Design your own campaign

Successful campaigning is a lot like successful cooking.

There’s a basic recipe and some essential ingredients but beyond that, just about anything goes. Campaigners, like chefs, approach campaigning in different ways and every campaign turns out differently depending on who is involved.

People campaign for all sorts of reasons but all campaigners have one thing in common – they want to change something.

Step 1: Decide what you are going to cook

Before you start you need to decide what you are campaigning for. In other words, what do you want to change? To make this work you need to answer two questions:

• What’s the problem?
• What’s the solution to the problem?

Step 2 – Find the right recipe

Now you know what you want to change you need to plan your campaign. This plan is like a recipe – if you follow it, you should get the result you are aiming for. But you have to make sure you choose the right plan – after all, you wouldn’t follow a cake recipe if you wanted to make a roast dinner.

So, to plan your campaign you need to answer the following questions:

• Who can get me what I want?
• What can influence their decision?

Step 3 – Choose your ingredients

Now you know who you are aiming your campaign at and what is most likely to influence them you can decide which campaigning tools you are going to use. Campaigning tools are like ingredients, you simply choose the right ones to fit your recipe. Which campaigning tools are you going to use?

Step 4 – What else do you need?

It’s difficult to make a cake without a mixing bowl and an oven, and if you’re making cake for lots of people you’re probably going to need some help. Just like cooking, the same is true when you’re campaigning; you need to make sure you have the resources and support you need to run your campaign effectively.

• What resources (time, money, materials) do I need?
• Who else might support me in my campaign?

Step 5 – The taste test

Once you’ve started cooking you need to check every so often that everything is going to plan. The same is true of your campaign. Evaluate your campaign as you go along to check that it is still on track and adjust your approach if you need to. If one campaigning tool isn’t working very well don’t be afraid to substitute it with a different one. The best recipes often come from a bit of experimentation.

• What went well?
• What do we need to change