So, you decided to launch a mail to target (MTT) action as part of your campaign. Great! It’s one of the most popular digital campaigning tactics, and still a great way for CSOs to connect citizens with decision-makers.
You have your list of demands, you identified the person with the power to make them happen, you got your hands on their email address… Now all that’s left is to write the message, and get your supporters to send it. Easy, right? Well, that’s where many campaigners stumble.
Here’s 5 tips for writing your message to target, to help your demands get heard loud and clear.
1. Always lead with your demand
This is the first thing the person receiving your message wants to know: “what do you want from me?”
In your MTT, lead with your demand. Your core ask needs to be crystal clear, delivered in the first 1-2 sentences of your message, and as direct and actionable as possible.
🚨 📌 Don’t make your target guess what you want from them.
We’ve seen so many messages to target where the reader doesn’t know what the message is about until the very end. Don’t do that! Politicians (and their assistants monitoring the email inbox) are busy. Make it easy for them to receive your message. Repeat the demand you open with at the end of your message, for added emphasis.
Examples:
“Dear [Politician], I’m writing to you to ask that you vote “no” in the upcoming plenary vote about X”.
“As your constituents, we demand that you stand in support of the rights of Y”
“We urge you to publicly support the regulation proposed by the Ministry”
2. Make the target clearly responsible for the action
You’re not writing to a “government” or “European representatives” – you’re writing to a specific person. You need to be very clear about why you’re targeting them with your demand. What is the specific, concrete action they can take? What is within their power or responsibility to address?
After understanding what you want from them, your target reading the message will think “why me?”.
🚨📌 Be explicit. Tell your target exactly how they can take the action you’re demanding.
That doesn’t only make your message more meaningful to a busy politician, it also takes away their wiggle room. It’s harder to say “this doesn’t concern me” if you tell them exactly how something is within their power, than if your message is vague, e.g. “the government must act to protect…”
Examples:
“As a member of the Parliamentary committee on X, you have the power to introduce an amendment…”
“You were elected to the regional council by the constituents of Y, so it’s your responsibility to protect our rights by voting Z during the upcoming session”
“As Minister for Agriculture it is your prerogative to veto the opposition’s proposal to remove the protections…”
3. Name the consequences of action or inaction
Education doesn’t lead to action: it’s a difficult truth that, as campaigners, we tend to willfully forget. Action happens when opportunity meets motivation. That means a campaign target needs to see both a clear decision point ahead of them, and be moved to make the right decision.
🚨📌 Our campaign targets act when there is something in it for them (incentive) or there’s a clear risk linked to their choices (threat).
A great message to target uses a carrot-and-stick approach to make clear what consequences the target will face:
- the opportunity or reward when the target does what we ask,
- the cost of not taking action.
Examples:
“The choice you make in the upcoming vote will be remembered by future generations. We urge you to be on the right side of history”
“During your election campaign, you promised to act on X. As your voters, we’re now holding you to the promise…”
“If the new law passes, it will mean the end of Y, which your party swore to protect”
4. Share a story, not a shopping list of policy demands
People are interested in other people and their stories. As campaigners, we love bullet points, factual evidence, and references to historical treaties. But our campaign targets are just people who hate homework.
Yes, your demands matter. We know how hard you worked to get them past your policy colleagues, or signed off by the whole coalition. That’s exactly why it’s so important to get the MTT right.
🚨📌 A message to target isn’t a policy briefing or an investigative report. It’s an appeal from a person to another person.
So keep your long shopping list of demands out of the MTT. Your policy brief, your report, or your 6 page long coalition demand manifesto that covers every single progressive issue that ever was – reference them instead. You can add a footnote, or link them as “further reading” to provide additional evidence in support of your message. Those who want to read more, will easily find it.
Instead, your MTT should be built around one key point. It could be:
- one surprising fact or figure,
- one devastating consequence,
- one authority’s voice,
- one human story linked to the topic of your campaign.
Let your message tell a simple but powerful story. Why is this issue important? Why should someone care? What bad things are we trying to prevent, or what good things do we have the opportunity to build? It should read like a human being wrote it to another human to move them, rather than like homework.
Examples:
“This decision will directly threaten thousands of people in our community”
“Your action could save the life of this one child, and countless children in the future”
“The Pope’s latest declaration implores all of us to take action”
“While billionaires pay 0% tax, 70,000 people in your voting area are going cold this winter”
5. Keep it short, readable and scannable
Campaign targets, just like your supporters or followers, are rarely the experts on a topic that we think they are. The recipient of your message shouldn’t have to pull up a dictionary to decipher your email. As a campaigner, you have an important job: to write a text about a complex issue that is easy to read and understand.
🚨📌 Your target won’t take action if they can’t understand your message.
Whether you’re writing for the “general public”, for your newsletter subscribers, for trade journalists or for a minister, there are a few fundamental style rules for writing campaign content that can be summarised as KISS = keep is short and simple.
- Use short sentences and paragraphs (one idea per paragraph) to make your text easy to scan
- Use simple and easy to understand language (use a reading age checker like Hemingway.app to help you build this skill)
- As much as possible, avoid jargon, policy speak, acronyms without explanations, or cryptic references that only experts would understand
- Make your text read as if your supporter actually wrote it. That means leaning into an authentic human style rather than writing a journalistic or policy text
At Proca, we have the perfect tool for your message to target campaign. Our state-of-the art Mail-to-Target tool enables supporters to send an email directly to decision-makers (e.g., ministers, MPs, MEPs) with pre-filled and editable content to make advocacy personal, easy and persuasive. Our MTT can be powered by our innovative Snowflake Engine to help your messages appear unique and avoid inbox filters.