3 Lessons From Reconciliation Advocacy
With last week's marathon reconciliation votes behind us, today we summarize three lessons for every public affairs organization that jump out from the results.
Lesson 1: Precision Matters More Than Budget
This may come as a surprise to many, but the deepest pockets were often not the winners last week. We'll refrain from specific callouts because many of you dear readers were duking it out with each other and ended up on different sides of the win/loss column. But we will say that many reconciliation strategies were akin to shooting hundreds of arrows into a forest and hoping to hit a small target. We saw enormous linear TV buys designed to hit 2 Senators, that instead went from Southern Pennsylvania to Southern Virginia. We saw six and seven figure direct ad buys in premium publications, that produced zero record of actually hitting the targets. We saw billboard trucks, airport ads, and other kitchen sink strategies that just poured money down the drain.
But we also saw scrappy organizations with five figure budgets beat some of the biggest players in Washington. One to three swing votes were driving most outcomes, but the vast majority of ad dollars were wasted communicating to millions of people.
The simple lesson is that precision targeting is the great equalizer in public affairs. And if your deep pockets prevent you from honing your targeting tactics, that money can actually become a disadvantage in a world where just a few Members of Congress decide your outcome.
