July 31, 2018, by Erik Larson

Lobbying Tools of the Trade

Legislative Fact Sheets


Advice from lobbying experts tends to boil down to one core theme: show up prepared.
State legislatures see an average of 3,000 bills per year on the low end of the spectrum. This means vying for mindshare and standing out among the crowd.
But besides dressing well, having your talking points ready and practicing the art of brevity, what else can you do to increase your odds of winning?
Below are a few of the key advantages of using a fact sheet as one of your tools of the trade.

Advantages to Using Legislative Fact Sheets


  1. Data = Credibility
    This is theoretically true, although bad data most certainly works against you. Recent research from RDI shows that data is increasingly impactful in public decisionmaking. It pays to invest in solid, credible data to shore up your argument and differentiate your position.
  2. Single Sheet of Music
    Another advantage of using fact sheets is consistency in your messaging. If there are multiple delegates a fact sheet helps everyone sing from the same sheet of music and keep the messaging tight.
  3. Beyond the Meeting
    Your meeting may last ten minutes but you need your messaging to last the entire session. In many respects the meeting is the opening salvo to a longer game campaign. Take that fact sheet and make it part of your overall communications strategy. eImpact fact sheets come with shareable links that you can track – think engagement 2.0!

    Check out this quick example of a Legislative Fact Sheet from eImpact. You get accurate data automatically computed for each legislative district in the state (congressional districts are available as well)! Add in your talking points and you're ready to go!

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Interested in learning more?

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