3 Ways to Strengthen Your Lobbying Communications Strategy

The work of influencing policy at the local, state, or federal level requires a multi-pronged approach. Because influencing policy often requires shaping both the media and public narrative around a specific issue, developing a communications strategy is important.

For lobbyists, that means using your political and policy expertise to guide the conversation, and there are several key strategies that can help you successfully impact the way people, leaders, or organizations think about a specific topic.

Elevate thought leaders

If your goal is to advance an idea, shift public opinion, or pass legislation, a significant portion of your efforts should be focused on elevating people who champion your message. Having one or many trusted voices speaking and echoing your coalition’s message is critical.

For example, if you are working to pass an education bill, it’s important to have a broad coalition of trusted leaders who can speak on behalf of the bill. A coalition that includes teachers, education policy experts, parents, and school administrators shows that, from all angles and perspectives, the bill is supported.

Lobbyists must work to elevate the public profile of these leaders or surrogates. You want to ensure that your target audience hears their message. You can do that by securing airtime for these trusted voices on popular TV news or radio shows, helping them write and place op-ed pieces, and connecting them with reporters to be quoted in stories about the legislation.

Having spokespeople for your cause helps counter any opposing narratives and create stronger connections with key audiences. These connections help shift public opinion or persuade people toward supporting your policy. Trusted spokespeople can be especially valuable to counter any targeted negative framing or messaging, which is why having a broad coalition of surrogates is particularly important.

Create and secure earned media

Whether you need to counter a narrative or raise awareness around an issue, securing earned media should another key part of your communications strategy. If you are working to guide media narratives, you’ll need to regularly reinforce your message, respond to negative coverage, and connect reporters with your surrogates or thought leaders. This strategy is slightly more defensive in nature, but it’s important to ensure you are countering any unfair characterizations.

As you counter negative narratives, you should simultaneously reinforce your own message, which requires creating your own content. Videos, infographics, white papers, social media posts, and more are all great ways to start creating a competing narrative. For example, you could post to social media platforms, host conversations in communities, highlight the issue in the press, write about your bill, and/or issue press releases. Become a content machine for your message and use multiple channels to promote it.

If you are struggling to raise visibility, consider running social media ads around your topic or piece of legislation. If it’s an awareness issue, the ads could simply be educational, highlighting the problem or solution. This allows you to then set up a conversation to frame your policy or organization as the solution.

Build coalitions

Finally, one of the most effective ways to take your efforts to the next level is to join forces with other groups, leaders, or advocates to expand your reach and raise your visibility. Partnering or working with other organizations or leaders that share your goals is an efficient and effective way to go further with less. Using the reach, expertise, and knowledge of other established groups can help you accomplish more.

Find the organizations or elected leaders who have shared interests and reach out to them. You could host multiple events like a town hall listening tour, you could co-author an op-ed about the issue, or, if an organization has a large email database, you could simply ask them to email their list to help raise awareness. There are endless ways you could harness each other’s strengths.

Furthermore, when a coalition of organizations and leaders is seen advocating for something, it signals widespread support, giving your issue or policy greater legitimacy. Consider what people or groups you could work with to create a coalition to provide a boost to your effort.

Conclusion

Lobbyists are tasked with influencing policy and one of the critical ways to do that is through framing the public and media narrative. This piece outlined three ways to strengthen your communications strategy by elevating thought leaders, securing earned media, and building coalitions to shape the narrative and influence the messaging to serve your greater goals.