Most advocacy campaigns have limited resources, which is why targeting is so critical. Metrics are essential to making sure you can tell whether you’re having an impact and helping you assess how to use your resources. This week, Joe and Martín discuss how to target your advocacy efforts and what metrics you might want to track. Joe is joined by data whiz Rose Espinola, who will break down three tactics to build pressure on a target, different tiers of targets, and how targeting differs between electoral and advocacy campaigns.
Your advocacy campaign may be using patch-through calls, letter writing, petition signing, or any number of other tactics. However, without targeting and metrics, how will you know if these tactics are working? Through targeting and metrics! Tune in to this episode to hear Joe and Martín break down how to determine who the key decision-makers are and what data you should collect. This week’s guest is Rose Espinola, a data expert who will explain the importance of one-on-ones, the three tactics you can use to build pressure on a target, and why advocacy targeting is so unique.
Resources
Power Mapping: Understanding Your Political Landscape
Micro Targeting: Advanced Targeting is Key to Winning
Connect with us!
If you have campaign questions or want to learn more, reach out to us using the contact information below.
Twitter: @cmpwrkshp
Instagram: @TheCampaignWorkshop
Email: marketing@thecampaignworkshop.com
Joe Fuld
Twitter: @joefuld
Instagram: @joefuld
Martín Diego Garcia
Twitter: @gmartindiego
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Presented by The Campaign Workshop
(Intro Music)
Joe Fuld (00:07):
Hey folks, you're listening to How to Win an Advocacy Campaign, where you'll get an insider's perspective that teaches you not only how to fight for what you believe in, but how to win. I'm Joe Fuld.
Martín Diego Garcia (00:19):
And I'm Martín Diego Garcia. And you can find us @CMPWRKSHP on Twitter and @thecampaignworkshop on Instagram. Welcome, and thanks for listening to episode six of How to Win an Advocacy Campaign. On the last episode, we talked about the power of storytelling with my dear friend Greisa Martinez Rosas, and you should take a listen to that if you haven't heard it and learn how to harness the power of storytelling and hear Greisa's really amazing, powerful, personal story.
Joe Fuld (00:45):
Today, we're talking about how you can use targeting and metrics to run a smart campaign, to run an effective advocacy program. You need to pick the right targets. They can be legislators appointees, corporate board members. Whoever's in power you're trying to get to make real decisions. Those are your targets. You need to set goals around outreach and work toward your goals. Metrics can help you measure success and reach your goals.
Martín Diego Garcia (01:13):
Absolutely targeting is really important, right? As you, once you set your goals, what you're trying to achieve, right? And once you've thought about messaging of who you're gonna message, right, targets are, are as important as those things. So when it comes to advocacy, Joe, what does targeting actually mean?
Joe Fuld (01:26):
So well to me, what it means is thinking about who are the people in power that you need to persuade. And depending on who those end targets are, your campaigns will be different. So that is the core part of targeting. Are you targeting legislators, appointed officials, board members of companies, you want to think about who are the right people to engage those folks? Is it constituents? Is it coalition members? Is it shareholders depending on what you're trying to do and who you're trying to move, your targeting is different. And then so are your metrics. And so are the different types of ways in which you're going to reach people. Depending on if it's a corporate campaign or a legislative campaign, it's going to be very different.
Martín Diego Garcia (02:16):
Absolutely. Right. And so whether your target audience is right, like a school board, right? You are trying to get a piece of legislation passed through a school board. Your target audience is likely going to be the school board. However, you may have multiple audiences, right. It also may be parents and teachers, right, who you're also communicating with. So you want to be thinking about who are the multiple types of audiences in which you're choosing, whereas as Joe mentioned, right, if you're targeting a corporation, right, I remember back when the HERO Act was happening in Houston, a lot of the LGBT organizations were trying to get Beyonce to come to be in favor of the HERO Act. Right. And so the target of those campaigns and efforts were to influencers around Beyonce to get Beyonce to be in favor of the HERO Act, right? So you're a target on your targets maybe different depending on what your goal is or what you trying to achieve. And that will happen through research, right? So you've decided I want to get this piece of legislation pass, then figuring out who has the power to change that who has the power to fix that? Who are those individual elected officials or members of that board. Right. All of that research is really going to help you choose who your target audience or audiences.
Joe Fuld (03:25):
Yeah. And so Martín, why does timing matter in that.
Martín Diego Garcia (03:28):
Timing' super important because particularly if you're looking at right, like how does a bill become a law? There are a number of different steps that take place and, and little victories along the way that you need to win in order for that legislation to actually become law. Right. So who sits on that committee? Who's going to hear the first reading of that bill. Who's drafting that bill. Right. once it is taken and the once there was a vote on a committee, does it go to a floor vote? Are there any other procedural votes that need to be taken on that piece of legislation? Right. If you're thinking about corporations, right? How, what did the, what does the process within those boards, commissions, corporate boards, et cetera board of directors, what do those processes look like? Right. Do they only have meetings once a quarter, once a year? Are they in person? Who sets the agenda for those? So timing is really critical so that you make sure you don't miss any of those deadlines to ensure that your, your piece of legislation or the, the effort in which you were trying to get voted on actually makes it onto an agenda, meets the process and hopefully becomes legislation. So, Joe, as we're thinking about targeting myths, right? Like as folks are diving into the world of data and targeting, what are some of the biggest myths that are out there that we want to sort of lift the curtain on for our listeners?
Joe Fuld (04:41):
Well, for advocacy targeting one of the first biggest myths that I've heard is you don't need to target at all. Right? Which honestly, I think in advocacy, really understanding as you talked about timing and what are those different hurdles, especially in legislative advocacy, focusing on a committee vote versus the whole floor vote can make a world of difference. With a committee vote, it might only be two or three members that you're trying to persuade. So in that committee, you can run a very targeted campaign to some very specific constituencies, to move things ahead, very finite group of people that you're trying to reach versus a, the full legislature, which is a lot more expensive and a lot more detailed. Whereas right now you're really only targeted on one, two or three new members. It's easy that there's only one target, right? Usually there's multiple targets. You want to figure out what they are that you can't convince lawmakers. The truth is you can, right? And that you can't convince appointed officials or corporations from my campaign. We've had experiences where all of these things we've been able to run public facing where they have changed laws, change policies, and changed the practices of some very small bodies that make a huge difference on people's lives. And that can be from a corporation to a water board, to a legislature. So I would say a public facing campaign these days really does matter because it provides a level of pressure that you might never get otherwise. And one of the things we work with, a lot of groups and organizations, those local connections that local groups can provide is something that is a benefit and an advantage that they have that other folks might not so use it.
Martín Diego Garcia (06:40):
Yeah. And so we've been talking a lot about what does it mean to target and hone in on decision-makers Joe, if we were to flip that, right, as advocacy groups are running, organizing community centric, right? Like education campaigns, what are other ways they should be thinking about utilizing targeting and data to figure out like, who are the best folks they should be targeting those types of campaigns too.
Joe Fuld (07:03):
I mean, again, you want to go through that power mapping process that you so do when you want to think about the short term and the longterm, and you want to think about where are those constituencies located? Who can they reach? Are these people in the right districts? Are they going to move the issue that you want to communicate on? Are they part of, sort of, can they be part of this bigger movement that you're looking for? So depending on what your organizational goals are and what your end result is, whether it's legislative or corporate advocacy, your targeting is going to change and who you're talking to and how you engage in build for the short and longterm is going to be different. But thinking about those goals will allow you to think about what do I really need? Do I need a constituency in these five different legislative districts? Do I need, you know, people who buy this product to say something about it, depending on what you're trying to do, there's going to be a different group of people you're going to organize and target.
Martín Diego Garcia (08:01):
As we transition right, during the pandemic, and we are thinking about different ways of doing this, right. And we're not thinking about right, like sending a bunch of groups of folks in person to the Capitol or to a city hall, how do we do this targeting targeted outreach, right. In the digital space, there are still a lot of tools and tactics for us to do that. Right. And I think we just ran a really fun campaign for one of our clients on finding volunteers in specific districts and areas to hold their folks accountable and have them produce some user generated content videos that we were able to use by doing some really niche targeting to their volunteers membership base that lived in specific communities to hold some of these elected officials accountable and then had them from the comfort of their own home, right. Record a video on why it was important and then send it to these legislators. And so thinking creatively about how do you target, what are new ways to target, particularly as we're doing it in the digital space or under the umbrella of a pandemic how those change?
Joe Fuld (09:01):
Yeah. Well, one of the great things about the show is we really get to engage experts in the field. And we're lucky enough, this time to connect with Rose Espinola, who really understands the process for targeting, engaging around different types of advocacy campaigns.
Martín Diego Garcia (09:21):
Absolutely. We've been able to work with Rose in a couple of different projects. And those have always been really amazing. So I'm really excited to hear from Rose Espanola, who is a leading consultant and trainer on what it takes to create an advocacy target and identify the most important metrics that you should be tracking. They'll walk us through what to include and hopefully some mistakes you will avoid. So we'll be right back.
(Music)
Joe Fuld (09:57):
And we're back. I'm really excited to introduce our next guest, which is Rose Espanola. Rose uses a mix of community organizing, data science, Rose helps organizations follow up with every single supporter, building mighty ladders of engagement, collaboratively, developing and executing campaign plans, creating and tracking metrics that matter, designing a digital ecosystem and leading staff and teams in a way that is data-driven. And people-centered. Currently Rose serves as the founder of Espinola strategies. Rose was previously director of partner development at Action Network, a national field director of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch, and was a program manager for Planned Parenthood. Rose has a wealth of experience in electoral campaigns. Having worked on races as a data consultant for a village council race all the way up to serving as the Virginia state director for Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, and also having worked on lots of advocacy campaigns, Rose, welcome to the show.
Rose Espinola (11:06):
Hi.
Joe Fuld (11:07):
Hi. So really happy to have you, how are you?
Rose Espinola (11:11):
I'm good. I'm really excited to be talking about how to win an advocacy campaign, especially using metrics to win concrete improvements in our lives.
Joe Fuld (11:23):
So talk to us a little bit about your motivation for organizing.
Rose Espinola (11:27):
Yeah. Something that's been on my mind a lot is that I grew up always knowing that the police and the government and corporations weren't here to protect people like me. And when I was a kid, my father actually got beat up by a cop and I remember he got taken to jail and I grew up really, really afraid of the police. Any time that I saw a cop car or police, I would get nauseous. And I, I was a kid. I didn't, I didn't know what anxiety was and I didn't know why I felt that way. And I remember one year at summer camp, they brought a police and they pretended to arrest a counselor and it was supposed to be like this fun activity. And I was just freaking out. And I saw both of my brothers have issues with the cops. And when I was a teenager, I would always get stopped by immigration when I would, when I would travel abroad until I learned how to like dress more white. And so I had all these experiences and yet I still decided that when I went to college, I was going to study business because I just wanted it to be able to like make money and live well. In, in college, I found out that we could actually make a demand as a people and force a decision maker to give us what we want. And I learned that by working on a campaign to get my university to divest $15 million from a hotel company with labor rights violations. And we forced our university to make that divestment publicly, nine schools, workers, sorry, nine schools followed and workers one, a union. And it was then that I realized that we are powerful and that we have no option, but to organize.
Joe Fuld (13:27):
And how long did it take for you to decide this is going to be my career, that I'm going to keep doing this and that that organizing, and then specifically data and targeting is going to be what you're going to focus your time and life around.
Rose Espinola (13:45):
Even when I was a little kid and like my father was studying for a citizenship test I had to figure out how to make concepts that can be really difficult, easy to understand. And even that I consider organizing, like I was organizing my dad. And so I would say that I've always been an organizer and it was with the labor movement that I realized that I could do this kind of work full time. And it was six years ago when I realized that I could use analytics to do this work even more effectively so we could win bigger and win faster that I realized this was something I wanted to continue doing, especially because there are so few people who have my skillset and know how to apply data to advocacy campaigns in a way that helps us again, win concrete improvements in our lives.
Joe Fuld (14:44):
Yeah. And it's needed now more than ever. So as we get into the conversation about how do you decide on tactics for an advocacy campaign?
Rose Espinola (14:55):
Yeah. So I always start with demands and for me, demand has a few characteristics. One is it creates concrete improvements in people's lives. Two, it allows us to win bigger next time. So maybe this time we win like a $2 wage increase, but next time we're also winning major improvements to our health care plan. And then the third part of a demand is that it should be developed and led by frontline communities or most directly impacted people. And from the demand, I figure out who my target is. And when I say target, I mean decision-maker, and sometimes you might not be sure like, well, my target could be this person or this person. So you want to figure out who your decision maker is. And then from there I use tactics to figure out how do we interrupt our Target's life because we have to make it impossible for them to go about business as usual. And I like to escalate tactics over time. So you never want to start, start off with something like a sit-in or, a week-long hunger strike. You want to start off with things like an online petition and then deliver it to the person's office. We can build pressure in three ways. One is more people. So rather than have a thousand people sign, our online petition is time. Now we have 50,000, right? You can do it with frequency. So rather than call our member of Congress's office every month, we could do a call in day every week, or we can escalate the tone. And for some organizations, it won't make sense to escalate our tone. So we really need to rely on increasing the number of people and increasing the frequency of the tactics that we're using.
Joe Fuld (16:48):
Talk to me a little bit about how you decide, who has sway with those decision makers, who are the people that you need to organize with, right, to create that outreach, to then call your target. How do you make those decisions?
Rose Espinola (17:03):
I like to think about secondary targets. And so sometimes we will focus exclusively on people who are eligible to vote, but I actually think it's really important that we're investing as well. In folks who, who maybe are eligible to vote, but don't often vote and also communities where folks cannot vote. I also think we need to look at people in our Target's lives, who we might be able to get get on our side.
Joe Fuld (17:34):
I think one of the things that you've talked a bit about, I think it's really important is thinking about impacted communities, right? So let's say there's legislation around the pipeline, really thinking of organizing people around that pipeline, whether have previously voted or not, but talking about that impact and telling those stories can make a huge difference. Yeah. So talk to me transitioning to like the actual sort of metrics part of this. How do you decide on what metrics to measure for your advocacy campaign
Rose Espinola (18:08):
On an advocacy campaign, we can't say that a million petition signatures are going to result in us winning. We can't say that 50 calls to our decision maker is going to result in them giving us what we want. And so metrics become a way for us to stay accountable for us to evaluate our work. It also, I think, is important when managing a staff team to set clear metric goals, and I really base those metric goals off of the kind of tactics we're using. So it might be the number of events we have. And as a manager, I'm always ensuring that those events we do somehow are putting pressure on our decision-maker to do our demand, and also are helping us to build our base.
Joe Fuld (18:56):
What is the difference between advocacy targeting and electoral targeting?
Rose Espinola (19:01):
Targeting on an electoral campaign is who you are trying to get to vote for your ballot measure or for your candidates. So it's, you might say, I am reaching out to people ages 18 through 25 because I really want to turn out this group. You often have a tier one tier two tier three targets. So tier one is the most important people to reach out to in order to win this, this election. And then you may have tier two tier three, which are also important to reach out to you, but not quite as important as tier one. And on electoral campaign, your goal is to hit your vote goal. And so vote goal, when you're developing that you just look at how many people turned out to vote in recent years for similar elections. Within electoral campaign you win when you hit that vote goal. With an advocacy campaign, a target is actually your decision maker and you win your advocacy campaign when you make concrete improvement in people's lives. And and that sometimes is not initially measurable. And I would also add here that because I'm saying concrete improvement in people's lives, I really try to steer away from, from policies as a win and more so implementation of the policy as a win.
Joe Fuld (20:30):
One more question for ya on targeting when it comes to advocacy. You're trying to, I hear the term ladder of engagement a lot. I use this a lot with my clients. How do you move people through different actions?
Rose Espinola (20:45):
So, traditionally we hear that we make small increments in those asks, we go from signing an online petition to writing a letter to your member of Congress using an online tool to maybe attending a webinar. But we've, I've heard about studies recently where there's huge jumps, where someone who has never been involved in politics signs up to run for office. And I've seen, I've seen that to some extent in my own work too, in the example that I gave before of people who are writing a letter to their member of Congress online. And once they finish that action, they say, you know, I can get postcard petitions signed in my neighborhood. And so it's, so sometimes we don't even think of it as a ladder of engagement, but actually a matrix of engagement because there's not just just one ladder or sometimes it's called a funnel of engagement, which I really like the visual because it's like all these people are getting involved and going through a funnel who gets more and more involved.
Joe Fuld (21:54):
Awesome. So talk to us a little bit about how you measure success.
Rose Espinola (21:59):
I measure success for an advocacy campaign based on one, is there concrete improvements in people's lives? Because I know that me personally, I have too much at stake to, to be organizing and not be winning those concrete improvements. And two, I count success as whether we are building our base.
Joe Fuld (22:23):
So within that, right, there's a lot, you've talked about a lot of different types of outreach and a lot of different groups we're trying to reach out to talk about how advocacy tactics are changing and how targeting, outreach, and metrics are changing along with that.
Rose Espinola (22:41):
Yeah. So I would say that tactics are changing, you know, like we have Twitter now, so I've seen people use bots to, to like respond to a member of Congress who they're trying to push, I've seen organizations like Cosecha or Push Black use bots in order to take people through an organizing process on Facebook's using Facebook chat and we can use online petitions to get so many more people involved really quickly at the same time, I would actually say that metrics don't really change. For me, when I start working with an organization, the number one metric that I put in place is number of one-on-ones. And what I've seen is that an organization will say like, we're talking to all these people, but like, we haven't built an organizing committee yet. And I say, well, how many one-on-ones are you, are the organizers having a week? And they're like, well, we don't know. We don't that. And so for me, that's the number one metric. And that metric is as old as time. How many one-on-ones are we having in organizing?
Joe Fuld (23:55):
Absolutely. Yeah. We would call that the cup of coffee, where we would try and get when, when I was doing, organizing as many members of an organization or many people in a community to call up their state legislator and say, would you meet me at the coffee shop and have a cup of coffee with me? And the more people that actually could get that done the better it would be. So those one-on-ones are key.
Rose Espinola (24:18):
I should define what is a one-on-one, it's a to add to what you said in a one-on-one I often want to share why I'm angry, why I feel hopeful and believe we can win why this issue is urgent and how the other person can get involved. And I also want to know why they're angry and what's making them feel hopeful. And so it's a conversation and it's also a really thoughtful conversation that invites somebody to get involved with our campaign because oftentimes people are just waiting to be invited.
Joe Fuld (24:50):
Absolutely. All right. So for those running advocacy campaign on a shoestring budget, what are tactics, what are ways that they can utilize their resources effectively?
Rose Espinola (25:03):
So I started off organizing in a collective with like no money. I still organize as part of a collective of Latinx people in Northern Virginia were called La Collectiva. And I would say the most important thing is to be clear on your demand and your targets. If you're at a nonprofit, I would also say that like reaching out to new folks often costs more money because you're tempted to like reach out to people who are already involved in social justice work, but we really, really, really need to reach out to people who support us, but aren't active yet, or people who still aren't sure where they, where they fall on the issue. And that does cost more money. I would also say the Action Network is a great tool. I used to work at Action Network, full disclosure, but they offer their tools for free. I would recommend paying for an account, which is, I think is $10 a month to send up to 10,000 emails and create unlimited petitions and offense and other online forms. And then I would, the last thing I would say is ask larger organizations, if you can use their tools often they will say yes.
Joe Fuld (26:19):
So Rose last question. How can the right targeting and metrics help keep you on track and keep costs down?
Rose Espinola (26:28):
I think that it keeps us accountable. It ensures that we are staying accountable to ourselves, to our team, to the people who we serve. If you're, if you're not part of the frontline community and it holds you accountable to them, when we track metrics, it helps us to evaluate which of our tactics are most effective and to make changes. A good field plan is going to be constantly changing.
Joe Fuld (26:59):
Absolutely. Well, Rose. It was fantastic chatting with you today. I really appreciate it. If people want to find out more about Rose's work, they can check out Rose's website at roseespinola.com. Rose. Thanks so much for being on the show.
Rose Espinola (27:15):
Thank you I'm so glad we were able to have this conversation.
(Music)
Martín Diego Garcia (27:33):
And we're back. It's always good to hear Rose's voice. I think I always learn something whenever I get to have a conversation with them. But I think a couple of the things I want to highlight that Rose mentioned were the first and foremost, right? Like I feel like we sound like a broken record, but goals, goals, goals, goals, goals, you should always have goals and metrics allow us to keep, to help us keep ourselves accountable to those goals. Right. We can set these big breathy goals of, we want to make a thousand patch through calls to our senators. We want to sign up a hundred thousand people on this online petition, right. But, but assigning those specific metrics and having a timeline of when you're going to reach 10,000, when they're going to reach 20,000, right. And continuing to build on those goals only help us to create a path to ensure that we're achieving them. So I think it's really important to remember. How do you think about what metrics you should be tracking to hopefully get you to achieve the goals that you will have set out at the beginning of your efforts in your campaigns? I think the second one for me is understanding your target, right? How much information do you actually have on this target? Who influences them? Where do they come from? What have they voted on in the past, right? What are the stances they have taken either for, or against the cause that you are fighting for? So I think the more research, both on the professional and the personal level that, you know, I think is really, really important.
Joe Fuld (28:55):
Yeah. Also think about demographics, age groups. That can be really important when it comes to who you're targeting. Especially when you're talking about legislative targeting, the legislators themselves are looking for voters who live in their districts and who are people who've been engaged. That's what they're looking for. And so the more that you can show that across different demographic groups, the more persuasive that issue is going to be. And then you also really want to think about metrics at the beginning. What data are you expecting to collect? How are you going to utilize that data for the long-term? All of that can be really helpful in your campaign.
Martín Diego Garcia (29:34):
Yeah, I mean, when it comes to the demographics, right, it's similar to polling, right? When groups of folks have not been traditionally engaged in advocacy efforts, or otherwise, it's going to take a little bit more effort for you to get them engaged in your campaign, right? So you want to over target or over sample them right. In your targeting areas. So making sure that you're accounting for some drop-off or some just non-responsiveness right from some of these folks that you may be trying to engage. So know that as you're thinking about your targeting, Joe, can you talk a little bit about Rose, what Rose described when it comes to utilizing targets and metrics for engagement?
Joe Fuld (30:08):
Sure. Well, we often talk about this idea of what we would call an engagement funnel, where you're stepping people through different things that they would do to engage a legislator or engage in a movement. Usually it's going to start with the easiest thing and move to the hardest thing. And your goal in the different tactics you're using is to get people, to take those steps. So it might be signing an online petition. It then might be hopping on a zoom call. It might be donating to the movement. All of those different things are part of the funnel and metrics, how many people that you're going to get to take those different actions will make sure your funnel is effective. So Martín, talk to me about some ways to improve engagement if your metrics are not up to expectations.
Martín Diego Garcia (31:03):
Absolutely. Right. We can always sit in our room or at our desk and write these down and be like, Oh, here's, here's, what's going to work. And sometimes it doesn't. Right. And so, as you were building your funnel or your ladder of engagement, right. And you're realizing like folks aren't moving up or we're not meeting the metrics and the goals that we should be meeting, you may, you're going to want to start testing or rethinking or asking yourself is where is it falling? Where is it falling apart? Right. What, what is causing this to not be successful? And that can go back to, are we communicating to our folks in the right way? Are we communicating to them in a medium in which they're going to be responsive to us, right. Are we asking them and collecting information to better understand, are they somebody who is willing to do phone calls versus doing text messages versus doing a share on social media? Right. And so how do we continue to collect more of this information about the people we are trying to engage and up our metric numbers with, right. And having a better understanding of like, what are the asks and the things and the actions that they're going to be most likely to take it to take. And maybe it's shifting what we're currently asking them to something else that still helps us achieve our goal. Right? We don't want to get away from steps toward our goal, but you want to have a better understanding of who those folks are. What are the things that they will take and continue to test and test and test.
Joe Fuld (32:19):
And you want to make sure that the tactic fits the audience. If you have a bunch of retirees 70 plus, texting legislators might not be the right tactic for those folks, patch-through calls might be the right tactic for those folks. So you want to look at and think through that and say, what is right tactic that meets my audience, where they are and is a part of that ladder that has them do specific things. What about budget Martín? What are other things that we should be thinking about when it comes to tactics and budgets and targeting?
Martín Diego Garcia (32:54):
Absolutely. You talked about this earlier, right? About like making sure you know, what metrics you want to be tracking from the beginning. Right. So whether you're doing it as a, as an organization, or you're doing it as part of a coalition, right. Internally making sure you've talked to the fundraising folks, you talked to the communication folks, you've talked to your executive director in a coalition, right. You've talked to all of the different members or groups and organizations, a part of your coalition so that you all agree upon what are the metrics in which we're tracking, because at the end of the effort, at the end of the campaign, and you get to a point where somebody requests, well, Hey, did you track how many people we converted to donors? Or did you track, how many click-throughs we got on this particular email? And you were like, well, I didn't, because it wasn't agreed upon at the beginning. Right. Try and do that at the beginning, but know that collecting that data and data analysis does cost money. So think about what does that look like for your organization? Can you afford that? Can you afford all the bells and whistles, or do you need to do this more, a little bit, a shoe string budget, but both are possible. And having a better understanding of what you can spend on data will let you better determine what, what types of metrics you can track.
Joe Fuld (34:02):
Right. And what I'd also say is don't make an assumption that you have an unlimited budget to start you don't. And there's no shame in realizing from the beginning. We have this amount of money to spend. Here are tactics that fit within our budget. Do that, understand the limitations, and that really can help you. The, one of the biggest mistakes we've seen about metrics and about budgets is that people will choose a really expensive tactic and then either spend too much on research at the front end, or spend too little on engagement at the backend, whatever it is you want to make sure that you're picking the right tactics for your campaign, and that's going to be different every time.
Martín Diego Garcia (34:45):
Well, that's a wrap for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And, if you have any specific questions or comments about advocacy targeting, feel free to contact us, utilizing our social media handles or the email address that's in the description.
Joe Fuld (34:57):
In the next episode, we'll talk with Hannah Willard about advocacy coalitions. Can't wait.
Martín Diego Garcia (35:03):
So until next time, this is Martín Diego Garcia,
Joe Fuld (35:06):
And Joe Fuld breaking down how to win an advocacy campaign,
Martín Diego Garcia (35:10):
How to Win an Advocacy Campaign is Joe Fuld, Martín Diego Garcia, Hope Rohrbach, Daniel Lam, Heidi Job, and Elena Veatch. Music by Mike Pinto. Sound editing by The Global Startup Movement. Special thanks to the team at The Campaign Workshop. Remember to review like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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