How to run a campaign with a zero budget

Having worked for a number of not-for profit organisations, at times with a considerable budget, I was was faced a major challenge when starting my campaign against bullfighting six weeks ago: a zero budget. So how do you kick off a campaign then? There is no magic to it as there are plenty of opportunities out there to boost your campaign that don't cost a penny, Campaign Central being just one of them.

The first steps First off I met with two former colleagues to discuss strategy and first steps. One of them came up with Bye-Bye Bullfighting ('Flo, people love alliterations.') and I immediately liked it as it is simple, catchy and international - rather important as the campaign covers events happening (mostly) outside of the English speaking world. And, yes, it is good to have a catchy acronym, BBB, too. I have had a private blog for a couple of years posting stories every now and then, so wordpress was my first thought when I decided to launch. I takes a couple of hours to find your way through the wordpress speak, but once you get the hang of it, it runs smoothly. There are a number of restrictions, you cannot embed social plugins from social networking sites, for instance. The basic stuff such as comments, Twitter and Facebook like buttons, however, is available and easy to use. After launching the blog as the campaign base, I set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account with the campaign name, with the exception that I had to shorten the Twitter name to @byebullfighting due to character limitations (joy!). This was followed by joining Care2 and Change.org and creating basic homepages on these social networking and petition sites.

Write a story and market it When it comes to introducing a campaign or a specific part of it I follow a strict pattern that always starts with a new story that I post on the BBB blog. I then post a quick summary highlighting the main facts on the Facebook page and link to the blog. Twitter is next, obviously using a hashtag for central issues (#bullfighting or #animalwelfare in my case) and the link to the story. I always use customised bit.ly URLs which lets you track the click rate. Finally, I write a slightly different summary of the story for Care2 and post it as news, also linking to the blog with the bit.ly link. It might be a good idea to check stories posted on similar subjects before you submit. You want to strike the right note. You should monitor all reactions to the story, on all platforms you are using. Most comments I get are friendly and positive, so it is a matter of thanking people for their support and encouraging them to continue to follow you. Occasionally there are unfriendly comments and I usually wait a while before replying as I like to give supporters the chance to react. That has worked well so far and I only posted a short comment or left it to supporters to counter the unfriendly argument. In any case it is best to respond quickly to all comments and queries. Ideally within and hour or two to keep everybody happy. Timing can be crucial. In our 24/7 news world people's attention span is very limited. I found that emails, tweets and stories posted between 9am and 10am tend to have the best click rates and chances of being shared with friends. That is the time when most people get to work and take a minute or two to read private emails and check their Facebook accounts. That time period switches to 2pm and 3pm or later when you have a large US audience. You have to stick to this routine as supporters expect regular updates and calls to action. I have made a habit of publishing two or three news stories per week and it has worked pretty well so far.

Extending your campaign In my experience it is crucial to both inform your audience and to give them the opportunity to take action. Great, if you have a platform that deals with your e-actions and sends them to supporters. But if you can't afford that, petition sites such as Care2 and Change.org are a good starting point. I haven't used these sites to their full potential yet, but plan to run a petition in the next weeks. It should be easy to integrate them into the pattern outlined above and should boost awareness for the campaign issue and is also a good promotion for the blog. Having said all that, no campaign can entirely be run from a desk even if you include cycling to London meetings and events in my case. Sooner or later you get to a point where you want to do more and send out proper e-actions, organise events, travel to meet MEPs, fellow campaigners etc. For me, the campaign has worked well so far, but I do think that a small budget would boost it significantly. I am looking into ways to finance this next step of the campaign, so my next blog might be about fundraising and grant giving. In the meantime check out BBB.