How to communicate the campaign

Here is a short summary of the content our 50 minutes seminar/workshop:

Part 1

First you have to clearly define the "product". What exactly IS the campaign?

Than you have to differentiate several aspects. You have to define the:

WHAT - What do you want to communicate? So what are the objectives of communication? What do you want to achieve exactly by communicating?

WHO - Whom you want to reach? What is your target group? And what do they want? How can you help them to reach THEIR goals with the campaign?

HOW - How you will communicate? What means of communication will you use? (e.g. Advertisements, postcards, internet, brochures etc.)

You can combine these elements in a great variety:

Example: If you communicate the fact that we need money and that the reader should make a donation (WHAT) you would choose a special target group (WHO) e.g. owner of small companies. Therefore you think about a argumentation which shows the COMPANY OWNERS what benefits they have by supporting the campaign. Than you think about the language and emotions you will use for that target-group (TONALITY). Than you think about the means of communication (HOW). How can you reach them best? That could be in this case a combination of telephone, personal presentation, brochure and internet. Than you start to produce all means of communication you will use, make a project-plan with your specific goals and start to realize it!

Now you can make an own example e.g. concerning How to get active people..?

Part 2

In the seminar we than collected possible target groups who could support the ERC. Results have been: as a general target group we defined organisations than we systematically selected partial target groups: companies (with personal interest of the owner), youth organisations of parties, parties (making its mark towards voters ... we have to find out, how they could benefit... e.g. by new impulses), trade unions, religious groups, churches, environmental groups (they could reach their goals by help of referendum too), NGOs in general, student and pupils organisations.... so that was just a brainstorming... now you could think about the communication goal for each of that group...

Part 3

Than we reflected on the question whether there should be some criteria for the possibility of being a supporter of the campaign.... we agreed that there must be some common grounds - kind of a intersection of interests... The supporter should have a certain potential of resources which it is willing to contribute... concerning the extremist question there should be no fixed rules, we just have to be aware of it and be ready to react.

Part 4

We also reflected a bit on the WHO and HOW...

- It would be interesting to find new ways how to communicate on a artistic way.... e.g. by songs, pieces of art etc. because art is a common language everybody understands...

- So e.g. we could have a competition for visuals... e.g. posters, postcards, ads.... among (graphic) artists, advertisement agencies ...

- To involve some individuals... ... we have to show them in practical examples that they are affected by European politics and by the question whether there will be a referendum on the constitution or not. So if the people understand that they are involved anyway, they could come to the (logical) conclusion to support us...

... We should show them that the whole EU stuff is not so complicated than they perhaps think. We need to give them good information and good examples... so that they are getting able to get some OWN ideas concerning the situation...

... we also have to get them where they are right now. We should show them that they are "right" in their feelings. Everybody tells them that they are wrong... but this should be combined with some facts and information.