When the 118th Congress is sworn into office next month, the U.S. government once again will be politically divided. With such thin majorities in the Senate and House, conventional wisdom portends a period of political gridlock without much legislative progress.
According to a poll by CNN, Americans are evenly divided about their confidence in either the new Republican House majority (51 percent) or President Biden (49 percent) to tackle the major issues facing our nation. In fact, the poll finds: “Half of Americans currently say the GOP’s views and policies are too extreme, rather than generally mainstream, while 44 percent call the Democratic Party too extreme.”
Advocates, interest groups, and other organizations looking to advance their policy issues need to find the right strategy to navigate this anticipated gridlock. Their efforts will be complicated by the incessant background noise created by the fast-moving information and news environment. It’s not just partisanship in our nation’s capital but also misinformation proliferating on social media platforms that makes it difficult for a message to break through.
Americans have been shifting the way they consume their news. Eighty-two percent say they get their news from a smartphone, computer or tablet, in contrast to just 31 percent from broadcast television, according to a Pew Research Center news consumption fact sheet. This reality requires us to rethink how we reach and engage voters and change-makers.
The terrain is rough, but here are five communications and media strategies organizations should consider if they want to break through the noise:
- Simplify your message: Policy experts have deep knowledge in their areas of expertise and often make the mistake of thinking that more information will compel policymakers to act. However, a simple message repeated over and over has a much greater chance of being heard. Refine your core message down to 10 words or less and repeat those words as often as possible. When you hear your audience repeating them back, you’ll know you’re making progress.
- Micro-target your audience(s): The more specific you can be about your target audience, the more likely you are to reach them. A highly targeted audience is more likely to consume the same traditional media, engage on the same social media platforms, and travel in the same geographic locations. Knowing all of this information will help you to conduct your outreach efficiently for maximum effect.
- Understand and articulate success: There are many ways to be successful, but any winning strategy should identify, understand and be able to articulate what long-term success looks like. This will help calibrate each step, and can include easy short-term wins along the way, but advocates must have an objectionable view of the end game.
- Build flexibility into your plan: Develop a plan of action, with measurable benchmarks, that is flexible and aligns with the evolving news cycle and policy process. Being flexible to the “news of the day” offers a greater opportunity to play in multiple proactive and reactive media fronts to create your own news wave or ride the current one.
- Evaluate and adjust: The good news about many new and emerging communications channels is they collect audience engagement data. You should understand what data are available to you and review it regularly so you can adjust your efforts as needed. If a certain platform is not delivering the audience engagement results you need, adjust your approach. Learn from mistakes and wins to effectively recalibrate your strategy for maximum impact.
Across Washington, armchair quarterbacks and political prognosticators continue to place bets on what will happen over the next two years. According to Pew, even the American public has modest expectations that the new Congress will make any real progress: “About half of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (48 percent) expect Biden to be successful in enacting his agenda, while a slightly smaller share of Republicans and Republican leaners (44 percent) say the same about their party’s prospects for success.”
While many are skeptical that policy change will occur over the next two years, it is an all too familiar place in which American politics finds itself. Try not to get distracted by the outside noise and remain focused on your mission. The news cycle and policy process sometimes get stalled and can be fraught with hiccups, or frequent starts and stops. Let’s remember that it was only a year ago that the landmark bipartisan infrastructure bill passed with needed support from Republicans even though Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House.
Progress is possible. If you are looking to advance policy issues before the 118th Congress, now is the time to lay the necessary groundwork, prepare the right strategy, and then execute it.
Brad Luna and Kristofer Eisenla are co-founding partners of LUNA+EISENLA, where Elizabeth Curwen is director of content.