How to Build a Campaign

As we have suggested, creative advocacy campaigns offer an intentional and strategic approach to engaging a wider group of people in discussion about their future. When catalysts take the time to use exercises from the following portion of this playbook they will foster a more effective environment for their advocacy efforts. Detailed step by step worksheets for each exercise are included later in the playbook. The purpose is to help get your team’s ideas onto the Campaign Canvas in order to take informed action.

The following section is the workbook for developing your campaign. Exercises are broken down by three implementation phases: ignite, launch, and grow. Although completing the recommended exercises with your team will best prepare you to build an effective campaign, it is likely not necessary to complete them all. At a minimum, the purpose of each section should be considered while filling out your Campaign Canvas, whether you formally use the exercises here or not. Catalysts should begin to build their creative advocacy campaign by reviewing each section and identifying which exercises are best suited for their team’s current level of development, capacity, and goals. The exercises are listed in the recommended order to be completed.

Before you can launch and grow a campaign, you need a plan. Activities in the ignite phase help you collect baseline information around your team, issue, and audience to inform your creative action. Let’s start with an overview of the exercises that catalysts and creatives can use to develop their campaign. The information collected

Launch

Now that you have developed a campaign plan, it’s time to put it into action. In the launch phase, catalysts focus on activating the team of creatives, marketing professionals, and partners necessary to deploy the creative action and marketing strategy. Much of this effort is centered on project management, ensuring that the effort put into the ignite phase is executed to the best of your team’s ability and gives you the best chance for reaching your goals.

Create the Content

Creative deliverables can be visual, audio, performance, or any mix of formats. Working closely to support your creative(s) during content creation is critical to a high quality campaign. Frequent communication and adherence to timelines will help make sure that their message and engagement approach connects with the audience.

Deploy the Campaign

Project management is key to navigating a successful launch. Are the roles and responsibilities of your campaign team clearly identified, documented, and agreed upon? Have you executed contracts with outside partners? How often will you meet?

Monitor Progress

Consider the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) established for your campaign goals. Who is responsible for collecting qualitative and quantitative data? How will that be shared and analyzed internally? How will KPI’s be shared with your community?

A partner’s Creative Advocacy video was unveiled at a national conference recently. I’ve never sensed such a palpable shift amongst conference attendees before — it was like everyone leaned forward in their seats, concurrently head-nodded, and suddenly had light bulbs going off above themselves all at once. It was clear that people all over the country are trying to figure out how they can augment and reframe their work.

Heather Sage | Periscope, LLC

Grow

Once the campaign has publicly launched, it will likely take on a life of its own. In order to increase the depth, breadth, and height of its impact, you need to truly hear what your audience’s engagement is telling you. In the grow phase, catalysts are encouraged to stay adaptive in their approach, take note of emerging threats and opportunities, and set the stage for future avenues to advance their advocacy goals.

Update & Adapt Strategy

Analyze and discuss progress on your KPIs. What are you learning from the public? What adjustments need to be made to your campaign activities?

Identify Catalytic Opportunities

What new or deeper relationships have emerged during the campaign? How will you nurture and build upon them?

What new capital was developed due to this campaign - natural, cultural, human, social, financial, political, and/or built? What opportunity or catalytic project is possible now that wasn’t before?

Reflect & Share

Reflect on your Campaign Goals, KPIs, community response, and catalytic opportunities to create a Campaign Report.

Based on what you learned, how would you update your advocacy priorities, goals, or strategies? What information from the Campaign Report should be shared back out to the community, and in what format?

Congratulations, you have implemented a creative advocacy campaign! Now what?

Depending upon the nature of your issue and resources available to the catalyst, there are a few options for next steps. If the campaign resulted in new opportunities or information, this could be the seed for the development of a new creative action or an entirely new campaign. Creative assets and community feedback can be captured and remixed in ongoing ways. The community may be ready to set new goals while moving along the participation scale from being ‘informed and inspired’ to ‘mobilized and resourced’. It is also completely reasonable to catch your breath and pause in order to fully analyze the impact of the campaign. Some issues require campaign urgency while others benefit from the wisdom of reflection time and the space for organic growth.