Promoting Campaigns

Submitted by mgifford on

by Evan Hughes & Mike Gifford

The Internet provides a means for directly reaching many people. Instead of making your story palatable to the media and relying on their schedule for promotion, you can use online tools to reach the public directly.

Education

The heart of many campaigns is education. Before people can act, they must have at least a broad understanding of the issue.

  • If you have resources that are useful for your campaign (statistics, studies, photographs, explanations) make sure you put those online
  • Link to resources produced by other organizations - this educates the public and increases your credibility
  • Have your documents edited for readability & clarity, especially for those who don't have much time & don't know about this issue.

General promotion

Even though Internet promotion allows you to get your story out, the public has to be made aware of your campaign before they know to search for it. General promotion involves promoting your cause outside of an electronic medium.

  • Ensure that any activities you perform mention your website, and conversely, ensure that your website mentions your activities
  • Encourage your members to write letters to the editor or write short articles for community papers to promote your cause
  • Make news - tell the story of your cause to promote your goals
  • Get a well respected person to speak about the campaign to the media

Building support

Making people aware of your cause is only your first challenge. After that, you must encourage them to get involved and become part of your organization, and part of a larger movement for social justice.

  • Create an electronic newsletter and send it out to existing email lists. Make clear that you want to encourage other folks to forward this on to their friends and their lists
  • Make it easy for people to subscribe and unsubscribe to your electronic newsletter via the web
  • Ensure that your electronic newsletter is produced regularly to remind people about your site
  • Contact groups to see if they might be able to either formally endorse your campaign or pass information along to their members
  • Provide volunteer roles for people to take on to support your campaign. Ultimately you want to move people up the ladder of engagement.
  • See if you could get supportive organizations/individuals to put links to it on their web site

Other promotions

There are many other resources on promoting your cause. Some of them are available at:

Section: 

Topic: 

Add new comment