How to Nail a Microtargeted Research Comms Campaign

You can do this: It takes blood, sweat, email and a CRM

Bob Lalasz
Nov 7 · 4 min read

How can you engage exactly the grass-tops people you want talking about your ideas, expertise and new research?

Katy Napotnik of The Urban Institute reveals Urban’s blueprint for doing so in a Medium essay that every CEO, director and comms director at research-driven organizations should marinate in.

The goal: Get their forward-looking, racial-justice and equity-focused Next50 series into the hands of “key influencers, funders and policymakers.”

Sounds like Urban nailed it, according to Napotnik:

”Our Next50 stakeholder engagement campaign was one of the most successful outreach efforts undertaken by Urban’s communications team in recent years. We made dozens of new connections with federal, state, and local government officials, advocacy organizations, and nonprofits.”

How did they do it?

Key takeaways for me:

I get excited by this stuff, as you can tell. I think many if not all parts of Urban’s campaign are replicable by most research-driven organizations.


2.5 million research papers are published every year — so how are research-driven organizations breaking through the noise? Find out: subscribe to my weekday emails on research communications and authority content.

Science Plus Story

How research expertise becomes authority.

Bob Lalasz

Written by

Founder & CEO, Science+Story. Guiding research-driven organizations to become thought leaders.

Science Plus Story

How research expertise becomes authority.

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