Campaigns with clout: 10 tips for high impact campaigns

Forster has been shaping and delivering campaigns to change policy, practice and opinion since 1996.  We’ve learnt quite a lot about what works – and what doesn’t.

  1. Don’t go it alone.  Clever campaigning organisations are increasingly combining forces (often across sectors) to generate the profile and momentum needed to cut through to mainstream awareness.
  2. State your mandate.  Identify and communicate your organisation’s relationship to your cause or issue in a clear and compelling way.  What gives your organisation particular standing, leverage, expertise or authority?  Why should people trust you or lend support? Why should decision-makers listen?
  3. Don’t preach to the converted.   Great campaigns aim to attract and motivate new activists – while inspiring existing activists to apply pressure to new targets in inventive ways.
  4. Be specific – but flexible.  Campaigns which get things done are based on clear objectives for change – whether that’s opinion, policy, practice or behaviour - while remaining open and opportunistic when new agendas emerge.
  5. Tell a compelling story, step by step.  Frame your campaign as a dramatic story – with decisive milestones at which your supporters can tip the balance.
  6. Create a ‘change curve’ for each of your target groups – and help them move along it.  Identify where your target audience currently sit in terms of their intended and practical support for your cause – and how they can move through successive stages of engagement as the campaign evolves.
  7. Provide options for action.  Give people a range of routes to taking action that fit in with their lifestyles, consumer choices and existing social networks
  8. Integrate your media channels.  Plan your media strategy to roll out across blogs, online, broadcast, and print media in a coordinated way (and create ‘buzz’ between different media).
  9. Build in your evaluation.  Identify clear success criteria from the outset.   Track, monitor and measure response to your activity as you proceed, and feed your findings into ongoing strategy and tactics.
  10. Don’t try to ‘own’ your cause, issue or campaign.  Try to give it away.  The more you encourage your target audience to take ownership of your campaign, the faster your networks – and influence - will grow.