Business seems slow for everyone. Politics in every sense of the word is the hold-up, as we wait for the election outcome.
Patience doesn’t have to equal inertia, though it is tempting in this hot weather.
The reality is that whoever wins the election, the new government will have a post-election pause. It won’t be until late September at the earliest that businesses and organisations can meaningfully interact with those in Whitehall.
If you want to influence the new government on behalf of your community, stakeholders, or industry, what is the best way to plan and prepare this Summer?
Here is a plan of action. While new MPs’ offices and staff laptops are sourced, logins and passwords sorted, and ministerial teams settle in, you can get ready to make an early impact when October rolls around, party conference season begins, and business as usual resumes.
Take this seriously: This is the time to bring together your best minds, develop your best strategic thinking, and create compelling content that evidences it. You want to end up with a ‘fish where the fishes are’ thought leadership plan that covers the rest of 2024. This might be a refined version, or you might need to start from scratch. Either way, get started.
Make ideas tangible: You need content ready to go at the start of September. You need materials that prompt conversations with different audiences at different points throughout September, October, and beyond. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Think about the best way to present your ideas and how to measure impact. Create a content plan. Know what your version of success looks like.
Test and refine: Don’t develop content in an echo chamber. Speak with trusted sources, stakeholders and partners, and experts. Get feedback, test, and iterate. Get people ready to support you publicly because your thought leadership content is so good.
Work with the media: When the content and advocates are in place, start speaking to the media. Take a slow boil approach, and work with a small number of journalists to craft different story angles that support your overall messaging. Don’t worry if coverage doesn’t land until late September/October. It’s about quality in the right media.
Get talking: Ideally, you want a drip feed of coverage running from September through October and November. This creates a lasting digital footprint of your thought leadership that others will notice and you can reference. You can use this to great effect during the October party conference season; securing closed conversations and media interviews on-site at the conferences and offsite afterward.
If all this seems a bit much when the sun is shining and England is fighting to stay in the Euros, remember something is always better than nothing.
In this process, we start clients off with a short, fun ideation session, drawing out their best ideas and talking points, which we research to source internal and external evidence and proof points. If there is more time (and appetite among senior leaders and experts), we host a half-day workshop or deliver a series of 1-2-1 interviews.
We mine your talent to unearth golden thought leadership nuggets that boost brand awareness, get conversations started, and increase your influence.
Will you be ready for the dawn of a new government? September comes around quickly and hopefully it’s not just tan lines that make you stand out.
If you would like to find out more about Allegory, please get in touch via bizdev@allegoryagency.co.uk
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