Getting your policy videos to Capitol Hill shouldn’t leave you broken up.

My in-laws love to hear my wife and I have arguments. It’s not because they’re sadists – they’re actually two of the finest people I’ve ever met. It’s because our back-and-forths tend to focus on some pretty interesting tech-based public policy issues, like child online safety, blockchain in cybersecurity, and spectrum management policy. We’ve been working together in a boutique government relations shop for about the past eight years. Our most heated discussions usually revolve around the convergence of technology and public policy. But we don’t argue against each other, per se, it’s just more like hashing out what a satisfying solution should be. And in the opinion of my in-laws, our arguments (the ones that don’t put them to sleep) are both entertaining and enlightening. But this one argument led to a public policy solution that everyone could benefit from.

My insightful wife was explaining to me the increasing importance of video in advancing public policy proposals. Understanding this based on our prior experience, she suggested that we should start making more policy videos for our clients, as well as for our business. We had already done a video to great effect. In this one instance, a Senator showed the video to five of his colleagues and succeeded in getting them to sign on to his bill on the spot. But that was just one specific effort. How could it scale? Would we just put our videos on YouTube and hope people found them? Or would we have to set up a website for each of our clients to host the video? Would we have to follow it up with an expensive SEO and marketing plan? My mind was a-goggle with questions.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum

After about an hour’s worth of rumination on how it could work, the idea struck. There oughtta be a site where policy wonks could host their videos for other policy wonks. It would be the equivalent of the Roman Forum. This wouldn’t be merchants, farmers and philosophers selling their wine, olives and metaphysics in a bustling agora. It would be companies, law firms, and GR shops promoting their policy positions on proposed laws, rules, and regulations in a true marketplace of ideas. Thus was born the idea behind DC Policy Shop.

It’s here where policy professionals can establish a secure company profile page for law makers and the press to find in a transparent way. No more spamming Hill staff or journos. No more hoping they’ll visit your company’s policy site (if there is one) for information. No more uncertainty if they’ll ever hear of your client. And no more wondering if they’re looking at the most current version of your policy brief. All in an efficient, ethical, and transparent manner.

Getting to the Hart of an advocacy platform

This is how it works. Policy pros can create a Home Page for their company or coalition where they can list all the policy issues they care about. There the policy pro can create individual Policy Pages, each of which that have three succinct bullet points that frame the issue and the ‘ask’, backed by videos, one-pagers, and collateral material such as white papers, presentations or related articles. Each Policy Page is tagged to the policy area that covers that issue. This way, policymakers can find the critical information that matters to them at that moment. Plus, it’s in the forms they want to see it: clear bullet points backed by one-pagers. Coalitions and trade associations can ensure their members have the latest version of their critical docs. And now you can finally get your policy videos to Capitol Hill without spamming the staff.

After all the arguments my wife and I’ve gotten into over the years (policy ones, that is), the one thing that we can completely agree on is it’s time that everyone can air their best arguments for policymakers to see. Click here to get started on improving your advocacy.

How have you implemented video into your advocacy strategy? Leave a comment below and tell us about your experiences!

Cheers,
M.A.

Check here for more tips on effective government relations, as well as info on a new web service we’re about to launch, DC Policy Shop, that can help make your voice heard in Washington, D.C.