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In the complex and dynamic arena of public policy, driving meaningful change requires a mix of strategic planning and the right advocacy tools. Not only must today’s lobbyists and political consultants stay up to date on the latest news and reporting across legislative developments, but they also need to manage a diverse array of stakeholders as they build relationships and fine-tune their engagement efforts.

Without a reliable source of empowering tools and non-partisan news to help them understand, track, and craft a winning strategy, government relations professionals face countless difficulties in their advocacy efforts. So, what’s the solution?

POLITICO Pro delivers everything you need to influence public policy and build and maintain a strong relationship with stakeholders — from comprehensive, non-partisan coverage across 22 major policy areas, to bill tracking and stakeholder management features that help you leverage deep insight and connections to support your cause. Combined with a strategic approach to advocate for campaigns, Pro can help propel public affairs efforts, providing you with the inside scoop as it unfolds.

To help you make the most of our Pro platform, let’s look at what it takes to develop a successful advocacy strategy.

Crucial Elements of a Successful Advocacy Plan

No matter what your policy goal is, it’s easy to lose sight of the objective without a clear plan in place. But what exactly does an advocacy plan entail?

Here are six tactics to help you tackle your advocacy efforts:

1. Establish a Clear Objective

Advocacy work can often be like a loose thread — the more you pull, the more the initial problem unravels into other issues. That’s why it’s essential to start with a clear policy objective from the get-go. Whether you plan to forge a stronger relationship with legislators or advise clients on how to shape messaging on key issues, the end goal must be clear and concise.

POLITICO Pro enables government affairs professionals and political consultants to develop these goals by providing them with in-depth policy analysis on the key issues relevant to them. Leveraging our platform, they can anticipate legislative and regulatory changes and advocate for policy changes to help their organizations operate more successfully.

2. Identify, Track and Engage with Stakeholders

The next step in advocacy planning is to determine the key stakeholders, from legislators and other elected officials to regulators and staff members. Understanding this narrow audience selection and what drives them will be vital in developing a strong base of allies who can help effect change.

With tools like our Directories and Stakeholder Analysis, the Pro platform provides a comprehensive understanding of political affiliations, legislative priorities, analysis, and more, enabling lobbyists and political consultants to map out and pinpoint the most receptive audience for their advocacy campaigns.

3. Research and Gather Data

In addition to researching your target audience, developing an advocacy campaign will require comprehensive insight into relevant legislative changes. Government relations professionals will need a thorough understanding of the topic from all perspectives, including historical context, remarks from members of Congress, and real-time analysis.

POLITICO Pro empowers lobbyists, consultants and other professionals to dive deep into the legislative landscape through various tools — from Legislative Compass and Dialogue Tracking to premium features like DataPoint and Pro Bill Analysis. Track policy trends as they emerge with comprehensive data from a single platform, so you can anticipate and act upon changes that will impact your policy goals.

4. Network and Build Support

All the research and information in the world won’t enact change in and of itself. Instead, those in government relations must emphasize the relations part of the job. Finding common ground with policy influencers has the power to truly advance your advocacy work, and Pro is here to help.

The Stakeholder Management and Analysis features provide a comprehensive suite of tools to help you connect with policymakers, track outreach and engagement, and strategically expand your network. At the same time, collaboration tools allow you to work in tandem with your team to achieve your policy goals.

5. Measure Engagement and Adjust Your Approach

As your advocacy campaign progresses, it will be critical to track engagement to refine your advocacy strategy. POLITICO Pro’s Stakeholder Management tool offers detailed reporting on interactions with policymakers and offices, including email metrics for all communications sent through the platform. This allows for a clear understanding of your impact and engagement levels to help you adjust your approach based on concrete data.

At the same time, Pro’s Stakeholder Analysis feature provides an easy and convenient way to map out the most relevant congressional stakeholders for your advocacy efforts, ensuring your campaign is targeted and strategic.

6. Stay Organized and Up-to-Date on Policy Changes

So much can happen throughout an advocacy campaign that it can be hard to keep up with what’s important. Staying informed on the latest policy shifts is essential, and Pro is your ultimate ally.

Not only does Pro deliver real-time, comprehensive, non-partisan coverage of the latest policy insights and analyses, but you also get tailored alerts to monitor only what’s relevant. With a user-friendly interface, Pro enables easy access to pertinent news and information, empowering you to stay organized and on top of emerging stories as you adapt your strategy.

Additionally, Pro’s Projects feature helps your team stay organized and work efficiently together, allowing you to access all your content in one place to keep your team aligned as you work toward your policy goals.

Power Your Advocacy Strategies With POLITICO Pro

POLITICO Pro delivers a competitive advantage for government relations professionals seeking to drive impactful policy changes. From real-time analysis and insights across 22 policy areas to powerful tools for stakeholder management, collaboration, bill tracking, and more, Pro has everything you need to shape the future you’d like to see.

Request a demo today.

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POLITICO Pro is constantly looking to bring policy professionals the resources they need to identify a network of influencers, find Congressional champions and engage stakeholders on key issues. To help professionals in these areas, Pro recently launched its new Stakeholder Analysis feature for Premium subscribers.

Pro’s first Premium feature, Stakeholder Analysis, is an integral component of the Stakeholder Management solution suite. The new tool lets users identify a network of policy champions in Congress who are actively engaged with key issues, execute strategic stakeholder management, and outreach more efficiently.

Here’s a quick look at the details of the Stakeholder Analysis tool and how it can help policy professionals with engagement strategies.

What is Stakeholder Analysis and how does it work?

Stakeholder Analysis is a Premium feature integrated with Pro’s Stakeholder Management solutions suite. It helps users to strategically identify, track and engage with Congressional influencers that are most active on the issues important to them. Stakeholder Analysis allows users to identify and map a network of policy companions using a unique scoring system that takes into account members’ engagement on key policy issues.

With Stakeholder Analysis, policy professionals gain critical insight for stakeholder management analysis and decision-making. When used alongside other Pro features in the comprehensive Stakeholder Management suite, Stakeholder Analysis can help Premium users succeed in their stakeholder engagement and issues management goals. Users can strategically find more allies in Congress, identify and map stakeholders and enable the relationships needed for policy success.

Cutting-edge functionality enables pinpoint ability on engaged stakeholders

The core of Stakeholder Analysis has innovative functionality that allows users to identify, track and manage stakeholders more quickly and accurately.

With Stakeholder Analysis, policy professionals can easily search for topics of interest and see which members of Congress are most engaged and active on those issues. Useful for stakeholder research and evaluation, this data is further classified by POLITICO Pro’s proprietary “Activity Score” feature, which details how active members of Congress are on that topic.

The three main components that determine an Activity Score are:

  • Effectiveness: Tracks the progress of legislation sponsored or cosponsored by a member of Congress related to the issue, such as milestones like passing the House of Representatives or Senate, presidential approval and becoming law
  • Volume: Quantifies a Congress member’s engagement with the issue by counting the number of related bills they’ve participated in, such as sponsoring or cosponsoring them
  • Attention: Measures how much of the Congress member’s attention is focused on that issue compared to others

In addition, users can view “Deep Dive Pages” on a Congressional member’s engagement with a particular topic. These pages will offer further insights and data, including how their Activity Score has changed over time, the members with the highest Activity Scores for certain issues, roll call votes and more.

Finally, users can create and manage “Champion Groups” of members that can categorize them as a “promoter”, “neutral”, or “detractor” on the key issues they’re tracking. This allows for simplified and more effective outreach to allies and stakeholder mapping.

Optimize your outreach and stakeholder management strategy

Stakeholder Analysis, combined with other tools in the Stakeholder Management solutions suite, offers a much simpler, faster and more effective way to identify Congressional influencers and achieve policy goals. Policy professionals looking to optimize their stakeholder outreach and issues management strategy can easily leverage it with other Pro tools to find and engage the Congressional policy champions they need to influence positive change.

Want to see more from POLITICO Pro? Visit the features section for an overview of how POLITICO Pro is your all-inclusive policy platform or request a demo today.

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POLITICO Pro’s subscription plans allow you the flexibility to customize your content feed base on Policy Areas. You have complete control over what is delivered to your inboxes daily and the option to change your Policy Areas at any time.

What Are Policy Areas?

As a Pro account holder, you have a number of Policy Areas based on the subscription plan you’ve chosen. A Policy Area activates the content that will be delivered to your inbox. Pro Tip: Your POLITICO Pro account comes with all-inclusive access to all 22 Policy Areas through the Pro platform. Simply put, this means you can read all the Pro news articles when logged on to the Pro platform.

The first step to gain the most out of your Pro subscription is to adjust your account settings to ensure you will receive all the intel you need and nothing you don’t.

Get started by logging into the Account Settings page. Follow three easy steps to select Policy Areas, newsletters, and other alerts. Pro content alerts are highly customizable and can be tailored to your specific policy niche.

STEP 1: Select Policy Areas

You can have a maximum of 22 Policy Areas to turn on 22 areas of coverage. The number of Policy Areas you have is based on you subscription plan. Click on the Policy Areas listed on the page to create your perfect mix of topics. Policy Area selections determine the newsletters, breaking news alerts, and other content that are available to be delivered to your inbox. Please contact your account manager or send a message to ProServices@politicopro.com if you want to add more Policy Ares to your account.

 

You can return to this settings page at any time to change your Policy Area selections.

STEP 2: Manage Pro Newsletters

The next step is to choose the Pro newsletters, reports, and alerts available for your selected Policy Area. The newsletters and news alerts will be delivered to your inbox daily and can be turned off and on based on work needs and personal preference. When you add additional Policy Areas to your subscription plan and turn on more Policy Areas, you will unlock the newsletters and news alerts associated with those policy focuses.

How to Customize Your Pro Account Using Policy Areas: 3 Simple Steps

STEP 3: Customize Pro News Alerts

Want to follow specific topics? The last step allows you to tailor news alerts for niche topics using custom keywords, combining subjects, or following certain people, organizations, or committees. Notifications for new content matching your defined criteria will be delivered to your inbox and surface on your Pro Homepage Dashboard in real time. Subscribers can watch this video for step-by-step instructions on how to create precisely specified Pro news alerts.

How to Customize Your Pro Account Using Policy Areas: 3 Simple Steps

POLITICO Pro is an all-inclusive policy solution that provides in-depth and specialized content on various policy areas for government affairs professionals, policymakers, and stakeholders who require detailed insights and exclusive information. Subscribers to Pro gain access to comprehensive policy coverage, newsletters, analysis, and a suite of policy advocacy resources. Explore POLITICO Pro’s plans or request for a personalized demo to see how POLITICO Pro can help you impact real change.

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At a time when politics and policy news have a ubiquitous presence, many government relations professionals struggle to maintain a steady source of pertinent news with actionable insights. A reliable, comprehensive policy management platform could give you the edge for policy success. However, certain criteria for information, tools and resources determine the usefulness of a policy management platform for busy policy professionals.

Things to watch out for when evaluating policy management platforms:

  • Poor information flow – Too much information all at once could make comprehending and organizing data and facts difficult.
  • Cumbersome User Interface – Don’t work for the platform, let the platform work for you.
  • Shallow Coverage – Don’t scrape the surface with information when you could have in-depth coverage.

The benefits of an all-inclusive policy management platform

We’ll explain the benefits of moving to a policy management platform that is designed for public policy work that comes with high-quality policy coverage, legislative analysis and actionable insights. Utilize a policy management platform that does the hard work for you, so you can push your policy goals forward.

A centralized place for your policy intelligence

A streamlined user experience is crucial for a platform that presents information for on-the-go policy professionals. A user-friendly platform with powerful features lets you access essential information and gain valuable insights for crafting effective policy strategies. Track Congressional session status, access hearing transcripts, see what was said during a floor debate, find analysis on emerging topics, and download data visualizations that provide an accessible way to understand complex data through one platform for a seamless information gathering and sharing experience.

Customize your information flow so you will get the right information at the right time. A well-designed platform has a well-designed taxonomy to allow you to find relevant information easily using keywords. You should also able to personalize your content feed based on policy areas, legislative and regulatory movements, or other criteria. Some platforms give you the choice on how you like to receive your information whether it is via email, on-platform alerts or a combination of both. Also consider a web-based policy intelligence platform which allows you to retrieve data and share information with your team anywhere on any device with internet connection.

Save your time and resources

Information is power. Having accurate, non-partisan reporting from expert field reporters in policy areas such as, health care, energy, technology, and state legislature including California, New York and more allows for a greater breadth of view into the future of legislation and regulations across the nation.

A customizable policy management system should permit users to save searches, set keyword alerts, choose the exact type of information they want, and the format the information comes in. The capability to include integrated tools to manage projects, engage stakeholders, collaborate efficiently and keep tabs on any changes or updates that may happen over the course of time helps build practicality for using the platform and its features. In the event that you need to download or upload your own data in or out of the platform, a flexible system would allow you to do it with ease.

Dive deep into policy implications

Depth and breadth of coverage are the main considerations when selecting a policy management platform. A well-designed platform needs to be fueled by dedicated field reporters that deliver original reporting and a deep dive into the analysis of today’s pressing topics. Reporting that simply informs you on the current news does not help with your efforts to stay ahead of policy movements.

Seek a policy platform that relies on experts that can provide you elite access of powerful, exclusive analytics and visual insights to help you process new information quickly and make impactful decisions. Share points of data with colleagues, supporters, and policy influencers to support your policy positions. Organize it all on an intuitive platform that allows you to quickly capture your immediate needs. Policy platforms with expert reporters that equip you with greater insights create a higher quality user experience, which allows you to sharpen your policy strategy.

Ultimately, policy professionals need a platform that offers information in a rich, concise and structured format. Use your time and resources on dynamics that are most important to you, while having access to in-depth information and data that crafts your policy decisions. Consider POLITICO Pro as your one-stop-shop for exclusive policy news, insights, and smart tools for you to be the leader in your policy arena.

What to Expect with POLITICO Pro

POLITICO Pro is designed to help policy professionals stay informed and ahead of policy moves.

  • Digestible information that you can customize to receive email alerts on specific topics, key words and people, organizations and Pro reporters
  • A suite of trackers that automatically tracks bills, rules and public commentary from congressional members
  • Our more than 300 expert reporters covering 22 policy areas
  • Over 500 articles are published every day and a library of more than 3,000 data visualizations to support the context
  • A fully integrated, web-based application that allows you to conduct policy work anywhere

Schedule a demo to uncover how POLITICO Pro can help you with your policy goals.

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We at POLITICO Pro always strive to bring policy and government relations professionals new, innovative tools to help you impact policy outcomes, find key allies and understand how policy changes affect you. Just one of these new features is our new Dialogue Tracker. Designed to aid in seamlessly tracking public conversations, Pro’s Dialogue Tracker is a crucial tool for any policy professional and is a part of a holistic issues management solution when combined with Pro’s other regulation and legislation monitoring capabilities.

Here’s a quick look at how it works and how leveraging it can help your team stay ahead of the policy curve.

Seamlessly track dialogue from the power players

The Dialogue Tracker tool is a new tracking feature for Pro that enables public conversation tracking.

Now subscribers can follow exactly what public officials are saying publicly about bills and rules on the floor of congress via congressional transcripts and member press releases, searching by keyword, as well as filtering them by member, state, committee and date for accuracy and easy access. From statements on critical policy debates to the latest congressional transcripts from key committee hearings, government relations professionals can quickly discover power players’ commentary and frequency on key policy proposals – all in one simple and time-saving platform.

This conversation monitoring feature lets policy professionals immediately know the position of elected officials and keep up with what policy makers are saying about critical bills and regulations through daily email alerting. In turn, this enables you to minimize risks, capitalize on opportunities, locate political allies and successfully navigate the increasingly complex policy landscape.

A holistic Policy management solution

Combined with the existing Legislative Compass and Regulatory Compass features, the policy monitoring features of the Dialogue Tracker creates a holistic issues management solution in a single location.

Using these tools, Pro subscribers can seamlessly uncover the policy data and trends that impact them. Policy professionals can track key bill and rule developments at both the federal and state level and research historical data to get the information they need quickly with the bill and rule tracking features, while the new Dialogue Tracker allows for fast and accurate conversation tracking, letting you know exactly what public officials are saying on the key issues.

Taken together, this suite of trackers, making it easy for government relations professionals to extract the data you need quickly and accurately, whether it’s a committee transcript, latest version of a key bill, proposed regulation or anything else in between. In addition, subscribers can also create alerts based on policy changes, share notes, customize dashboard views, set priorities and research supporting documents, making it simple for your team to collaborate and track fast-changing policy developments in real time.

Stay ahead of the policy curve

Pro’s Dialogue Tracker, combined with the Legislative Compass and Regulatory Compass features, offers policy professionals a comprehensive suite of policy monitoring tools at your disposal for planning, strategizing, messaging and more. When leveraged in unison, these trackers form a complete policy management solution all in one place, meaning Pro is your one-stop shop for public conversation tracking, legislation and regulatory monitoring and ultimately understanding everything related to public policy at the state and federal level.

Want to see more from POLITICO Pro? Visit the features section for an overview of how Pro is your all-inclusive policy platform or request a demo today.

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Now more than ever, public policy professionals need accurate, timely, and unbiased data at their fingertips. In addition to federal policy, this critical need extends to state coverage too. Given the vast impact that California policy and politics have on the national level, it is crucial to keep a pulse on what’s happening in Sacramento.

That’s why POLITICO Pro is expanding access to California data with innovative new features to keep you current on everything happening in the Golden State. Combined with Pro’s detailed and nonpartisan coverage, these tools help public policy professionals better navigate California’s political, legislative, and regulatory landscape.

Explore crucial dates with the California legislative calendar

One of the most useful tools for exploring California policy is the Pro Calendar feature, which offers users an at-a-glance view of important upcoming legislative events in the California state Senate and state Assembly. With the Pro Calendar, you can pinpoint when and where each session is taking place, and the policy areas being discussed as well.

With insight into these key dates, policy professionals can plan and implement strategies to impact policy decisions in the Golden State. The Pro Calendar helps you anticipate California policy changes to more effectively craft your messaging and reach out to allies and power players.

Uncover the power players in California politics with transcript access

Another critical tool for gaining deeper insight into California politics and policy is through transcripts of all major legislative committee hearings. Available through the Pro Calendar and Pro Documents, California Transcripts allow policy professionals to review exactly who said what in California state Senate and Assembly committee hearing rooms. Transcripts provide greater context and insight into the finer details of policy-making in Sacramento.

For policy professionals, this primary source of information offers unique insight into the context and stance power players of California politics have with their views on important legislation and regulation. In turn, this provides you a way to locate allies, anticipate policy changes, and strategize for upcoming sessions.

Empower yourself with the data behind California politics

These features are just some of the indispensable resources for policy professionals looking to stay current on California legislation, regulation, news, and political events.

POLITICO Pro offers additional resources for gathering data, insights, and information on California policy and politics. Subscribers can stay current with bill and rule tracking tools and receive custom email notifications tailored to exactly what they’re looking for.

We also anticipate the launch of the State Committee Directory on in the coming weeks, which will provide subscribers with important committee information for California and all other state legislatures, including leaders, members, and staffers. These features, together with Pro’s California legislative calendar and hearing transcripts, provide unprecedented access to policy-making process in the Golden State and keep you up to date on the latest events, news, and legislation in Sacramento.

Want to see more from POLITICO Pro? Visit the features section for an overview of how POLITICO Pro is your all-inclusive policy platform or request a demo today.

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As goes California, so goes the nation.

For decades, the Golden State has been a legislative and regulatory bellwether for the United States, being the catalyst for many prominent political movements over the years. Because of the importance of California politics on the national stage, POLITICO Pro and POLITICO.com are expanding their editorial footprint of the state’s politics and policy.

California policies have long influenced national conversations

For years, California has played a crucial role in shaping politics and policy across the United States, with the state serving as an incubator for ideas and policies that have gone on to impact the country at large.

The Golden State’s history of influencing national politics and starting trends goes back decades. For example, California is in many ways the birthplace of the modern environmentalism movement in the United States. In 1965, it became the first state to regulate motor vehicle emissions through setting limits on carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon. Shortly thereafter in 1967, the California Environmental Protection Agency enacted the first air quality standards in the country for sulfur dioxide, photochemical oxidants and various other pollutants. More recently, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 was the first state law in the United States to mandate a statewide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, laying the groundwork for climate change legislation at the state and federal level in the years since.

Elsewhere, California has been a trendsetter in many other political issues, such as the deregulation of cannabis, becoming the first state to allow medicinal marijuana following the passage of the Compassionate Use Act in 1996, as well as gay marriage, being the second after only Massachusetts to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples starting in 2008. Other areas where California has led the way politically include immigration, healthcare, criminal justice reform and more.

These are just a few examples of the state’s vast political reach. As California policy often becomes national policy, professionals need to pay close attention to what’s going on inside Sacramento.

Policy-focused coverage that offers unique insights

Fortunately, there is an easy way for policy professionals to stay abreast of what’s happening in the Golden State.

POLITICO Pro remains committed to delivering accurate and nonpartisan California political news in a timely manner. In a media landscape marked by increasing partisanship, shallow coverage and information overload, POLITICO Pro is the premier source for unbiased, impactful political coverage and analysis of important policy and political developments in Sacramento and across California.

As POLITICO’s subscription-based service, Pro is a crucial resource for helping policy professionals stay one step ahead on California policy and politics. It offers in-depth coverage that goes beyond just reporting on the basic facts or drama of political fights, providing detailed analysis and insights into actual legislation and its impact on Californians across the state and beyond.

An indispensable resource, Pro reporting caters to the needs of public policy professionals who need the inside scoop on all the key policy areas impacting the Golden State. With it, you can explore the intersection of federal and state education policy, discover in-depth coverage and analysis of state ballot initiatives, stay updated on health care policy, dive into the intricacies of California’s budgetary and fiscal issues, learn about labor regulation and legislation and uncover the latest news and detailed analysis for energy and environmental issues, including green energy, water rights and conservation.

Pro subscribers also have access to innovative policy tools such as custom email notifications, bill and rule trackers, stakeholder management solutions and government directories. With Pro, you can stay updated on the latest state legislative and regulatory movements, reach out to lawmakers and organize your team’s workflow through one integrated platform. To further help you make the most out of legislative opportunities in California, you can also access the California legislative calendar in the Pro Calendar, find committee transcripts in Documents, and search for elected officials’ contacts by committee through Pro Directories.

Designed specifically for policy professionals, these tools work in addition to POLITICO Pro’s timely and exclusive news coverage inside California’s politics, allowing you to track the latest news, events and legislation in Sacramento and access the insightful, nonpartisan California political news you need to stay ahead of the curve.

Want to see more from POLITICO Pro? Visit the features section for an overview of how POLITICO Pro is your all-inclusive policy platform or request a demo today.

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POLITICO provides accurate, nonpartisan, impactful information to the right people at the right time.

Since its launch in 2011, POLITICO Pro has evolved from a subscription news service built on POLITICO’s mission to a comprehensive policy intelligence platform. In addition to policy news, the Pro platform brings together in-depth analysis, data, stakeholder management, and tracking capabilities that empower professionals on the front lines of policy.

The Pro platform is packed with smart technology and intuitive tools, all supplemented by the best-in-class reporting from the POLITICO Pro newsroom.

So, what is the difference between POLITICO & POLITICO Pro?

POLITICO is available to everyone, whereas POLITICO Pro is a subscription-based service designed for professional use with expanded reporting, analysis, and access to a platform of policy tracking and advocacy tools.

POLITICO Pro has two levels of subscriptions, Pro Plus and Pro Premium. A subscription to Plus includes access to in-depth reporting across 22 coverage areas and an advanced technology platform that includes legislative and regulatory tracking tools, government directories, transcripts, outreach trackers and more.

Pro Premium includes everything in a Plus subscription in addition to a library of analyses and infographics outlining key policy and legislative issues as they develop. Both subscription levels allow you to organize your workflow on one seamless platform.

Pro’s technology is built specifically for the policy professional. We understand your challenges and have built a platform around your workflow. Pro gives you complete control of how to get your news and information. Customize news feeds and breaking news alerts by policy areas, niche topics, people, organizations and more. In addition, the platform gives you the tools to organize content, share notes with colleagues and create custom contact lists.

Who is the audience for POLITICO Pro?

POLITICO Pro caters to an array of policy professionals. Our subscribers include analysts and researchers who use our comprehensive regulatory and legislative trackers, consultants who rely on our customizable policy reporting and breaking news alerts and lobbyists who develop outreach strategies with Pro Directories and Stakeholder Management tools.

Who are POLITICO Pro journalists?

The more than 300 POLITICO Pro journalists are nonpartisan policy experts that deliver accurate, invaluable intelligence so subscribers have the information they need to make decisions. Pro stories are timely, to-the-point and focused on the facts.

What do POLITICO and POLITICO Pro have in common?

That’s simple. Reliable, actionable, nonpartisan journalism.

Want to see more from POLITICO Pro? Visit the features section for an overview of how Pro is your all-inclusive policy solution platform or request a demo today.
Content produced outside of the POLITICO Pro newsroom.

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Any type of consultant role affiliated with politics, including campaign strategists, public relation managers, and crisis management specialists embodies a multi-step process that stretches beyond identifying a problem and finding the means to amend it. With the right tools, political consultants can bridge the gap between problem and solution and build out everything in between in order to set the client up for success. Throughout the entirety of it, a consultant’s ability to build trust and create a long-lasting positive impact for the client comes down to a variety of skills and one platform.

Skills for a Consultant’s Success:

  • Analytical skills to identify arising issues and their impact for the client.
  • Problem solving skills to provide solutions to emerging challenges.
  • Leadership skills to step forward and create opportunities for change, including talking with Congress and committee members, and pitching client’s perspectives to decision makers.
  • Presentation skills to layout strategized plan in an organized and comprehensible way for stakeholders.

5 Pro Tips for Consultants

For optimum performance, consultants need these interpersonal and practical skills to build rapport with clients and key decision makers. POLITICO Pro is designed for policy professionals, such as consultants working in fast moving industries such as telecommunication, power technology, cybersecurity, and health care informatics, to utilize Pro’s information and resources and provide strategic guidance for their clients to stay ahead of policy. We’ll go over five tips for consultants to utilize Pro to their advantage.

1. Broaden Your Outreach

As a part of the dynamics in the business field, it is essential for consultants to build relationships with key decision makers on behalf of the client or develop effective outreach plans for their client. With POLITICO Pro’s Directories feature, consultants have the resources to contact state and federal Congressional members, committee and subcommittee members, agency members, as well as the respective staff for each group.

For example, consultants who are focused on energy technology could easily locate the contact information for staff members of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Technology to Market, who supports technology developments and commercialization efforts for energy storage and transportation programs. Reach out to key members of programs to discover how their efforts could align with your client’s goals and objectives. Utilize Pro’s Stakeholder Management, an integrated stakeholder engagement solution, for the outreach undertakings.

2. Track Relevant Legislations and Regulations
It can be overwhelming trying to weed through all of the new and updated legislations and regulations just to find the information that pertain to your field. Pro’s Legislative and Regulatory Trackers are designed in a way to filter through federal and state results based on your topics and timeline. For example, consultants looking into clean energy technology can create customized saved search with selected topics and set their preferences to receive alerts in their inbox when new actions have been taken to related bills. Or they can limit their search by committees such as the House Energy and Commerce Committee and specifically look at transcripts involving technology. Spend less time figuring out how to keep track of all the relevant bills and rules, and more time on cementing the strategy for your client’s mission.

3. Lead with Data
Using data in explanations is always encouraged, but the data is meaningless if the people absorbing the information do not understand the context. Pro Premium includes Pro Bill Analysis that communicates key factors and stakeholders involved in a bill, Pro Analysis summarizes an emerging topic, the power players and next steps, and DataPoint visualizes complex data in an impactful way. Pro Premium offers high-quality insight into the current status and issues we face, such as the bottleneck effect on the supply chain from the semiconductor shortage. Technology consultants who are looking to find information on where their clients could onshore outsourcing activities can view Pro Premium’s DataPoint, The State of Semiconductor Manufacturing in the US. Easily build a case for your client with visualized data that creates an overarching understanding on the current issue and how to move forward.

4. Interact with the Campaign Races Dashboard
Elections are important to keep track of because election outcomes could bring policy changes and widespread market implications. Pro’s Campaign Races Dashboard is an indispensable tool for consultants during midterm and presidential election years. Interact with maps that show every federal House and Senate race and highlight the most impactful ones. Easily track key races, explore race ratings, and view states with incumbent candidates. Watch races in battle ground states, pin important races for easy look up, and further analyze campaign financial data to better understand who is supporting particular candidates or issues and to what extent. Stay up to date on pivotal moments in the process of our democracy as they could impact your client’s vision.

5. Maximize Organization
Streamline your workflow and collaborate with colleagues by tracking relevant topics, bills, and rules that matter to your clients. Receive on-platform alerts for follow-up task assignments, past due items, and changes in Priority/Stance of the bills tracked in the Legislative and Regulatory Compass. Personalize your inbox intake by selecting the newsletters, roundup emails, and email alerts to meet your needs. Create customized Saved Search lists to get digest emails on new bills matching your topics.

Regardless of industry, POLITICO Pro provides a complete package for consultants to organize their work, present information, and make recommendations to clients in an easy to digest manner. Schedule a demo to see how Pro can help you work faster and smarter.