The Coalition Advantage

Coalitions give you a competitive advantage: You may be rolling out a new business initiative to an internal or external audience. A coalition of key stakeholders like a sales team or suppliers could make or break your new initiative. You may be rolling out a business decision that the community is going to have strong opinions about. A coalition of key stakeholders like elected officials, business leaders, community leaders, and third-party validators are critical to success.

Building the Coalition: The first step is research to build the stakeholder mapping. Who cares about the project, who will be impacted, how do you know them, how can you persuade them to help? Understand the audiences that can make a difference positively or negatively.

Educate, Persuade, & Activate: With mapping complete, it is time to educate your target audience and develop the message and third-party validators to persuade them. Each audience should have a specific goal: neutralize, convert, or champion. The goal is not just to make a coalition of enthusiast, the goal is neutralize some that would be against you, convert some, and turn some into champions. Then activate them to advance your cause.

Have an X-factor: Coalition building has been around for almost forever, but you can do it smarter and more effectively than you have ever done before. With cutting edge tools for research to understand your audience, for targeted messaging to different audiences, and for different mediums to reach your intended audiences, you can realize your goals and differentiate yourself from competitors.

Reach out to OTR Advisors, a public affairs and communications firm, to learn more.