Deep Dive Breakout 2: Audience Mapping and Targeting: Building a Symphony of Data Points to Succeed at Surround Sound Advocacy

How can audience mapping help you target policymakers and the contacts in their circle? What role do paid media placements and influencer engagement campaigns have in getting lawmakers’ attention. Most importantly, where can we find the data to shape it all?

Notes:

• Panelists
  • Genevieve Thompson, National Down Syndrome Society – moderator
  • William Townsend, American Petroleum Institute
  • Laura Ness, BAYADA Hearts for Home Care
• Learning objective: Practical application of audience mapping with data
  • Utilizing Google Maps – BAYADA
    • Organizations with multi-factor data sets may have a hard time tracking and recording the data they have. Panelists recommend utilizing Google Maps as a “newbie data scientist” – you can connect to Google Maps using Excel and add your data there.
      • Maps permit color coding and other customizations based on your needs.
      • Google Maps is FREE
    • Google Maps allows up to 7 different layers, which may be a limitation for larger data sets.
      • Panelists recommend sectioning the maps/ working around this limitation by creating additional/ new maps when you hit your limit of 7 layers. Start with a “base map” that includes your key data and can serve as a template for later.
      • You can obtain data files from the Department of State

Pro tip: Ask for a compressed KML file.

• 2024 Modeling Refresh – API
  • API has access to voter data through Voter Trust, they have their own predicability model but API works with an additional vendor to conduct polling and build models around oil and gas issues.
    • From these polls, they create matching data files of predicted support vs. opposition across regions to inform their advocacy’s next steps
    • Best predictor for issue alignment continues to be partisanship.
    • Every voter is assigned a score based on Net carbon capture support vs. Hydrogen expansion report
      • This can also support creating an audience heat map
  • Mapping is the most helpful for presentation to decision-makers and thought leaders
    • Pro tip: You can embed Google Maps onto presentations

• Learning objective: Using audience targeting for effective advocacy tactics
  • Utilizing Google Maps – BAYADA
    • Once you have the base map (Google Map), you can create your next steps
      • Dictate the types of hubs to focus on
      • Segment the legislative message based on the hub and legislator party/ seniority:
        • They looked at areas with new legislators and targeted them using the maps to run awareness campaigns to them and their constituents
        • Use the maps to ID where they need more advocates or to increase their online presence for awareness
        • Layer on specific legislator activity
        • The dynamic maps allow you to zoom in/ out based on your data range
  • Power of Predictive Models – API
    • Personalizing the comms based on the organization’s needs and budget- effective targeting is a must, and the maps/models are a key tool in streamlining the decision-making process here.
    • The maps can also be used to provide nuance about the voters.
      • To keep in mind:
        • We can use the models to understand your behaviors and know the likelihood of you taking an action – taking an action is a consumer behavior, don’t conflate an action-take with a supporter.
          • This can be hyper-specific, but keep the margin of error in mind. “Likely behavior” and “actual behavior” might stray from each other. They also remove litigators from their lists.
      • Monitoring actions and exposure
        • Lousiana carbon capture campaign: API focused on areas that had been impacted and used geology to deduce areas that might be impacted in the future for targeting to build out a campaign.
• Learning objective: What are case studies involving influencer engagement and paid media 
  • DS- Ambassador Program & Conference
    • They utilized ambassadors across the US by overlapping state legislation tracking, DS ambassadors, and the previous conference attendee’s data
      • Using this data, they will pull the ambassadors to speak to key legislators on DSSs 
      • Self-advocate advocacy: They worked with Charlotte Woodward and the Charlotte Woodward Transplant Discrimination Prevention Act
• Learning objective: What are case studies involving influencer engagement and paid media 
• Learning objective: What are the KPIs/expectations around audience targeting
  • Acquisition KPIs – API
    • They establish KPIs at the start of the campaigns:
      • Conversation rates
      • Performance across state tiers, how they are doing over time
    • Field APIs are less focused on cost and focus instead on volunteer/ advocate health
      • They want to track how they are retaining volunteers over time and improve retention
      • They use this data to maintain their volunteer lists and track when they need to bring in new volunteers or tend the existing lists
      • Recruit with the “Fox News Voice” and retain with the “NPR Voice”
      • They do not train them with talking points- they use their existing story (like loving sailing) and then API will utilize those stories and target based on a legislator that will relate (they also love sailing)
        • They’ve seen a huge increase in ROI when they do that front-end research and story development with the volunteers
      • Role-play to practice with the volunteers
• Questions/ Final thoughts:
  • Overlay of grasstops – does this have to be done manually?
    • No, to an extent- customization like colors on Google Maps yes, but the actual layer can be created automatically
  • What is the budget for API’s data strategy/ modeling? 
    • There are two in-house staff dedicated to this, and they work with three vendors
  • What is your process for maintaining this data?
    • BAYADA updates legislative data with the session and keeps it up in real time. A lot of the data they track already exists and is based on what happened in the past – they are not seeking this data themselves, so that saves them time on QA and editing
    • API also updates in real-time with ads and online actions – they prioritize same-day, live updates. They focus on data discipline.
  • How much are you segmenting and A/B testing across the data?
    • They are A/B testing different messages across key groups/ audiences using the data they have