Advocating for your initiatives with Congress is like trying to get one person’s attention in a sold-out stadium of pushing, screaming, single-minded others. Unless you’re on stage, you’ll be fighting for any scrap of attention.
Ahead of a recess, like the one quickly coming up, is your prime opportunity to win votes and sway opinions on critical issues getting voted on this summer and later in the year. But with so many others seeing the same opportunity, how do you put your message center stage and get Congress to listen?
You use the right audience.
Before they created Tunnl, our founders spent decades building data-driven media strategies for public affairs and issue advocacy campaigns, discovering how to achieve targeted reach at scale. And now, Tunnl equips public affairs and issue advocacy advertisers with the issue-based audience insights they need to get their campaigns in front of the right people in the most efficient way possible.
We offer several prebuilt audiences to connect you with the voters influencing Congress on top-of-mind issues in the weeks ahead. They can be analyzed in our platform instantly, for free, and sent directly to ad platforms at the click of a button. With these audiences, your ad campaigns will be ready to go live in front of your target audience in time to make an impact in Congress.
Find Audiences for Your Issue Advocacy Campaigns
Tunnl Tip: U.S. Policy Opinion Makers (USPOPM) subscribers have access to our premium audience of policy influencers, including Congress and the Executive Branch, to target them directly for issue persuasion campaigns before a congressional vote.
Not a USPOPM subscriber? You can still reach decision-makers aligned with your policy initiatives using our issue influentials audiences, the Advanced Search feature in Tunnl Free, or the issue-based Audience Builder in Tunnl Plus to create precise policy audiences to target this summer.
How Can I Reach People Concerned About Medicare?
Proposals to reduce Medicare payments or change Medicare benefits are bouncing around Congress. It’s an issue relevant to some 65 million Americans who have Medicare coverage and millions more who may anticipate relying on the healthcare service in coming years. At the same time, the Health and Human Services budget and overall national spending are up for discussion as Congress barrels toward end-of-year deadlines.
There’s still time to target your message directly to voters and decision-makers who want to expand, scale back, or are persuadable on Medicare. Tunnl built a prebuilt audience that represents each camp:
- Anti Lowering the Medicare Age - Individuals who believe we should leave the Medicare coverage age as is at 65 because it would take millions of people off of private insurance, making the government responsible for their healthcare and cost taxpayers billions of dollars
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Lower the Medicare Age Persuadables - Individuals who are receptive to messages both for and against lowering the Medicare coverage age to 60
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Pro Lowering the Medicare Age - Individuals who believe we should lower the Medicare coverage age to 60 because it will expand coverage, reducing the number of people who are uninsured, and will reduce the costs of healthcare
Though specific to changing the Medicare age, our clients have found these prebuilt audiences to be accurate stand-ins for other Medicare-related issues, as they are generally indicative of support for or against the program.
Click here to target these audiences with your Medicare campaigns.
How Can I Reach People Concerned About SNAP Benefits?
SNAP benefits make up 80% of the budget being argued on the Farm Bill this year, bringing a lot of attention to the food assistance program. Roughly 12% of the population receives SNAP benefits, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The demographic spread of SNAP recipients is vast, including low-income veterans, children, seniors, and racial minorities in every state.
But who are the advocates and opponents of the program?
Tunnl offers four prebuilt audiences that can help you reach them:
- Expand SNAP Benefits - Individuals who believe Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients should be able to spend their benefits on more than just groceries
- Increase government SNAP spend supporters - Individuals who think Congress should allocate more money to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the 2023 Farm Bill
- Increase government SNAP spend opponents - Individuals who think Congress should allocate less money to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the 2023 Farm Bill
- Increase government SNAP spend persuadables - Individuals who are persuadable on Congress allocating more money to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the 2023 Farm Bill
Click here to use these prebuilt audiences to reach voters about SNAP benefits.
How Can I Reach People Concerned About Social Security?
Social security has been under scrutiny for years, mostly over increases to payments, changes to the eligibility age, or through discussion of who should be taxed at what rate to sustain increased social security payouts. Yet the program's future has prompted anxiety among voters and created tension for taxpayers.
To reach social security audiences on every side of the issue, Tunnl offers these prebuilt audiences.
- Pro Protect Social Security - Individuals who believe we need to protect social security benefits for US seniors
- Anti-Protect Social Security - Individuals who do not believe we need to protect social security benefits for US seniors
- Protect Social Security Persuadables - Individuals who are persuadable on protecting social security benefits for US seniors
- Social Security and Medicare Funding Concerned - Individuals who are persuadable on protecting social security benefits for US seniors
Click here to reach persuadable voters with your social security campaigns using these audiences.
How Can I Reach People Concerned About the Debt Ceiling?
The House recently approved a Republican-backed plan to raise the government debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion, provided strict spending restrictions were accommodated. What will ultimately come of the House bill is uncertain, as the Senate needs to also take up a bill to raise the debt ceiling, and both chambers need to approve a measure before it goes to the president to be signed.
Doubtless, the debt ceiling has been high on the minds of informed citizens since January when the U.S. hit its current debt ceiling, prompting the Treasury Department to take “extraordinary measures” that are expected to run out sometime in June.
There are two distinct camps to address in this debate, and we’ve built audiences to help you reach both of them:
- Keep the Debt Ceiling - Individuals who believe Congress should not raise the debt ceiling
- Raise the Debt Ceiling - Individuals who believe Congress should raise the debt ceiling
To use Tunnl's debt ceiling audiences to mobilize voters, click here.
How Can I Reach People Concerned About the Farm Bill?
Votes on the farm bill could be slated for September before the reauthorization deadline of September 30, making this summer a critical time for constituents to cull favor for the bill’s myriad issues and initiatives. As we’ve mentioned, SNAP benefits account for the lion’s share of farm bill spending.
But energy and agriculture account for the rest, sparking debates across climate, the industrial food system, and how to fairly distribute funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. Even the mere definition of conservation has been called into question.
The scope of the farm bill is as vast as it is complex, but voters are ready to weigh in and see their stance represented in Congress. Reach them with these prebuilt audiences.
- Agriculture Influentials - Individuals who are high turnout voters, likely to follow agriculture-related news, and actively engage in agriculture-related issues in their community
- Pro All of the Above Energy Short Term Inflation Solution - Individuals who support an all-of-the-above energy solution to reduce inflation in the short term
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Pro Renewable Energy Long Term Inflation Solution - Individuals who support a renewable energy solution to protect the environment and reduce inflation in the long term
Tunnl Tip: You can find more energy and agriculture audiences, including groups related to plant-based meat consumption and energy tax favorability, by searching for relevant keywords with the Audience Explorer in the Tunnl platform. It’s on the very first page you see when you log in to your free Tunnl account.
To use Tunnl's agriculture and energy audiences in your campaigns, click here.
Watch How to Access and Analyze These Audiences in the Free Tier of the Tunnl Platform
Start Reaching Policy Audiences for Your Cause
The August recess is right around the corner, and Congress’ priority list will extend beyond it into the fall, leaving August as a prime time to influence members in their home districts. But the issues that are keeping Congress busy are the same issues that now, you have precision-level, issue-based audiences to address.
These prebuilt audiences are not your only option for reaching Congress through their constituents at this critical time, but they are a fast, accurate way to get your campaigns in front of influential people.
Because of how Tunnl collects data, builds audiences, and keeps them refreshed, you can count on each of these audiences to align with what voters, consumers, and policymakers believe right now. No stale data, out-of-date insights, or unreliable media mixes to throw off your campaigns; Just regularly-refreshed audience targeting to get your issues in front of the right people without wasting money on irrelevant reach.
To get even more from Tunnl’s free prebuilt audiences, use Advanced Search to build your own custom audiences based on unions, exclusions, and overlaps of your target issues and geographies. Level up your DIY custom audiences even more with a Tunnl Plus subscription and access to the Audience Builder that enables you to set demographic parameters, layer in audience interests, and hone in on specific geographic radiuses.
Any audience–built by Tunnl or built by you with Advanced Search or the Audience Builder–can be activated with the click of a button in the Tunnl platform, so your influence on Congress can start the moment you’re ready.
So, what are you waiting for? You have a future to shape.