Jim, my state senator has a policy of replying only to postal-mailed letters. This must be his gauge, probably from hard experience, of how important the communication is.
Thank you for that excellent piece. I will incorporate it into my PR planning. Paul Paul Trusten, Reg. Pharmacist Vice President U.S. Metric Association, Inc. Midland, Texas USA www.metric.org +1(432)528-7724 trus...@grandecom.net On Aug 2, 2013, at 13:35, James Frysinger <j...@metricmethods.com> wrote: > There is an excellent column in the 2013 August issue of "American Rifleman" > (NRA) on grassroots pressure. The author, Chris Cox, cites an article on > Forbes.com by Amy Showalter and discusses the points she raised. Showalter's > article (and thus Cox's) discuss five points that made the NRA grassroots > campaign effective in the recent Senate debates on gun control. The two > authors assert that is not the size of the NRA PAC "war chest" that made it > effective (it's actually one of the smaller PACs) but five attributes of the > campaign that carried the day. > > First, to repeat Cox's quote, "nobody ever tripped over a bag of email". > Email is the lowest level of communication in level of commitment and the > recipients know that. There is no assurance that the purported authors > actually write those and send them. Snail mail is much more effective. It's > cost, effort, and return addresses directly indicate seriously minded > electorate members. > > Face-to-face is even better, so visiting Senators and Representatives in > their DC offices, in Town Hall Meetings, etc. can be a vital step. The more > effort it took to get you there, the greater your apparent commitment. Follow > up on your visits with a phone call or letter. > > I have tried all three methods (email, snail mail, and visits) and I concur. > I've never had anything beyond a "send reply #117" in response to emails. > Personal, hand-written (I usually typed and signed mine) always generated a > similar snail mail response. Not once was I ignored nor did I feel that the > boilerplate had at least been personally tweaked. And those responses were > always signed by my Senator or Representative. And face-to-face visits ensure > that you are communicating to the elected member and not to a staff member! > > Other factors are passion and intensity. Those are reflected in the > correspondent's knowledge base. When you make a pitch, make sure that you are > accurate! Personal anecdotes go a long way to establish credibility. Use > those to illustrate your points. > > Copyrights prohibit me from providing a copy of that AR article. If you're an > NRA member or can access the magazine you can read it yourself. Or perhaps > you can find Showalter's article on Forbes.com. > > Jim Frysinger > >
