Communication/Media Field Training

Goals

At the end of the training, you will:

• Leave with tools to support your work in developing media strategies for campaigns
• Work on developing and honing your message - identifying messengers
• Better understand earned/opinion media tactics - when and how to use them

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Communications & Campaigns

This module is intended to help you understand the basics of communications strategy and how they intersect with campaigns and organizing.

Participants will also work through developing a message frame for a campaign and gain some experience in developing a pitch and receive constructive criticism from facilitators and peers.

Have You Ever?

Poll questions - stop sharing

Driving the Public Conversation

When developing a strategic communications plan consider these three things:

• Goals
• Targets
• Timing

Identifying Your Goals

For the purposes of communications, you need to understand

What are you trying to achieve

Key moments on the road to success

What are the societal forces working for & against your goals?

How can communications complement or further your ultimate goals

These considerations will inform

How to build momentum in the public eye

When to pause and reassess

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Identifying Your Audience

When thinking about your goals, you need to understand

Whom you’re trying to reach

Whom you need to take action

How to reach them

These considerations will inform

What are the best channels or venues to reach them

Who your best messenger is

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Pitch Perfect

1. Identify and understand your audience(s)
• Everyone is not an audience
2. What are you trying to convey?
3. What information will they actually walk away with?
• Not everyone wants to know everything
• Describe why this matters for them
• Show the links between your issue and people

Consider Timing

When planning your media strategy consider external forces both outside/in your control

For example, lawsuits, elections, legislation, public comment periods, natural events

Are there upcoming/past votes, poll releases, reports that would support your goals.

These considerations will inform

The most opportune moments to utilize communications tactics

What is the best tactic to employ

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Building a Message Frame

The starting point for your communications should be a message frame — a 1-3 point map of your core message, ask, etc.:

• Inform: What do you want them to know?
• Agitate: Identify why they should care?
• Ask: What to you want the target/listener to do?

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Identifying the Best Messenger

When thinking about your ideal messengers, you should consider

Who could speak with authority and authenticity to your audience(s)?

How can you lead with affected communities, disadvantaged or marginalized voices?

And whom can you empower to step up?

If you are trying to move a decision maker, who do they listen to?

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Prep for Day 2 - Review Recovering America’s Wildlife Act

• America’s wildlife are in crisis: More than one-third of all wildlife species in the United States are at-risk or vulnerable to extinction.
• If we are serious about saving our wildlife heritage, we must invest in on-the-ground solutions that match the magnitude of the crisis.
• The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act would directly address the wildlife crisis by restoring and reconnecting habitat, removing invasive species, eradicating wildlife diseases, reducing pollution, and mitigating climate impacts.

End of Day 1

Brainstorming

Think about the message frame for Recovering America’s Wildlife Act:

• Where would you begin to get the message out
• What is your news hook?

Brainstorming

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Link to Jamboard

Identifying Strategies to Deliver Your Message

Effective communications utilize the same components as storytelling

Protagonists + antagonists

Proposing solutions + identifying challenges

Securing earned media of all stripes relies upon key moments or �“news pegs” — which you can hang your story upon.

For example:

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• Breaking news
• Static or recurring events
• Compelling anecdotes
• Interesting voices
• Deadlines + expiration dates

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Tactics/Strategies for Communications

• Press releases
• Press conferences/Tele conference
• Media tours
• Interviews

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• Op-eds + letters to the editor
• Radio + TV interviews
• On- and off-the-record briefings
• Blog posts + digital content

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Additional Tactics to Consider:�What else can be done to deliver a more compelling message?

• Compelling Visuals
• Events or actions that lift up the message
• Location can help tell the story
• Using photographs, videos and graphics (signs, banners etc.)

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Examples

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Examples from Deb Haaland Nomination

Examples

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Examples from Deb Haaland Nomination

Contacting the Press

Let’s Brainstorm for a moment:

• Identify contacts – Who covers your issues in your area?
• What have they covered in the past?
• How recently have they covered your issue?
• Making contact – How would you reach out to key reporters?
• Develop your pitch – How would you approach them?

Practicing Your Pitch

Let’s break into groups and practice calling a reporter and deliver your message and make a pitch.

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• You may use an example from a campaign you are working on or one we have worked on in the training.

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Questions and Wrap