Online Advocacy - Using Petitions for List Building
Posted by:
Sally Heaven on
April 22, 2008 at
8:55AM EST
 A key part of any online strategy is list building. It's important to have a steady stream of new names coming into your online program to offset churn (attrition of your list due to bounces and unsubscribes) and to grow your list of potential financial supporters and activists. There are many list building strategies out there, and one of my favorites is petitions.
I like petitions because they're a great source of free names that are guaranteed to care about your issues. You can feature a petition that isn't time-limited, or "evergreen," on your homepage at times when your issues aren't in the news. Also, petitions are great conversion tools when doing online advertising.
Here are some features that make a good petition great:
Keep it short. Make your point succinctly so most of the text and fields appear above the fold.
Functional and attractive design. The design should make it clear what the action is and what the next steps are. A petition is a great place to have some fun with design, too.
Time limit (if applicable). If you need X number of signatures by a particular date, then make it clear what the deadline is to add a sense of urgency.
Numerical goal that you display on the petition page. It helps to know what the goal is - people get excited when they see the thermometer inching upward. Remember Howard Dean and the bat?
Tell a friend. After someone signs the petition, they should land on a Tell a Friend page. This can increase viral activity by a factor of 10. Don't make them click again if you can help it!
Don't neglect the autoresponder. Make sure that the automatic e-mail message people receive after taking action contains a thank you and some additional actions (Tell a Friend about this petition, take action on another advocacy campaign, or make a donation are great ones). You have their attention, and they probably feel good about signing the petition, so use it!
Here are just a few of my favorite petitions:
www.MeetTheRealMcCain.org from NARAL Pro-Choice America - very clean design
www.millionformarriage.org from Human Rights Campaign - an ambitious numerical goal that updates in real time (Disclosure: I worked at HRC when this petition was launched.)
www.petitionforpoultry.org from the Humane Society of the United States - a VERY fun thermometer image
Do you have a favorite petition? Did you see something recently that caught your eye? Post a link and tell us about it!
(5) Comments
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Posted by: Mike Ferragamo on April 22, 2008 10:48AM EST
Hi Sally! One of my favorite petitions was the 'Red Dress Paper Doll', a campaign for the American Heart Association that a colleague was involved with.
Using many of the key items that you listed above, this campaign further employed an animated talking doll that eloquently explained why the petition was so important. This element made a very large impact on the site while only taking a small amount of space on the page, and it brought images already identifiable with the campaign to life. This immediately made the petition more accessible to those who would normally have skimmed through the message and altogether more personable.
I highly recommend visiting it:
http://www.heartforwomen.org/
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Posted by: Heather Cronk on April 22, 2008 12:35PM EST
Great post, Sally -- these are helpful things to take into consideration! The one thing I would add is that, while a petition is a good way to build a list, thinking in a more far-sighted way about what to do with that list is probably more important. In order to really gain a supporter's trust and build a relationship, a petition can't be the end-all, be-all; the petition has to be part of a larger narrative of which you're inviting supporters to be a part.
What's the story your organization is telling? Why is it important? What active role can supporters play in that story? How will you know when you've accomplished your organization's mission and worked yourself out of a job?
Petitions are great, but providing them as part of a robust narrative arc is even better!
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Those are great points, Heather, the follow-up and messaging stream for new signups is incredibly important or your names will probably suffer from attrition (and the perception of your organization might worsen). That's an entire blog post (several, actually) in and of itself. :)
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Posted by: Jay on April 22, 2008 4:54PM EST
Great post. A real annoying use of petitions is gathering names for that sake alone. And it's pretty clear when it's happening. You're so right that the design needs to make clear what the issue is in addition to the next steps -- including what's going to be done w/ the petition once the goal is reached.
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