Tag Archives: influence
Single Voice (On Steroids) Sinks Coast Guard Rule
I read a recent article in Roll Call entitled “Single Voice Sinks Coast Guard Rule.” It told the story of Susan Balistrei who “single- handily” caused the Coast Guard to rescind a regulation relative to life jacket design. The article was also featured in the September 27 edition of the K Street Cafe blog: http://www.kstreetcafe.com/
The Coast Guard issued a new rule regarding life jacket design without providing for public comment because it “considered this rule to be noncontroversial and did not expect any adverse comment.” Balistreri wrote to the Coast Guard that aspects of the regulation could enable currently approved inflatable products to be marketed to teens, and that these life jackets weren’t safe for teenagers. …
How to Spend Money on Surveys that Don’t Get Results Part 1
No, that’s not a typo. Although many organizations have the best intentions when it comes to conducting influence campaign research, I’ve seen some rival the “burn rate” of a circa 2000 internet start-up company without persuading their audiences. That results in wasted resources and a credibility hit for the government relations professionals at the scene of the crime.
On a somewhat related note, it reminds me of a comment (and I’m not making this up) at a recent conference where someone who was the victim of an “influence in a box” product pushed at them by an outside vendor, exclaimed: “We spent $400,000.00 (again, unfortunately not a typo) on a grassroots influence campaign and all we got was a lousy web…
The Bailout and Persuasion Tactics. . . .or, “If I’ve Learned One Thing, It’s Never One Thing” Part 2
Key Influentials and Mind-Changers
It gets even more interesting when you look at the lawmakers who did change their minds and their reasons why.
Our survey showed that undecided lawmakers are more likely to change their minds if they hear from people they trust. We call those people “key influentials;” personal friends, local elected officials and opinion leaders in the legislator’s district.
At least 10 of the lawmakers who changed their mind and voted “yes” on the second vote said they were influenced by phone calls or other communication from constituents or opinion leaders all of whom could be defined as “key influentials.” Several of those lawmakers said they changed their minds after talking to presidential candidates Barack Obama or John McCain, certainly…
The Bailout and Persuasion Tactics. . . .or, “If I’ve Learned One Thing, It’s Never One Thing” Part 1
I read with interest some blog postings and news accounts of the votes by the U.S. House of Representatives on the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan. Some were straight news accounts, other heralded that the vote results were directly correlated to citizen grassroots input and nothing else. As one who promotes the grassroots persuasion “lifestyle,” you’d think I’d be doing a victory dance at these “insights.” Au contraire, it reminded me how attributing influence success to one tactic is a faulty way to evaluate success (or failure). It leads to flawed influence strategy. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s never one thing that leads to influence success. You have to have lots of tools in the toolbox, and leverage…
How to Spend Money on Surveys that Don’t Get Results Part 2
Here’s how to really determine if ads are effective: advertise some products, and don’t advertise others. Then see which sells. All those “advertisements that don’t work” will sell the product. Those that are unadvertised will sit on the shelf. When you ask people why they bought the advertised product, they will mention positive product attributes, but seldom advertising.
No matter if you are selling a message, a request for action, or a PAC contribution, the lesson for government relations professionals is this: unsophisticated “merely asking” type of research won’t give you the insight needed to create compelling lines of persuasion.
So, that’s a long explanation of the number-one way to spend money on research that doesn’t get results: incorrect methodology. Here are…