Lead with your strongest statement

September 1, 2009 at 11:56 am | In Communications tools and tips, Political Campaigns, Speech writing | Leave a Comment

Sometimes people think that they should write pitches, web content or press releases the way they tell ghost stories. They try to build anticipation and save the big reveal for the end.

Sorry folks, that works around the camp fire when you have the rapt attention of your audience but on the page, and even in a speech or presentation you can’t assume you have that. You need to give people the best you’ve got off the top. If it catches their attention, you might be able to hold onto it to the end. But if you make people work for something, without so much as a promise of payoff, you lose them pretty fast.

Here’s a great example of a strong lead for a press release. The Federal Liberals are playing with us here. The headline suggests Ignatieff is calling for a fall election. Anxiously, the reader then scans the entire release looking for the word. Instead, we see language that suggests he’s getting ready for an election (like we didn’t know that). There’s not really anything new or newsworthy in this release but the headline is so strong we think we might just have something. So he’s got us hanging on his words again…

Ignatieff: “The Liberal Party of Canada cannot support this government any further.”

September 1, 2009 – SUDBURY ONT , Canada

For Immediate Release
SUDBURY – In a speech to Liberal caucus, Michael Ignatieff declared that Canada can lead in a changing world, but only if we dare to act – by holding the Harper government to account and opposing it in Parliament.

“We can do better,” said the Liberal Leader. “We can be the smartest, healthiest, greenest, hardest-working, most open-minded country there is – but only if we choose to be.”
Echoing caucus concerns about Stephen Harper’s record, including the worst unemployment in two decades and the worst deficit in history, Mr. Ignatieff also cited the government’s failure to meet four benchmarks he set in June as factoring into his decision.

“Mr. Harper, you have failed all four tests,” Mr. Ignatieff said. “You’ve failed to protect the most vulnerable. You’ve failed to create jobs. You’ve failed to defend our health care. You’ve failed to produce a plan to restore our public finances.”

The Liberal Leader invited Canadians to choose a big Canada, generous and open, that leads the world by example and makes us all proud – as opposed to the diminished, mean and petty version of the country put forward by Stephen Harper.

“Stephen Harper doesn’t get it,” said Mr. Ignatieff. “He doesn’t get that Canada’s in a race – that we’ve got to position our country to compete in the 21st century. We’ve got to make Canada a world leader again – and we’ve got to do it now.”
As part of his vision for rebuilding the Canadian economy, Mr. Ignatieff announced his plan to visit both China and India as part of an effort to open new markets for Canadian exports, and called for an expansion of the G8 to a G20 with a permanent secretariat hosted in Canada.

Committing to bring forward legislation to protect Canadians abroad, Mr. Ignatieff also said he would stand by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and make it illegal for the government to pick and choose which citizens it protects.
“Stephen Harper leads a government that doesn’t care. We can do better and we will do better.”

- 30 -

Contact:

Press Office
Office of the Leader of the Opposition
613-996-6740

Interestingly, the press release is quoting from a speech Ignatieff gave to the Liberal Caucus this morning. In the speech he actually did use the word “election”.  After what would have been about 20 minutes of building anticipation in his speech he said,

Mr Harper, your time is up.

The Liberal Party cannot support this government any further.

We will hold it to account. We will oppose it in Parliament.

And if elections are called, we will be ready to offer a better future for our country.

So he has made an announcement and hedged an announcement at the same time. The person writing the press release cleverly left out the ambiguity of this final thought, and that omission of course draws those who want to know what was actually said (like me) to read the whole speech. Nicely done. You got me, and in the getting I still don’t have any more information than I had yesterday.

By the way, this post isn’t intended to advocate teasing the public, nor is it intended to advocate for the Liberal Party for that matter, but the way the press release was constructed has some valuable lessons for grabbing people’s attention. That’s the real take away here.

SEO Blogger by Wordtracker: use keywords that count

June 24, 2009 at 12:39 pm | In Communications tools and tips | 1 Comment

This morning, Wordtracker launched a new SEO tool to help bloggers write search-engine-friendly posts on the fly.

SEO Blogger is a free Firefox Add-On that opens up inside the browser window, right beside whatever blogging software you use.

I’m using it right now with WordPress and it looks like this. (Note the column on the left.)

Picture 1

As I type this post, I plunk some of my words into SEO Blogger and this is what I learn:

keywords (1,257 hits) is more commonly searched than keyword (168 hits)

seo tools (503 hits) is more commonly searched than keyword research (212 hits)

seo research (1 hit) is a surprising dud of a phrase

and just to put these search terms in perspective, jon and kate divorce scored 90,211 hits (mental note: look up jon and kate to find out who they are).

So what? Knowing this, bloggers who want people to find their posts via Google searches will find ways of working the higher scoring terms into their posts and titles. For example, now that I’ve worked “keywords” into my post, instead of just writing about “keyword” research I’ve boosted my chances of being found by people who want info on this topic by a factor of 10.

Writing clear, useful, easy to read blog posts, articles and website copy should be any writer’s first priority, but savvy writers are wise to write with the search engines in mind too.

Ultimately, SEO tools like SEO Blogger tell us what words our potential readers are using to access information about our topics. And keywords with high search stats are essentially people waving at us saying, lots of us want to know about this – help!!! So it just makes sense to make a direct connection between a reader’s identified need and a writer’s online offering.

My only question about this tool, and I have sent this question to Wordtracker, is what information (online activity?) I have allowed Wordtracker to collect while I use the SEO Blogger add-on. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Engage people with Campaign IT Strategy

June 23, 2009 at 6:30 pm | In Communications tools and tips, Email Campaigns, Marketing Campaigns, Not-for-profit Campaigns, Political Campaigns | Leave a Comment

Last month, while trying to answer the questions “What is a Campaign?” and “How do I get people to join?” I teased you with only 1 of the Five I’s of campaign strategy. I promised that I would deliver the rest this month.

I’m going to do one better. Well, two better actually.

The first 5 I’s listed here are the classic steps to move people through a campaign. The final I and the T I’ve added. I think they are critical for any type of campaign (marketing, election, outreach, fund raising, etc) but I would argue that they are especially critical if you are mounting an online campaign.

Every campaign starts with people and grows with people. Here’s how.

1. Identify: Research is the cornerstone of a campaign. Who wants what you want? Look around and see who’s really around you. How close are they? Where are pockets of new people who have demonstrated an interest in what you do? Be specific. The more specifically you identify people, and targeted groups of people, the more power you have to reach them.

2. Interest: Think about what it will take to attain and maintain the interest of the people you have identified. And think about how you will know if you have captured their interest. Some identifiers are: people don’t hang up on you, people sign up for your e-newsletters, someone asks you to repeat yourself, online search and activity data.

3. Inform: Get people the information that they need to support you, and connect it to the interest they have demonstrated. Use websites, social networking updates, newsletters, meetings, proposals, fliers, events, ads – once someone has demonstrated an interest it is just polite to keep them well-informed, and it keeps them engaged.

I’m a big fan of e-newsletters because you can continuously feed interested people valuable information that keeps them engaged AND you can track their interest with online stats.

For example, we will be keeping NDP supporters in Oak Bay-Gordon Head informed about the issues and events that they responded to during the election. We will also use the e-newsletters to identify people who can be moved to get involved.

4. Involve: This is where things shift. This is where people start doing something for you. A person can demonstrate their involvement in your campaign by inviting you to speak at an event, by making the effort to come to your office to meet, by volunteering, introducing you to people,  using your service, forwarding an email, opening up a discussion by posting a comment on a blog or retweeting an update on twitter. When people get involved, they are active in your community. Some people will inform themselves with information available and  contact you to ask you how they can get involved, but some people need to be asked.

Once you have identified, interested and informed people, it should be quite natural for you to offer to build that relationship by asking them to get involved.

5.    Invest: When you know someone is ready to buy in, make your ask. Ask for their vote, their donation, their purchase, whatever the ultimate goal is – ask. But make sure you’ve done everything you could to ensure that the only natural response will be “yes”, in other words make sure you have successfully moved them through the previous 4 steps.

Bonus Steps

6.    Inspire: Once people know you, and they have invested in you, encourage them to inspire others to move through the cycle. Donors  become canvassers. Voters drive other voters to the polls. And happy customers sell their friends on your product or service. And so the movement grows. But inspiring people to grow a movement takes really deep engagement,  so don’t skip steps.

Ask them explicitly to inspire others. Teach them how to effectively inspire others. Set up systems that make it easy for them to inspire others.  And don’t fall into the trap of thinking that things just “become” viral these days.

7.    Thank: Always say thank you. Don’t ever stop. If someone gives you the gift of breathing life into your organization, or your cause by sharing a little bit of their life with you, they deserve your appreciation. This is totally non-negotiable. Say thank you. A lot.

Why I said yes to Jessica Van der Veen’s political campaign

June 4, 2009 at 7:30 am | In Communications tools and tips, Not-for-profit Campaigns, Political Campaigns, Speech writing | Leave a Comment

It’s pretty easy to get me to say yes – if the right person, asks me the right thing, at the right time (the golden rule of fund raising, sales and generally getting what you want in this world).

To illustrate this, I’m going to gush about some campaign work I said “yes” to this spring.

For 4 weeks, I had the privilege of writing for a candidate who ran in BC’s provincial election. I produced an email campaign designed to support her live campaign and we enjoyed solid results:

  • online donation spikes
  • strong event attendance
  • people thanking the candidate for reaching out and making them part of her campaign.

Now, most of what I did, I did from home. Like usual, I had a couple of in person meetings in Victoria, emailed or phoned her staff daily, and wove narratives and arguments to engage her Oak Bay-Gordon Head community from the comfort and calmness of my Gabriola home.

But the last days of her campaign were different. I went to Victoria and camped out with her team for the final push.

With the newsletters written and cued, I was able to say, “Just point me where you need me.” And they did.

I got to help prep Jess for a call-in radio show, to co-write speeches, I went door to door to get out the vote, and on election night, I stood magic-marker-in-hand in the campaign office, capturing poll results as they were phoned in. I loved all of it.

Being a member of Jessica’s campaign team made me feel like I was contributing – not to a party, but to a system that makes it possible for a friend – a woman I admire – to run for office, and to a system that makes it possible for me to help. That’s why I joined her campaign, because I could.

That, and because Jess asked me.

Which reminds me of a classic campaign rule – it is so simple that we sometimes forget it – don’t forget to ask.

What is a campaign? And how do you get people to join you?

May 30, 2009 at 9:18 pm | In Communications tools and tips, Email Campaigns, Marketing Campaigns, Not-for-profit Campaigns, Political Campaigns, building brands | Leave a Comment

What do you think of when you hear the word campaign?

Political? Social justice? Fund raising? Military? Marketing? Save the whales? Sales?
All of the above?

campaign |kam’pān|
noun

a series of operations intended to achieve a particular objective, confined to a particular area, for a specified amount of time and involving a specified form of engagement.

campaign |kam’pān|
verb

to work in an organized and active way toward a goal

Campaigns are dance between people, stories, desires, deeds and time.

When I got my first job in fund raising, I was pretty uncomfortable with the idea of soliciting donations because, gulp someone might say “no”.

Luckily I had a great mentor who put me at ease with this simple statement, “If you are afraid someone will say ‘no’ don’t ask. When you know they are going to say ‘yes’ – ask!”

So how do you know if someone is ready to say yes?

  • You know them (their story, desires, abilities & deeds)
  • they know you (your story, desires, abilities & deeds)
  • you can match their needs with your deeds
  • the timing is right (no rushing)
  • they are empowered and enabled to act

Moving people to action in any kind of campaign (well OK, maybe not military) requires moving them through: The 5 I’s

1. Identify Find people you know (because you know their their story, desires, abilities and deeds) will take an interest. These are your potential donors, target market, likely voters, etc. Finding them takes time, research and relationship building, but your campaign is no where without these people. (Hint: start with the people who know and love you – lowest hanging fruit.)

    For the rest of the 5 I’s, tune in next month – I know I’m terrible. Email me if you (or our campaign) really can’t wait ;)

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