Why is everyone running phone advocacy campaigns right now, and how to adopt this tactic effectively? 

The Definitive Guide to Call Campaigns 

As you may have seen, many groups have been running campaigns to get their supporters to call their representatives in Congress. 

See Color Of Change pushing back against tax cuts for billionaires. Or BendTheArc pushing back against oligarchy, SOS Arizona pushing back against education privatization, and the list goes on. 

Why are we seeing an uptick in call campaigns? Because this is a tactic that can work!

Studies have shown that politicians and decision-makers take phone calls from constituents seriously.

According to research from the Congressional Management Foundation, a single phone call from a constituent is more impactful than dozens of emails. Senior political staff receive daily reports on the top three topics. Data includes call volumes and zip codes.

This applies to the Trump 2.0 era as well. Calls to Congress have been established as a factor in Trump's backdown on (at least some) government funding cuts.

Trump may be actively disempowering Congress but constituent engagement done right can still impact legislation and the activity of the Whitehouse.  Trump's overreach gave campaigners a playbook there.  

It’s not just Democrat-aligned or progressive organizations that use these tactics. Republican callers typically outnumber Democrats 4-1 (up to 11-1 on key issues). Steve Bannon’s war room and others on the right consistently use this tactic because it works. 

And call campaigns are even more effective at the state and local level and in other countries. 

The effectiveness of these call campaigns depends greatly on how this tactic is deployed. Here are some dos and don'ts for your next campaign.

✅Do: Use a patch through the call service. 

⛔Don’t: Use a service that lists a rep's phone number or, worse, links to a resource where a supporter has to find it.   

Why? 

• Listing a phone number doesn’t work for mobile and some tablet users = which is bad for conversion rates and disempowering. 
• Listing a phone number means you cannot access key data on the number of people to make calls, call length, who spoke to a rep, etc.. 
• Listing a phone number means you cannot provide voice instructions to your supporters before connecting the call. 
• Linking to an external resource is even worse for conversion rates and tracking. This work is too important to do that. 

*Pro-tip: Also make sure the call is initiated in one step. A significant number of people will not complete the action if you make them take multiple steps to connect with their reps. 

✅Do: Generally, call local offices rather than the central DC switchboard or other centralized legislative phone systems. This is especially important during spikes of call activity, when the centralized call systems may stop functioning.

Why? 

Local offices tend not to see the heavy spikes in volume and are less likely to send calls directly to voicemail.  New/Mode’s system defaults to local rep offices.

✅Do: Make your content personal and be clear about your position. 

With New/Mode and other services, you can provide voice instructions to your supporters before a call is made on the screen and phone, which encourages this approach. 

In short, if you deploy call campaigns right, they’ll be more engaging and impactful and help you build relationships and power for the long term.  This power-building work is essential for all modern campaigns at this point. 

Final Thoughts

In a time when political engagement is more critical than ever, tools like Click-to-Call empower citizens to take action. By making it easier to connect with representatives and providing structured support for callers, this technology strengthens democracy by ensuring more voices are heard. 

Like Letters to the Editor campaigns (like this one), call campaigns are an antidote to the rise in fake or symbolic advocacy tactics. They can rebuild trust and help you develop genuine relationships. 

If you’ve hesitated to call your representative in the past, now is the time to take advantage of free resources that make the process easier. You can try out New/Mode's Call tool for free here.  Your voice matters—make it count.