The results of a recent Department for Professional Employees (DPE) campaign with the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU) demonstrate that low-cost social media advertising is an effective way to generate quality organizing leads.
DPE partnered with NPEU?—?formerly the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees (IFPTE) Local 70?—?on a campaign to promote NPEU and inform nonunion professionals about the benefits of joining together in union. A large component of the campaign was inexpensive advertising on digital platforms. The campaign resulted in more than 60 organizing leads over eight months with advertising costs of just under $2,600.
The campaign was inspired by the findings of DPE’s October 2016 survey of nonunion professionals. The survey found that a majority of nonunion professionals want to join a union, but only 31% know a fair amount or more about unions representing professionals. For professionals who want to join a union, most do not know which union is right for them. DPE created the NPEU campaign with the goal of bridging this information gap.
With the campaign, DPE wanted to test different digital tools to determine which were effective at making a union accessible to the professionals it sought to recruit and getting the union’s message in front of potential members. Ultimately, the measure of success was whether the campaign could generate organizing leads for the union?—?which it did.
Understanding the components of the campaign and what made it successful can help to inform one way unions can reach potential members.
NPEU is a union of nonprofit employees whose employers include the Center for American Progress (CAP), the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). The focus of the campaign was to actively inform nonunion progressive nonprofit employees that there was a union for them and encourage them to connect with NPEU. Additionally, the vast majority of NPEU’s potential members fall squarely within the demographic and political categories that indicate they would vote in large numbers for union representation in the workplace.
The first step in the campaign was to make NPEU more accessible to potential members, which required a rebranding effort. At the time, NPEU was IFPTE Local 70 and part of the rebrand was to change its name to the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union. The union also got a new logo and website. Building a union identity and website that reflected the membership and spoke to similarly employed professionals was key to connecting with potential members.
In addition to the rebrand and website, DPE sought to explore whether the information gap between potential members and a union could be filled with low-cost paid advertising. DPE believed potential NPEU members would be more responsive to targeted messages about the gains made by nonprofit professionals in NPEU as opposed to general messages about the value of joining a union for all professionals. DPE based campaign messaging on conversations with current members and survey data for nonunion nonprofit professionals. With this messaging, DPE crafted ads that spoke specifically to progressive nonprofit professionals. Centrally, DPE also wanted members to be able to tell their personal stories highlighting what being part of NPEU has done for them. NPEU members told their stories using blogs and social media and shared their NPEU experience with their networks. Ultimately, DPE wanted potential members who clicked on a paid advertisement on social media or Google to visit the NPEU website where they could learn more and reach out.
Another component to the campaign was earned media. Past experience has shown that potential members often learn about a union representing their profession when they read about an organizing victory or contract gain in the news. Many then reach out about organizing their own workplace. For the NPEU campaign, articles and op-eds about NPEU were featured in The Washington Post, The Hill, Bloomberg BNA and the Metro Washington Council’s Union City newsletter. Each time there was a mention leads ticked up. Actively engaging the media about unions and earning press hits should be part of any campaign focused on generating organizing leads.
During the campaign one of the leads received by NPEU turned into a new unit that was voluntarily recognized. Many of the over 60 organizing leads resulted in ongoing conversations with potential members. NPEU and DPE agreed the campaign was a success.
The results show that generating organizing leads from nonunion professionals interested in forming a union is possible using a tailored approach combined with a diverse communications effort. DPE continues to work with its affiliate unions to devise and deploy creative methods to make their unions accessible and reach potential members with a positive union message.
This blog was published by the AFL-CIO on October 19, 2018. Reprinted with permission.
