Using the written word

Letter-writing

This can be a good starting point for making initial contact with your campaign targets. Letters might seem a little slow and old fashioned in the age of new technology, but your target will have something to study and refer back to. It is also less likely to get swamped in the deluge of e mails that people receive every day, and because it is a physical entity it can be harder to ignore. It is also worth remembering that whilst cyber-campaigning can be cheap and has the potential to reach high volumes of people, the technology can also work against the campaigner as sophisticated filtering systems can identify and filter out e mails that are part of a larger "volume" effort.

Try to make your letter personal by addressing it personally, asking specific questions of the recipient and asking for their personal opinion. Again this means you will be more likely to receive a response from them rather than it simply being forwarded on to another person or department.

Getting other people to write too can be very powerful, but this can easily backfire if you are asking people to use a standard format. Encourage people to stick to the personalised letter principle as this will carry more weight than receiving huge volumes of exactly the same letter. Unlike a petition or a pre-printed postcard, a letter can explain how individuals are being affected.

Think about timing if you are encouraging other people to write. Is anything happening in the external environment that might dilute the effect of your letters? Also for greatest impact, try to ensure that your target receives letters within a short space of time - 25 letters in a fortnight will have a bigger impact than one a fortnight over several months. Other important things to remember about letter-writing include:

  • Be succinct and focused - keep it to a page if possible and only cover one subject per letter

  • Avoid ranting or rambling

  • Only make two or three key points in your letter - better still ensure that your points include solutions

  • Put all the important information in the first paragraph (who, why, what, where and when)

  • Think about how to handle the supporting evidence that your letter may require so as not to overwhelm the recipient - perhaps summarise it on a separate sheet

  • Thank recipients for their time and politely ask for a response

Leaflets

Many campaign organisers think about designing, printing and distributing leaflets to inform people about their campaign and how to get involved. If you have the resources to do this, it is often a tempting activity, but it is worth spending some time thinking about how the leaflets will be used.

Doing a mass mailout of leaflets can be expensive and might not be all that effective. We are all generally busy and bombarded with information which makes a random leaflet easy to ignore - many end up unread in the recycling bin. Think about the number of times you have discarded leaflets without even reading them.

However, leaflets can be a useful back-up resource for other activities:

· If you’re holding a public meeting, you might want to distribute leaflets at the meeting to remind people about the important issues and contact details for when they get home

· If you are doing door to door canvassing, a leaflet serves the same purpose

· If you have a street stall, a leaflet can give a useful focus for conversation as well as giving important issue and contact details.

Another positive feature is that designing a leaflet will force you to concentrate on the key messages of your campaign - to make sure they are short, catchy and understandable.

Postcard campaigns

Many campaigns have taken an approach of pre-printing large numbers of postcards setting out the main messages and key asks of the campaign. Individuals are then simply urged to fill in the details of their relevant elected representative (Member of Parliament, or Assembly Member, or local councilor) and send it on to them.

There some advantages and disadvantages of this type of activity which need to be considered. It can be a way of generating big numbers because it is a relatively simple thing that individuals can do to register their support for a particular campaign. Anything that generates big numbers is alleged to be a good thing because it is an indicator of the strength of feeling and support for an issue. However, they do not tend to carry the same weight as personalised messages and stories from individuals about how a service or policy or piece of legislation is affecting someone’s life or their opportunities. Clearly, an extremely effective tactic is to generate high numbers of personalised stories, but this can be very difficult to achieve.

The other thing to bear in mind when you are carrying out a postcard campaign is to ensure that it is carried out over a short time period. The same thing applies here as to letter writing ie the impact of large volumes of postcards received over a 2 week period is much more effective than dribs and drabs coming in over a 6 month period. And of course, for any campaign activity, be sure about how it fits in with the timing and other activities you are planning in order to maximise the impact of your efforts.

Poster campaigns

Posters can be high impact campaign tools. But there are a few things to think about if you want to get this right:

· Have you got the money/access to resources to get posters produced?

· Who are your posters aimed at

· Posters should have strong images/photographs and minimum text. These three are great examples of campaign posters:

Ø Shelter

ØBarnados and

Ø Anti-Slavery International

· Think about different sizes for different areas

· Try to position your posters near places where your target audience will see them

· Use large outdoor posters in high traffic areas, but remember that advertising space can be extremely expensive.

· Use posters in indoor public places. Depending on your poster’s content and your target audience, you can place them schools, churches, post offices, community halls, hospitals, shopping centres, sports grounds, theatres and other buildings where the public gathers. Usually they have places reserved for displaying posters. Be sure to ask permission before placing your posters to avoid trouble. Usually, placing your poster is free but some places may charge you. Also, remember to take them down when the campaign moves on, both as a signal that the campaign is now over and also as a sign of respect for the administrators of that public place.

Posters can often tie in with leaflets in a co-ordinated way and can be extremely effective where the imagery is powerful - either shocking or controversial or sometimes even funny can work.

Petitions

Collecting signatures for a petition can be a useful way of demonstrating how many people support your campaign. It does not have to be a resource intensive activity as petitions can simply be left in many different locations for people to sign. However it can be more effective to ask some of your supporters to actively look for signatures and this then gives an opportunity for your campaign aims and messages to be explained to people in more detail. You might be able to recruit some more activists to your cause by engaging people in a conversation about your campaign.

It is worth finding out about how your petition will be received by the institution at which it is aimed. Do they have a process for dealing with petitions? What is likely to happen to your hard work? Some institutions, like the National Assembly for Wales have a proper petitions process in place for which you only need 10 signatures, whilst others might have no process and put it straight in the bin. Where there is no recognised process, it can still be worth keeping up the pressure by following up your petition submission by enquiring about the institution’s response. The media can often be persuaded to take an interest in petitions and might be prepared to cover your story and indeed to help you to maintain pressure for a response.