Planning a Strategy

Don’t just rush out and try to get media attention on your issue. Take a step back and develop a plan that will help you use the media to advance your advocacy effort. Before you start doing media outreach,

• Set goals
• Identify audience
• Develop key messages
• Prepare talking points
• Generate a media list
• Identify and prepare key spokespersons

Setting media goals back to top

Start by defining your goals. Be clear about where you want to go so that you develop the best plan to get you there.

• What do you want to accomplish? What is your ultimate advocacy goal? What are your media goals: Raise public awareness? Move people to take some action? Put pressure on public officials or other decision-makers?
• Be realistic. Evaluate the likely support for your goals. Is your issue timely? Practical? Is your solution achievable? How will you measure success?

Identifying your audience back to top

After you’ve determined your goals, your plan should clearly identify the audiences you need to reach to achieve your goals. Precisely whose awareness are you trying to raise? Who are the people you want to move to action? Who are the decision-makers you are trying to pressure? You may have more than one target audience. Identifying each one up front is key; otherwise, you’ll end up wasting resources on a media strategy that may not be effective for reaching your targeted audiences.

• Whom do you need to reach? Influence? Move to act? Specific elected officials? Communities of color? Youth? Seniors?
• What’s the best way to reach them? Ultimately, you need to select from different media tools based on what’s likely to be most effective in reaching your target audience. You may decide to seek interviews on local radio stations targeting their demographics to get the word out about your work (as opposed to writing an opinion piece for the local newspaper, which may be a more effective tool for reaching elected officials or the larger public). More on various media tools below in Seeking and Securing Media Coverage.

Developing key messages back to top

Different audiences respond to different messages. The next step in planning your media strategy is to figure out the best message for your audiences.

• Frame your issue in two or three main messages aimed at to your audience. Too many messages will confuse your audience so that at the end of the day, you will end up not clearly delivering any one of them. Your message should not just be a restatement of your goals. It should make your case in a way that persuades your target audience to your point of view so that you can accomplish your goals.
• Be clear, concise, and compelling-and stay away from jargon and rhetoric. Your message should inspire interest in your target audience (and the media), evoke emotion, and appeal to its sense of right and wrong and its political self-interest (again, the reaction you want to elicit from your target audience depends on what you want it to do). Draft short sound bites-catchy one-liners, attention-getting statements, quotable quotes-that capture your issue, will stick with your audience, and are ones that reporters can use and messengers can remember.
• Compile stories and statistics that will make your message more credible, powerful, and persuasive and that ground your message in the facts.
• Test your messages with different people before you become committed to them. Sometimes you are too close to an issue to effectively evaluate your message. What you believe to be most compelling about the problem you are trying to address may not move other people. You can test your message in a formal focus group, or you can do it informally. Try it out with your friends, family, people you work with-anyone you know who is part of your target audience-to see if the message is clear, attracts interest, resonates, and motivates people to act.

Preparing talking points back to top

Draft a few key talking points to help you and other spokespersons stay focused on the issues you want to communicate to the media.

• Tailor your talking points to your audiences.
• Be clear and succinct in each point. If you try to make too many points at once, your message will get lost.
• Use data, anecdotes, and examples to illustrate your points.
• Practice making your points so that you are comfortable delivering the message without notes, but have them nearby to review before you speak and glance at in case you miss a key point.

Generating media lists back to top
Put together a list of local media contacts-newspaper, radio, television, magazine, newsletter, and Internet-that cover your neighborhood, related issues, and constituencies. Also, add reporters you have talked to in the past. Having a list prepared will allow you to quickly and comprehensively identify reporters, columnists, editors, producers, and talk-show hosts to call or e-mail when you are ready to pitch a story.

• Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find out if any of your coalition members and supporters have prepared a media list they are willing to share. If you have the resources, purchase a media database from a commercial vendor as well.
• If you are developing your own list, scan the local paper to find names of reporters covering your issue and find out whether your local library has any published media directories you can review.
• Think broadly. Include ethnic and online media on your list. The SPIN Project website(http://www.spinproject.org/resources/speaking/media.html) has some ethnic media resources to help you identify local outlets. Online media, such as AlterNet (http://www.alternet.org), will sometimes cover high-profile events. Ask around and search the Internet for local online news sources widely read by your target audiences that may be inclined to cover your issue.
• Look locally. Include local community radio stations and cable-access channels. It is not uncommon for stories to be picked up from these outlets and run by larger media outlets.
• Be creative. Include neighborhood, organization, and employee newsletters on your list. Think about whether a union newspaper might be interested in your issue.
• Include all contact information-full name, mailing address, phone and fax numbers, e-mail address-and make a note of each reporter’s preferred method of contact.
• Periodically update your lists. Reporters come and go, so stay current on who is covering your issues. And add new reporters who have called you for an interview to your list.
• For more information on media lists, visit the SPIN Project website at http://www.spinproject.org/resources/medialists/mainframe.php3.

Identifying and preparing key spokespersons back to top

Identify the best people to deliver your message to the media, keeping in mind your target audience. Who will be most credible, influential, and persuasive? Provide your spokespersons with talking points so they are prepared and stay on message.

• Select spokespersons that highlight the diversity of your allies and range of constituencies affected by the issue.
• Put a face on the problem. Reporters are more likely to cover your issue if there’s a human-interest angle.
• Media experience is a plus but not necessary. And whether you are experienced or not, some media training, role playing, and practice interviews are always helpful in getting prepared.
• Even if you are not a designated spokesperson, be familiar with the issues and key message points. A reporter under a deadline may call you to verify information for a story when none of your spokespersons are available. If you are unprepared, you will miss an opportunity to present your point of view.