Hannah Lownsbrough, Campaigns Director at 38 Degrees, recently spoke at  NCVO’s Certificate in Campaigning and she’s very kindly shared her advice for e-campaigning with us here:  

Online vs Offline? 

It’s not a case of choosing between the two. The best campaigns will try to make the best use of all the tactics available to them. Usually that’s a mixture of both online and offline.  

What’s online campaigning good for?

Creating a dialogue - with your supporters, members, campaigners, etc. Finding out and taking on board views gives you a mandate to act and creates huge opportunities for your campaigning.

Speed – email and social media allows you to contact your members quickly and cheaply, enabling you to respond to and make the most of opportunities as they arise.

Equality of access – the internet makes campaigning easily accessible to more people. It can't take the place of offline campaigning, which is why its important to make sure that people can engage in a variety of different ways, but it can help to get new people involved with your work.

Sharing good, exciting experiences of activism – builds a sense of community and being part of the political and the media debate, as it happens.

Crowd sourcing solutions – using your online supporters to help with campaigns, from coming up with technical ideas to developing copy or artwork for billboard campaigns or leaflets. For instance, we've been asking our members to post responses from their MPs on our blog, so that others could check if their MP had already replied. It also enabled people to make suggestions about the best way to respond to MPs, especially those who didn't agree with the campaign: http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2010/07/27/save-the-bbc-what-did-your-mp-say/

Tips for…

Making your campaign work

·         Have a clear goal – as with all campaigning you should have a clear goal and means of achieving this. Don’t lose sight of it – it can be easy to get distracted by all the possibilities of online actions.

·         Be flexible – on both timings and delivery. Often, if the issue is in the news, or there's a big political debate about it, response rates will go up.

·         Be responsive - be ready to drop everything for the right opportunity.

·         Horizon scanning – regularly checking what’s coming up – in Parliament, internationally, the media, etc.Be prepared for events when you can be.

·         Talk to your members – what issues affect them? What do they want to take action on? What are compelling messages to turn awareness into action? Poll your members on their opinions

·         Have good back-up: make sure you can get advice on tricky issues quickly so you aren't held-up

·         Work collaboratively – don’t split online and offline.

Your actions – rules to remember

·         Limit distractions – stick to one ask per email with a clean design.

·         Aim for authenticity – responding to external events can often work better than set pieces.

·         Spend time thinking about how to frame your calls to action so they are engaging and relevant. Our campaign with a number of other groups (including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace) to secure an amendment to the 2010 Energy Bill addressed an issue that wasn't immediately accessible, but we tried to frame it clearly and with a sense of urgency, so the call to action was clear: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/EnergyBill2010

Recruiting supporters

·         Think about the 'user' journey – action one step at a time rather than lots of choices that may overwhelm people.

·         Go to where people already gather (facebook, twitter), when they have time to respond. Test, if you can, to find out when your list is most likely to take action.

·         Ask your current supporters to recruit – have a presence on your website, facebook page, blog and twitter. These places can also be a good place to start conversations about issues, which increases people's interest and keenness to take action.

·         Paid-for online advertising (like on Facebook or Google) can be a relatively cheap and straight-forward way to increase involvement. It's also a good way to target specific groups, such as those who are already interested in your cause, or who live in particular parts of the country (or the world).

Thanks Hannah