Clients in the advocacy tech space are becoming spoiled for choice with competition brewing between a startup backed by a mega consulting-public affairs firm (Speak4), established players (Capitol Canary and EveryAction) that continue to grow and some smaller dedicated service providers, including OneClickPolitics and New/Mode, that are looking to dominate their lanes.
Part of what has fueled the competition for vendors providing technology services was the pandemic, which halted most in-person interactions with lawmakers on the Hill and in state capitols across the country.
“I don’t see the death of in-person meetings or the death of direct lobbying by any means,” Chazz Clevinger, CEO of OneClickPolitics, told C&E. “But even as we return to in-person events and more of a sense of normalcy, I don’t see a massive return to Hill days necessarily. I think a lot of companies and associations and non-profits took those budgets and they shifted them into technology, or they pulled them back and are not going to be creating huge line items for those moving forward.”
At the same time that the pandemic has pushed advocacy clients toward technology use, there’s also been a growing concern for large companies around corporate social responsibility and a new approach to what’s called ESG (environmental, social, and governance).
“That’s opened the door for more funding going towards advocacy programs for companies and corporations that previously took a very soft approach in this space,” Clevinger said. “I think that’s one market that, as it grows, will provide even more blue ocean space for all the players in the industry.”
He added: “I see the entire space continuing to shift more heavily towards digital, both in terms of technology to manage Hill day events, technology to manage grassroots engagement and activity, but also just in terms of ad spending.”
Clevinger bills his company, which manages grassroots engagement and activity for clients, as
“half software as a service company and half consulting and advertising and data.” He believes his business model will be the most resilient as conglomeration waters down the big players’ connections with their clients and agency-backed startups encounter growing pains.
“Some players are focused on trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none, and trying to be everything to everyone. Others are trying to go after very specific sub-segments of the market,” he said. “There’s a lot of room in the space for different types of players, but [clients need to understand] who is best for you. I certainly know what my niches are.”
Clevinger said he’s seen agencies launch tech products before in the advocacy space, only for them to disappear from the market.
Leaders at Speak4, which is an offshoot of FP1 Strategies LLC and PLUS Communications, believe their startup model gives the company momentum.
“I think the market is ripe for a little more disruption,” said Speak4’s Joe Mansour told C&E in April after the firm’s official launch. “We’ve been incubated and supported by the team at PLUS Communications, and that’s given us the resources and support to scale this pretty quickly.”
Meanwhile, Steven Schneider, CEO of Capitol Canary, told C&E he isn’t concerned about the competition in the marketplace.
“I don’t actually think about competitors very much,” he said during a recent interview. “I think people get caught up with that a lot.
“I spend a lot of time thinking about the person that we’re serving and the problems that we need to solve. And I think if you spend 90 percent revenue on that, competitive problems tend to resolve themselves.”
Schneider said he’s also seen startups come and go. “In my previous role, I saw new startups emerge literally weekly,” he said. “It’s pretty easy to put up a website and do the basics, but true value comes from really understanding the customer’s pain and the customer’s needs and delivering a comprehensive solution that scales when it’s needed and has a deep bench of customer success to solve the problems that will come up.”
Capitol Canary, he noted, has 25 people on its customer service team: ”We have 10 years of experience doing this and, and it, it can’t be stood up overnight.”
