A digital plan is successful when it supports key short-term, medium-term, and long-term campaign goals and helps to build your group’s power in the process.

The best digital plan is one that fits seamlessly with the rest of your campaign. The digital tools available to organizers continue to evolve and change, but at their best they can help connect people with actions, causes, and communities that feel meaningful to them, while enabling organizers to reach more people in less time. In the era of COVID-19, digital tools have become more important than ever to our campaigns, helping people take action from a safe distance.

Much like the other parts of campaign planning, planning your digital strategy involves thinking through questions like WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHEN, and HOW. Don’t put too much stress on having a perfect digital plan, because adjustments may be needed down the line in order to be responsive to real-time events. For example, sometimes tactics or timelines can shift as your campaign approaches big milestones or moments. That said, mapping out your ideal digital strategy ahead of time will give you the best chance to organize actions that help you meet your goals! The key components of a strong digital plan are:

Digital Capacity

While every local campaign team may vary in size and structure, we recommend starting off your digital planning by identifying at least one or two people to perform the function of an online organizer. This will go a long way in making sure you have enough time, energy, and creativity to pull off an extraordinary campaign, from planning to implementation.

Learn more about team roles and responsibilities:

• Campaign Roadmap, Phase 2: Build a Team
• Communications Guide, Section 2: Crafting Your Communications Strategy

Goals

Like in all good campaign plans, it’s critical to know what it is that you’re trying to achieve from the outset. Digital tools will likely play an important role throughout your campaign. However, if this is your first time creating a digital plan, it may be easiest to first practice by choosing a near-term goal from your overall campaign plan, and develop digital goals that you think will support it.

Learn more about goal-setting as well as strategy and theory of change in the Campaign Roadmap, Phase 3: Plan Your Strategy

Typically, goals for digital strategy and tactics fall into two categories: action goals related to getting people to take specific actions, and capacity building goals related to growing the number of supporters on your email and social media lists and/or developing some of them into sustained activists and leaders. Growth happens when people decide (or are asked) to share your actions with their friends and neighbors, who also take the action.

Good goals are ones that exist on a specific timeline and are measurable. For example, you might be trying to gather a certain number of petition signatures or event RSVPs by a specific date to influence a city council meeting, or you might want 10 more people to volunteer to host remote events with their friends in the future.

Equity

If we hope to achieve our larger goal of creating a just and equitable transition to 100% clean energy, then we must create goals that are equitable and inclusive of the communities we are working in. In order to do this, we need to consider the impact our plans can have along lines of identity and power. Using the SMARTIE goal framework can help goals include a lens of equity and inclusion.

For an online organizer, incorporating equity concerns might also mean asking members of affected communities to provide their input on digital messages before they’re shared publicly. This creates opportunities for directly impacted people to share their own stories in emails and social media, and helps share news or actions from community groups focused on equity issues.

Target and Power Mapping

WHO your digital plan is directed at is key to achieving your goals. To create strategic online campaigns, you also want to know who you are trying to influence. A power map is a useful visual tool for figuring out which people, government agencies or other groups have sway, directly or indirectly, on the issue you want changed, and therefore who you want to direct your digital actions at. If you are new to power mapping, you can learn more about this idea in the power mapping section of the Campaign Roadmap, Phase 3: Plan Your Strategy.

Online Theory of Change

A theory of change is a brief summary of the strategy you are using to achieve your goal. It answers HOW to create and execute your strategy. You should already have a theory of change in your overarching campaign plan—now it’s time to make an online theory of change answering this question: How will the digital organizing in your plan help achieve the campaign goals, and why will this work? This is important, because clearly communicating your theory of change in digital messages will help motivate people to join you in taking action!

Timeline and the Ladder of Engagement

Your digital plan should have a timeline outlining when you will create and implement specific tactics (i.e. specific actions). This timeline creates a “digital arc of engagement" usually starting with the actions that are easiest for your average supporter to take and moving up the ladder of engagement over time.

For example, a campaign might start by asking everyone on your email and social media lists, as well as the public, to sign a petition. A month later, you might follow up with people who’ve proven they are interested in an issue by signing the petition and ask them to call your target. Much like the process of supporting and developing volunteers offline, engaging digital action takers with "higher bar" asks is an important way to continue mounting pressure while developing your supporters into volunteers or leaders. Making sure to acknowledge and thank people who’ve already taken action, before asking them to do something else, can add an authentic human tone and is usually appreciated.

Online Channels and Tactics

Depending on whether you are working with a local Sierra Club chapter or group, national Sierra Club staff, or organizing your group more independently, you may have different digital channels available, meaning platforms that you can use to engage people. Sierra Club staff and chapters have access to Mass Email (via Marketing Cloud), Broadcast Text Messaging (via Mobile Commons), and Peer-to-Peer Text Messaging (via Hustle)–platforms that can be used to contact many Sierra Club members around the country. Social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are maintained at the national level, and often local chapters and groups have their own, as well.

Learn more about online channels:

• How to Use Mass Email
• How To Use Mobile Alerts
• Social Media

No matter how you’re organized and what channels you already have access to, with limited volunteer and staff time it is usually better to prioritize channels that your community is already using within your digital plan, instead of trying to get people to join new ones. Email, mobile, and Facebook (both pages and groups) are generally very popular across all ages and communities. However, depending on who you’re looking to reach, other platforms are also growing in popularity with different groups of people. Pew Research’s data on Social Media and Mobile is a great resource for understanding how Americans use different digital channels.

Many online tactics can be promoted across different digital channels. For example you can create an online event RSVP on AddUp asking folks to attend a community forum on a 100% clean energy. You could also send the link to the event through an email and a text message inviting them to attend. The right course of action just depends on how much time you have and what your digital goal is for each tactic—and remember, as your plans evolve, your tactics might, too! Try and identify the most effective and time-saving way to reach your goal when deciding on which channel(s) you will use.

There are many online tactics to choose from. Here is a list of some possible online tactics you could include in your digital plan, ordered by how involved they are and where they might fall in your digital ladder of engagement. Since digital tools and the tactics they allow for are always evolving, keeping an eye out online for new creative tactics you’d like to try and incorporate into your own campaign is always a good idea.

Remember to move from easy to intermediate to more advanced actions when creating your digital ladder of engagement. Try to leave enough time in your timeline for your team to review and set up new digital actions before they need to go out. And remember: your goal is not just putting pressure on your target, but also building the volunteer capacity and power of your campaign. So like with offline organizing, incorporating a variety of possible actions for people who prefer to take action in different ways, creating opportunities for volunteer leadership, and celebrating successes with the occasional fun message or remote video call event, all can go a long way.

Now let’s put all of this together in a timeline and chart for our digital ladder of engagement:

When you finally reach a significant campaign goal or get a response from your target(s), you can send supporters a “report back” email thanking them and summarizing the difference their efforts made and the results. When people feel like their actions make a difference, they’re more likely to do more.

MOCHA

Building a successful digital plan will require the engagement of multiple stakeholders inside the Sierra Club and across the volunteer network. In order to ensure everyone on your team has a clear understanding of their tasks, and a chance to contribute, we suggest you create a MOCHA. The “MOCHA” model can help volunteer and team members more clearly define their roles in the project, but it’s okay if some people have multiple roles, especially if you’re working with a small team.

• MANAGER | Assigns responsibility and holds the owner accountable. Makes suggestions, asks hard questions, reviews progress, serves as a resource, and intervenes if the work is off track. The word manager doesn’t mean the person assigned this role actually is a manager as in having a manager title. It just means that person is responsible for the overall management of the plan.

• OWNER | Has overall responsibility for the success or failure of the project. Ensures that all the work gets done (directly or with helpers) and that others are involved appropriately. There should only be one owner.

• CONSULTED | Should be asked for input.

• HELPER | Assists with some of the work.

• APPROVER | Signs off on decisions before they’re final. May be the manager, though might also be the executive director, external partner, lead volunteer or board chair.

You can use a very simple table to make clear who is assigned to what role. Note that the same individual might be assigned to more than one box:

Worksheets:

To help you get started, see these templates:

• Action Alert Worksheet

• Mass Email Worksheet

• Online Event Worksheet