered by simply asking politely, or through quiet lobbying, or by trading or through politics? 2. Motivation not Education Campaigning lowers the barriers against action and increases the incentives to take action. Education, in contrast, is a broadening exercise. It uses examples to reveal layers of complexity, leading to lower certainty but higher understanding. Campaigning maximises the motivation of the audience, not their knowledge. Try using education to campaign, and you will end up circling and exploring your issue but not changing it. Campaigns do have some 'educational' effect but it is education by doing, through experience, rather than through being given information. Information is not power until it leads to mobilisation. 3. Analyse the forces You know what needs to change. Ask this: 'why hasn't it happened already?' Try mapping out the forces for and against what you want to happen. Draw a map of the problem - the people involved, the organisations, the institutions - work out exactly what the mechanisms are for the decisions you want to change. Then identify potential allies and opponents and work out who your target audience is for each step (see guidelines 4, 5, 6). Look at it from their point of view. Check - how will you now change the balance of forces for and against action in order to overcome the obstacle? If you don't know the answer to this, how can you specify an objective to be achieved? 2 4. K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Campaigns are needed because there is an urgent problem which has to be made public in order to be resolved. Effective motivation needs simplicity in message and purpose. Communicate only one thing at a time. Use a simple unambiguous 'call to action' which requires no explanation. 5. Right Components – Right Order You need to follow the sequence: > awareness > alignment > engagement > action The campaign involves a deliberate series of revelations or communication exercises to take the 'audience' from a state of ignorance, through interest and then concern (components of awareness), into anger and engagement (motivation), and finally into a state of satisfaction or reward. If that happens, the campaign participants or supporters will be ready for more. Communicate them all at once and there's no involvement in the 'story' of the campaign. A good campaign has to be like a book or a drama - the outcome must be important but unknown. Showing a problem may lead to concern but in itself that won't lead to action. Show them now is the opportunity to force a change, to implement the solution, and give them a way to act - and you have the conditions for engagement. 6. Start from where your audience is A marketer finds out what you want, what you already do and think, and creates or finds a product that fits you. When it comes to communication, do your market research. Say you need to persuade a group of councillors to take a particular decision about a forest. You may think it's important for frogs or as a watershed. But what do they see? What if they use it for jogging or 50% of their constituents are woodcutters? You may see a forest but they may see timber, or an exercise area. Put the issue in their terms. 7. Construct a critical path All issues are complex but your campaign must not be. Complexity demotivates, it makes people feel confused - and if they feel confused, they will think you are confused, and not worth listening to. Your campaign cannot be the 'whole picture'. Instead it has to be a way, a trail, stepping stones, a critical-path. Do not try to communicate 'the issue', however tempting it may be. Communicate your campaign - what you think, the problem as you see it, the solution as you see it, the opportunity as you see it - and only that. Stick with each stage until it is achieved. Each stage is a target or objective in itself. Resist the temptation to talk ahead by giving 'the whole picture'. Plan a campaign as a series of steps where one leads to the next - like dominoes. Try mapping out the forces for and against what you want to happen. Draw a map of the problem - the people involved, the organisations, the institutions - work out exactly what the mechanisms are for the decisions you want to change.