VoterVoice data insights provide the edge for the AdvaMed grassroots team to stay ahead and succeed.
The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) represents approximately 420 companies that produce medical devices, diagnostic products, and digital health technologies around the world. Members’ businesses range from heart valve and syringe manufacturing to devices such as the ubiquitous Apple Watch, which tracks the user’s heartbeat.
The breadth of the medical technology industry is quickly expanding as technology continues to be more and more integrated into our daily lives. In fact, about 75 percent of AdvaMed’s membership is smaller, startup companies coming into the medical technology space.
AdvaMed’s advocacy team represents this ever-growing industry at the federal, state, and global levels, emphasizing regulations. Hasan Shah, grassroots and member engagement lead at AdvaMed, works as the liaison between government and public affairs and the association’s members, translating complex policy language into actionable information they can engage with.
Leveraging Technology to Connect the Dots
“I find it my responsibility to constantly keep my ears open for any issue, or even a slight message that can be a hook for our corporate membership,” Shah says. He sits in meetings with his larger advocacy and membership team to understand members’ needs and listen to what is coming up in Congress, statehouses, and around the world. His ultimate goal is to stay ahead of the trends and identify issues where AdvaMed will need to mobilize its grassroots network.
Once he identifies those opportunities, Shah trusts FiscalNote’s flagship advocacy tool VoterVoice to build and execute his strategy. “The setup process for a call to action is extremely easy [in VoterVoice],” he says. In a matter of minutes, Shah is able to create a landing page for his campaign that will have all the relevant information for AdvaMed’s members on why they should care about this issue, together with a pre-populated section to automatically contact their elected officials via email, phone call, or social media with one click.
A Data-Driven Strategy
Shah describes himself as a data geek and, as such, he’s found a home in VoterVoice for all his digital advocacy efforts. Leveraging the tool’s data and segmentation features, he’s been able to refine and hone in on his strategy and more effectively engage AdvaMed members’ employees to take action.
“What I enjoy doing with VoterVoice is the ease with which I can run queries, manage the structure of the database like adding customized fields, and be able to upload or download various types of data — open rates, click rates — of those who participate in our call to action,” he says.
”"Having an overall view of what's happening across campaigns in an aggregate way is a good way for you to be tracking how you're doing in your grassroots work and to be able to understand your own engagement level interactions and where you need to make tweaks in terms of strategy."
Hasan Shah, Grassroots and Member Engagement Lead AdvaMed
With this information, Shah then refines his messaging even further to continue engaging those people who have shown interest. He also looks at historical data from past campaigns to find those advocates who might also be interested in a new campaign based on the topic.
“The beauty of all of that is also the dashboards that you guys provide with the various stats, especially for email. Having an overall view of what’s happening across campaigns in an aggregate way is a good way for you to be tracking how you’re doing in your grassroots work and to be able to understand your own engagement level interactions and where you need to make tweaks in terms of strategy.”
Personalized Approach
Shah is no stranger to testing out new things and pushing the envelope to accomplish AdvaMed’s advocacy goals. One of VoterVoice’s features he uses the most is segmentation. He takes campaign engagement metrics such as open and action rates to hone in on those users and target them with a relevant follow-up.
“Because of the segmentation we’re building stronger relationships; it’s just becoming more personalized,” he adds. “VoterVoice allows me to test out things and build out messages, but also manage our data in a way that’s responsive to my needs as a tactician for grassroots but then also the needs of our members.”
Keeping Members Engaged
Beyond call-to-action campaigns, Shah uses VoterVoice to also keep members informed and up to date on any developments concerning policy that can affect them. This helps them see AdvaMed as a resource and increases the likelihood of them taking action when needed.
“Then that’s where the segmentation also starts coming into play. If there’s an issue that’s starting to percolate, I’ll start looking at other types of content going out from the organization to see if I can track anybody that might have the slightest interest in it,” he says. “It gives me an opportunity to understand who I can start educating and building awareness for, and then eventually get to a point where we need to take some action … At that point, hopefully, I’ve done the legwork of using our emails to educate people, helping them understand so they can take action.”
A Grassroots Growth Mindset with VoterVoice
“Part of what I enjoy about advocacy is like there’s this data element that you can really learn from and then leverage to make other more ‘on the ground’ type decisions that make a difference,” Shah says.
From scheduling and personalizing messages to your advocates and setting up campaigns quickly, to having real-time data on your campaigns to optimize as you go, VoterVoice provides all the digital advocacy tools you need to mobilize your advocates, raise awareness, and grow your base.
“I’ve been working on a very shoestring budget but even then, some of the tactics that we’ve been able to deploy through VoterVoice have allowed us to still continually grow our database,” he adds.
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