You’ve defined your Advocate Identity.  And you know the slacktivism traps.  But,  how do you acquire constituents who are advocates, then convert them to donors?

There are services like Care2 and CQ Roll Call that will sell you advocates.  I’ve heard mixed results from these services, including one recently who said her online advocates finally broke even in year five. (Please feel free to share your experiences.)

Personally, I’d rather start with free efforts to build the file of people who are advocates specifically for my issue before delving into people who are advocates across many issues, with all the multifaceted loyalties that implies.

Hopefully, you have your Google Grant already.  While it’s harder to stay compliant with Google, advocacy pages will often have high click-through rates and can help you stay above 5% CTR with your ads.  It’s usually a safe bet that the person searching for “email congress seal clubbing” wants to email their elected officials about seal clubbing.  And if they click through on your ad, they are probably on the side of those opposed to clubbing.

The more important step is to make advocacy a fundamental part of your communications for advocates (remember yesterday – there are also people who don’t want to advocate for political change – respect that). The more you talk about activities and activations in your blog, enewsletter, social media, and Web site, the more people will interact with it.  Here are some potential topics:

• Highlight news stories about your issue.
• And don’t just retweet that article about your issue; add a note ” that’s why we must pass HB1489 (or whatever)” with a link for people to take action on your site; remember not to conduct your advocacy solely on social media)
• Blog a first-person account from one of your volunteers who lobbied legislators and how rewarding it was.
• Talk about your lobby day (state or national) and invite your constituents to be a part of a virtual lobby day online.
• Honor legislators who have been champions of your cause.
• Tell success stories of passed legislation (since you should be doing these for your online and offline petition signers anyway).
• Post a legislative agenda for the year and report back on it when the legislature(s) is/are closed.

Two other tips:

Go across media.  Right now, when you search for “seal clubbing” you get a video… from The Weather Channel.  This is an opportunity for a nonprofit with an advocacy focus to get people to learn about the issue and act.

Remember your behavioral triggers.  One of the great things about policy advocacy for your advocates is that it touches so many of the social influence triggers:

• Consistency by asking people to put their money where their advocacy is
• Scarcity of time, as petitions frequently have a due-by date to them (e.g., “while the legislature is still in session”, “before we testify on the bill”, “so we can present the petitions at our national conference”).
• Authority, as you will have to be presenting a strong case for your legislation or action
• Social proof, as you can talk about the thousands who have already taken an action.

These communications aren’t for everyone: only the Advocate Identity.  That’s the sign of a good identity – specific communications for specific people.  Make sure that each of these has a good capture device – a form you optimize as carefully as your donation form with a quality ask.

What To Do When Your Advocacy Donors Aren’t Converting

Let’s say you have all of the above humming along, but you run the numbers and your advocates are only worth 90 cents in lifetime value.  Your advocacy donors just aren’t converting.

Often, this is because the communication stream for your advocates looks exactly like your communication stream for everyone else.  The next logical action for someone who takes an advocacy petition online is not mailing in a check to support your annual fund, taking a call from a telemarketer who doesn’t know anything about the constituent, or joining your walk coming up in 42 short days.

And yet that is frequently the next action many organizations request.  It’s as though their goal is to expose people to as many different aspects their organization as possible.

They might as well put up a banner proclaiming:

This organization doesn’t know who you are
or what you care about,
but we do want your money.

A singularly unappealing message.

So how do you convert your advocates?  A few thoughts:

Strike while the iron is hot.  Quick, remember what the last survey you took online was about.  Unless it was in the past week, remembering the when or the what is probably not happening.  The same holds true for online advocacy — people are busy and may not remember they took an action a week later unless the issue is vital to them.

Thus, your communications to them need to start with the confirmation email that takes advantage of those first few weeks where they remember you who are and what you do.  This will be easier if you…

Playback their action to them.  This playback reminds them that they did indeed take action with your organization and primes consistency: “I am the type of person who does things to protect kids from drowning.  Therefore, I should take this other action to do likewise.”

Report back on their action. Yes, just like with donations.   The best thing you can do to keep someone engaged is to make your action more than just a one-time event.  If someone emails their assemblyperson to pass a bill out of committee, let them know when the bill gets a hearing (with that picture of your organization testifying) and when it passes out of committee.  Now, you need that same person’s help to get it passed through the full Assembly.

And so on.  You, Dear Advocate,  are building a pattern: take an action, feel good about yourself, hear that it made a difference, feel good about yourself, take another action, feel good about yourself again…

At that point, it isn’t that big a leap for the final email in that series to say “your support helped pass the Zebra Endangered Animal Law (or ZEAL, because every bill has to spell something now).  Now we need to make sure that judges enforce the laws in place.  Your $17 monthly donation, in honor of the 17 zebras you will be helping to save, will monitor the courts to make sure that zebras will not be poached in our state.”

Talk to Them Directly.  In the right circumstances you might also want to talk with your advocates directly — to report progress, or outline plans for next action, or simply reinforce momentum– by holding a telephone briefing.   See Roger’s  Get ‘Em While the Grief is Hot 

Customize the ask.  Those people who are advocates know that advocacy is important and thus are likely willing to donate to support it. When you ask for a donation, the donation should be to help achieve the same ends that they took an advocacy action about.   If they wanted to save zebra habitats, don’t ask them to stop cosmetics testing on rabbits.

Go multichannel.  A simple campaign that I’ve seen work is mailing online advocates an offline petition for a similar action that they’d taken online, then doing an outbound voicemail campaign to let them know to watch their mailboxes for the petition.  They also received an online version of the same petition and both the offline and online petition asks also asked for a donation to support advocacy efforts.  This tight package can help bolster all efforts.

Avoid policy speak. Here’s how a policy person would speak to another one:

“We don’t want another continuing resolution.  We need to get the authorization through the conference committee, so we can then appropriate the money to the program and distribute the Section 402 funds to the states.”

I know.  I’ve been one.  Here’s what your constituent hears:

“We don’t want another Smurf.  We need to get the Smurf through the Smurf, so we can then Smurf the money to the program and Smurf the Smurf to the states.”

If they didn’t cover it on Schoolhouse Rock, it’s too obscure.

In short, the most important task in adapting to an Advocacy Identity is the same as adapting to any donor identity – making it easy for the donor/potential donor to express themselves through the action you are hoping they will take.

Nick