Is your online campaign going to succeed?

The notion that list growth, fundraising and/or advocacy is “a campaign” with a finite start and end date is something of a misnomer. There are rare, exceptional cases where a perfect storm aligns in which a campaign succeeds spectacularly. In these cases when people have a deep personal concern about a policy problem that is covered in the media (or emerging in the media), the marketplace is ripe for a campaign. That personal concern is highly motivating, critical to a campaign and something we think of as the “Do I Care” factor.

When the “Do I Care” of constituents meets with a spectacularly simple, compelling campaign message and call to action, rapid and radical growth is possible. This “perfect storm” is truly for the vast majority of organization.  For most, the break-through campaign is difficult to achieve and not necessarily something that their online marketing strategy should be based. Fortunately, the experiences of the past have taught many organizations that the “online campaign” is more like throwing the dice than a sound long-term strategy for consistent growth and engagement.

We contend that list growth is a core ongoing business practice of the organization requiring sustained staffing and financial investment over time. As with direct response fundraising, online list growth is not something you do once. Organizations need to continually recruit new online supporters to replace those who unsubscribe/go inactive. This can occur at a rate of 18-25% a year.

We are not saying that an initial campaign isn’t called for to jump-start the ongoing program of list building. Nor that one should never do an online campaign. Our position is quite the opposite – we contend that campaigns are a vital part of a larger growth and engagement strategy. Just not the only part. Further, choosing to do campaign and how should be the outcome of a strategic analysis of whether the campaign truly has a chance of achieving the goals versus an enthusiastic gamble on “a cool idea.”

We think the context for both the initial campaign and the longer journey need to be fully understood before dollars and time are spent in earnest. We have learned through our experiences on other clients that the following are pre-requisites for successful list growth:

We start by evaluating the “Do I Care” factor.

[“Do I Care” Factor] = [Personal Impact] * ([Policy Controversy] + [Media Coverage])

Within this context, comes the factor of compelling campaigns.

[Compelling Campaign] = ([Motivating Message] + [Clear Solution] + [Simple Action])*[Resources]

List growth is then the product of these:

[“Do I Care” Factor] * [Compelling Campaign] * [Marketing Reach] = [List Growth]

We lay these formulas out as a useful rubric to assess candidly and soberly whether an organization is in position to undertake a mass market list growth effort. As many of our clients know, 2009 and 2010 have presented a particularly persnickety marketplace for campaigning. Macro-level issues of the economy, jobs, and health care reform have dominated the constituent’s focus. So our calculation of whether the market is ripe for growth within certain issues areas is more complex than ever.

Example Readiness Rating

The Readiness Rating is an assessment of how well positioned an organization is for a particular campaign issue. This shouldn’t be used as a “pass/fail” scoring system to decide to more forward or not. The analysis simply provides an honest appraisal of where you are today and highlights gaps in readiness that could undermine the success of a campaign unless those gaps are closed.

As you will see, some of these gaps are internal to the organization like whether the message being put out is motivating or the online action is compelling. These gaps may be more easily closed than external factors such as whether the policy controversy is significant enough in the minds of constituents or whether the online conversation/media coverage exists in enough of a critical mass that the organization’s message and solution to the issue can tap into existing interest.

The following is a recent example from a client for their Readiness Rating as they considered undertaking a new campaign. The organization specifics have been altered to protect the innocent.

On the whole, this organization’s gaps are not insurmountable obstacles. The external personal interest passion is there (one of the hardest things to create if not present.) While the policy controversy is muddied for this organization at present, there is opportunity to pivot the campaign into a more prominent controversy in the marketplace.

Internally, the analysis revealed gaps that were not previously clear to stakeholders and decision-makers. The Readiness Rating can serve as a “reality-check” or going further, as a wake-up call that there are headwinds facing the campaign which could blow things off track. We’ve found the review enables an honest and open conversation about what the real constraints are, focuses creativity and problem-solving more appropriately to true barriers, and helps everyone involved understand the key factors the organization is going to need to manage through to achieve success.

There are likely a number of variables that could be added to this analysis to give a more complete picture. Do you have thoughts on what might be missing?