Slow email response times and an endless stream of vacation photos on Instagram might make you think summer is the worst time to communicate with advocates. But look at it from another point of view, and you’ll find that the summer’s typical policy slowdown and legislator recess present a great opportunity to focus on educating supporters.

Think of these months as the time to enroll supporters in “summer school,” not only preparing them to be effective advocates in general but also shoring up their skills and knowledge ahead of what’s sure to be a busy fall season.

Read on to learn how a comprehensive advocacy solution, such as VoterVoice, can help you facilitate summertime instruction.

Deepen Knowledge of Issues

Use a smart newsletter tool, such as the one in VoterVoice, to have the best chance of not only reaching advocates but also capturing their attention. When it comes to best practices for email advocacy, short, clear messaging works best. It’s helpful to connect messaging back to your organization’s mission as well as home in on how an issue impacts your audience.

Subject line, message length, use of acronyms, number of links, and send time all matter. Luckily, VoterVoice has built-in AI that guides you through the process of composing an effective email by highlighting best practices and offering suggestions in real time.

Make it Personal

If you want a lawmaker to really read and connect with your issues, personalized emails from your supporters are particularly effective, especially if they include stories detailing the impact an issue has on a person or community. VoterVoice allows you to suggest talking points and remind advocates to share how an issue affects them.

By automatically filling out constituents’ contact information and matching them to the correct lawmakers, VoterVoice limits opportunities for error and gives senders back time, which can be spent personalizing their messages and appealing to lawmakers’ humanity.

Educate New Audiences

It’s important to share information via a variety of media to meet new audiences where they’re already at. VoterVoice allows you to create personalized microsites called action centers, where you can inform new and existing audiences on what’s happening and why taking action is critical now and in the coming months.

Drive potential new supporters to your action center with the strategic use of audience-building tools such as petitions. With VoterVoice, you can create a petition, publish it to social media and your action center, and collect results — all from one platform.

Petitions are a great way to garner attention for your issues because they are quick to make and simple to promote. They are an immediately gratifying way for advocates to make their voices heard and an easy way to add new supporters and their contact information into your database. You can then follow up with new advocates via email and share more about why it’s important to continue contacting legislators.

Communicate Impact

Most people have limited free time, so it’s important to express appreciation for their efforts to bring attention to your key issues.

VoterVoice’s email tool allows you to send personalized messages to each supporter. You can also share impact reports, which use professionally designed visualizations to provide a summary of actions taken over time, whether petitions, emails sent to legislators, or meetings with lawmakers. These reports make it clear that each advocate’s efforts — however big or small — truly do make a difference.

You can export key visualizations, graphs, and charts for publication in larger reports or on your action center, too, to show ROI to your board, C-suite, or the general public.