10 TIPS TO MAKE THE MOST OF TELEPHONE TOWN HALLS

A Telephone Town Hall is a major event and often a turning point for a client. You can take steps to boost your event's effectiveness and make lasting connections with your target audience. Consider these ten tips from the Town Hall experts.

1. Know when to hold and when to fold – It's human nature. People mostly remember the beginning and end of an event. Don't let the Town Hall drag on and reduce the effectiveness.

2. Avoid the "tune out" – One voice heard over a long period of time is boring. And your participants may tune out – so shake it up. Bring your constituents in on the conversation. Be ready with your own multiple speakers – possibly your candidate and a moderator. No one person should talk for more than five minutes at a time.

3. Add more screeners – It's worth the effort to find more people to screen calls. More screeners allow you to get more questions in the queue faster. Net result? Better conversations, more great questions answered – and more valuable data captured, like email addresses, for future interaction.

4. All politics is local – and screeners, too – This Town Hall is in your town, so you want the screeners to know where Broad Street is and to understand the local flavor.

5. Make connections – Seniors will want to know when their social security check is coming. Others on the call may have specific questions for their member of congress. Follow up after the call. Help them get the help they need. The personal effort will pay dividends.

6. Poll the audience – In a focus group, you reach a few dozen folks. In a Telephone Town Hall, you can reach thousands – and up. Use it to your advantage. Poll the participants. With the extensive data you collect, you have pinpoint information about what matters most to each participant.

7. Everyone in the same room – If possible, have everyone speaking in the same room. It makes the entire event go more smoothly. People can pick up on body language and feed off each other. When it's practical to be in one room, you'll appreciate the edge it gives to your event.

8. Caller ID number matters – You get two calls at home: one from a local number and one from an 800 number that looks like a telemarketer. Which will you pick up? When possible, get a local caller ID number and watch your participation numbers go up.

9. Follow up – After your Telephone Town Hall, you will have an abundance of valuable data. Use this treasure trove of information. Follow up by thanking people for participating, ask active participants to host a house party, ask for volunteers and donations. Make the most of your new connections.

10. Call. Learn. Repeat – Don't let this Telephone Town Hall be a one time experience. People enjoy these events. They want more. It's a win-win situation.

15 WAYS TO IMPROVE PATCH THROUGH CALLS

1. Scripting that makes it clear to the person who was called that the next person they will be talking to will be a staff member in the targeted office

2. Doing patches in bursts to get the call picked up by key staffers deeper in the office

3. Asking for specific staffers by name to make sure the message is not just a hashmark on a pad of paper at the front desk but rather gets delivered to potential decision-makers

4. Doing patches to politicians underneath the target.

5. Doing patches to the district office for state offices where they are not as use to getting patched calls

6. Recording voters in their own words telling the targeted elected how they feel.

7. Deliver the recordings of actual voters via Mail Pow.

8. Deliver the recordings of actual voters via a Google mash up website.

9. Deliver the recordings of actual voters on a CD-ROM presented to elected officials.

10. Target those who are known to take action such as women and older voters when setting up the patch the program.

11. Following the politician home by doing patches when they are in their district or state offices.

12. Calling and doing patches well before the issue comes up. Basically congressional offices expect patched through calls when an issue is on the floor but they will pay a lot more attention if you do patches months or weeks before that issues may be coming up. Basically what happens is an office assigns a staffer to issues that seems to be coming out of nowhere.

13. Doing automated call patch-throughs to up the volume of calls going into an office.

14. Using a dedicated toll-free line that has the organization's message on it where constituents are driven via e-mail, auto calls, live calls, Facebook and banner ads. Once a voter calls into this line they are able to select either their legislator or one of the organizations targets to talk to.

15. Recording voters who call into a toll-free line and selecting the best of those recordings to drop on the office voicemail. At any organizations leadership, donors and lobbyists e-mail the best recordings to their contacts in target office.