Public Affairs Software Guide
Choosing the right advocacy tool to drive effective policy change
Public affairs professionals play a key role in shaping policy outcomes. Comprehensive public affairs software from Bloomberg Government can help these busy professionals track time-sensitive policy developments, communicate strategically with lawmakers, and confidently deliver targeted results to their stakeholders.
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To effectively represent various interests and policy goals and to drive influence in the halls of power today, public affairs professionals need to build strong working relationships with lawmakers, track the status of legislation, and stay current on political dynamics and important news. It’s a combination of multitasking and information overload that can easily become overwhelming.
Enter public affairs software, which can help these busy professionals navigate the complexities of public policy and execute winning advocacy strategies on behalf of their stakeholders. Use this guide to learn more about how a dedicated government affairs solution can integrate with your team’s workflow to help you deliver outstanding results.
[Download our Customer ROI Survey Findings to see how Bloomberg Government helps public affairs professionals save hours each week by streamlining their work.]
What is public affairs software?
In the fast-paced and high-stakes world of political influence, public affairs software can streamline and even automate some of the more tedious tasks and time-consuming aspects of the job, allowing professionals to focus on executing a winning strategy.
Public affairs professionals use software tools to:
- Keep up with relevant news and social media conversations
- Track complex legislative developments
- Manage relationships with policy makers
- Identify trending federal- and state-level issues to help drive their agendas and shape public opinion
- Coordinate advocacy and outreach efforts
Key features of public affairs software
Public affairs software is designed to empower professionals by simplifying the complexities of managing government relations and public policy efforts. These tools offer a suite of features tailored to address the unique needs of lobbyists, government affairs specialists, and advocates. From real-time legislative tracking to integrated collaboration tools, public affairs software provides users with the resources they need to stay informed, organized, and effective.
In this section, we’ll explore how these essential features enable public affairs professionals to navigate the fast-paced world of public policy.
Legislative tracking: Real-time updates on bills, regulations, and policies
Public and government affairs professionals must be in the know when it comes to policy developments. By staying ahead of the curve, they can proactively engage with stakeholders to help steer policy making in a way that aligns with their objectives, rather than reacting to decisions that are already set in motion.
Public affairs software tools can offer real-time tracking of proposed legislation and regulatory updates – so you never miss an important development or key milestone. With this feature, public affairs professionals can anticipate regulatory changes and risks, spot new opportunities, and have proactive conversations with elected officials to steer legislation in a way that aligns with their objectives.
Relationship management: Tools for organizing contacts and managing stakeholders
Building and maintaining strong working relationships with key stakeholders is at the heart of effective public affairs work. Public affairs software provides tools to manage contact information, track interactions and meetings, and categorize stakeholders based on their role or relevance.
Whether managing relationships with policy makers, advocates, or constituents, this feature can streamline engagement and strengthen connections. With centralized tracking of these stakeholder relationships and outreach activities, government affairs and advocacy teams can better coordinate engagement efforts and ensure consistent communication and campaign messaging.
Advocacy campaigns: Launching and monitoring digital engagement efforts
Grassroots advocacy campaigns are a powerful way to amplify your organization’s voice and drive policy outcomes. Public affairs software can simplify digital outreach efforts with tools to create, launch, and monitor the performance of cross-channel advocacy strategies with features such as:
- Email templates
- Social media monitoring and integration
- Petition and letter-writing tracking
These capabilities enable public affairs professionals to mobilize supporters and measure the effectiveness of their campaign in real time so they can ensure that advocacy initiatives are well-organized, impactful, and aligned with their overall policy strategy.
Analytics and reporting: Data-driven insights to measure impact and ROI
In today’s data-driven world, measuring the success of public affairs initiatives is essential. Advanced analytics and reporting tools can transform campaign data into actionable insights.
An important feature of public affairs software is the ability to track key performance indicators (KPIs), including:
- Earned media impressions
- Social media reach and engagement
- Email open rates and clicks
- Petition signatures
- Constituent outreach to elected officials
Customizable dashboards and automated reports make it easy to measure progress against campaign objectives, demonstrate ROI to clients and stakeholders, and adjust strategies as needed. The analytics features give professionals the intelligence they need to make informed decisions and showcase the value of their work.
Benefits: How public affairs software can help you gain strategic influence
Today’s public affairs professionals wear many hats: they serve as information brokers, relationship-builders, and strategists who must align their government affairs and advocacy efforts with broader organizational goals. This balancing act is becoming increasingly difficult to manage with the growing complexity of regulatory changes and increasing political volatility.
Public affairs professionals need tools that help them work smarter. The right public affairs software can provide a range of benefits that go beyond tracking tasks – it transforms how organizations approach government relations, advocacy, and their engagement strategies.
From saving time with automated workflows to making data-driven decisions with powerful analytics, these solutions empower professionals to drive change with greater efficiency and precision. Here are some of the key advantages of using public affairs software to elevate your strategy and grow your influence.
Automate manual tasks to improve efficiency
The demand on public affairs professionals to remain agile, informed, and effective has never been greater. These professionals are busier than ever and may be working on behalf of several clients across different regions and with varying priorities.
Public affairs software is designed to address these pressures and help teams be as efficient as possible. By automating time-intensive tasks such as tracking legislation or maintaining professional contact lists, busy public affairs professionals can more quickly carry out parts of their work that were once manual. And with space cleared on their calendars, they can spend more time focusing on building relationships with key decision-makers and elected officials.
For example, instead of calling congressional offices one by one to confirm current staff contacts, or spending hours piecing together records from various websites, public affairs professionals can confirm details about lawmakers and their staff with Bloomberg Government’s current, comprehensive state and federal legislative directories. Our directories are refreshed every 24 hours to make sure you’re always using the most accurate information to help you effectively advocate for and advance the issues that matter most to your clients.
These directories also help you level up your research and outreach efforts by providing further details, including committee membership, bill sponsorship, speech transcripts, and news items mentioning the member. Plus, the user-friendly interface and export options make it easy to flip through our digital directories and grab what you need in one place, hassle-free.
Data visualization and actionable insights for better decision-making
Time is of the essence with public affairs and outreach work. These busy professionals need to quickly and easily monitor specific legislation, identify the right opportunities, gather the appropriate contacts, and better understand how to engage at key moments to maximize their impact. As the volume and complexity of both state and federal legislation continues to grow, along with the rise of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, it’s become much harder for public affairs professionals to identify the most strategic opportunities and know where to focus to shape policy changes.
To gain better odds of successfully implementing their client’s policy objectives, public affairs professionals need to be able to pinpoint and track only the most relevant legislative activity with to-the-point data and actionable insights into complex policy issues. Public affairs software can help professionals filter through the noise and focus on the news and policy making activity they need to stay ahead, grow their influence, and confidently advocate for their clients.
Centralized tools for enhanced collaboration
Policy making can be unpredictable, but public affairs departments shouldn’t be. To deliver great value to their clients and organizations, advocacy teams need to operate like a well-oiled machine. Research, operations, management, and communication efforts must all be centralized and streamlined.
When fast-moving developments occur, public affairs software can help public affairs teams communicate effectively and optimize their work with real-time collaboration and file-sharing tools.
Gain a competitive edge
As cross-jurisdictional complexities intensify, it’s become more challenging to shape policy and seize new business opportunities for organizations or clients. In such a fast-moving policy landscape, public affairs software helps users stay ahead.
By leveraging Bloomberg Government’s legislative tracking tools, government affairs professionals can start meaningful conversations before policies solidify, anticipate regulatory changes and risks, and spot new opportunities for clients, such as taking advantage of new tax credits or incentives.
With more time back in their day, users can invest more time in building strong relationships and mapping out new business opportunities. Rather than focusing on just a single piece of legislation or reacting to the latest policy change, these professionals can work on multiyear planning for their organizations or clients.
How to choose the right public affairs software
When evaluating public affairs software for your team, there are certain key capabilities and considerations to keep in mind:
A user-friendly interface
A streamlined workflow is essential to efficiently driving progress. An intuitive interface and smart features can help teams collaborate on projects and communicate in one place, streamlining workflows across issues and overlapping timelines.
For example, instead of sending multiple emails or potentially misplacing key communication threads in an overflowing inbox, Bloomberg Government’s all-in-one solution helps public affairs teams turn order into chaos with real-time file-sharing and collaboration tools to gather feedback from stakeholders, track relationships and meetings with key policy makers, and easily share policy and strategy reports with your team.
Comprehensive policy tracking
Congressional turnover happens frequently, and legislation can move quickly at both the federal and state levels. The ideal government affairs software should offer current, comprehensive, and frequently updated policy news and analysis to help you stay ahead of the latest developments. This includes session timelines and congressional calendars to track committee meetings, markups, and other important legislative events in real time.
With modern features such as legislative heatmaps, bill summaries, and text comparisons, Bloomberg Government’s platform helps users quickly and easily spot differences between bill versions, compare legislation across legislative bodies, and visualize policy trends.
Integration with existing tools
Adopting new technologies and workflows can be disruptive, costly, and time-consuming. The right public affairs solution should reduce friction and deliver value while solving your most important challenges.
Rather than developing technology that will upend entire workflows, Bloomberg Government has focused on developing solutions that seamlessly integrate into existing processes and introduce efficiencies that add up to a user-empowered workstream with a low barrier to entry.
Robust customer support and training
You should look for a solution that offers seamless onboarding and dedicated support. Our dedicated account team goes beyond just tech support with in-depth product knowledge, training skills, and a willingness to go the extra mile to help you get the most value from your Bloomberg Government subscription. The minute you sign up with Bloomberg Government, you’ll immediately gain unlimited, 24/7 access to product experts who understand the needs of public affairs professionals in various roles as well as a library of video tutorials.
Why Bloomberg Government is the best choice to give you a competitive edge
To make informed policy and business decisions, public affairs professionals need trusted intelligence and resources. However, many platforms fail to provide unbiased, comprehensive news coverage or don’t deliver tangible benefits to a company’s clients or bottom line. Bloomberg Government’s tailored public affairs software provides everything that lobbyists and government affairs professionals need to influence better policy and grow their business.
Real-world impact
To better understand our platform’s real-world impact and return on investment for our customers, we surveyed senior directors, policy experts, and managers in the government affairs sector to learn how Bloomberg Government has helped them achieve measurable results.
[Download our Customer ROI Survey Findings to see how Bloomberg Government helps public affairs professionals save hours each week by streamlining their work.]
Using our platform, customers reported saving up to 12 hours per month monitoring legislative developments, finding contact information about key policy makers and their staffs, and gathering critical information to influence policy. Nearly everyone surveyed (97%) said their work has been positively influenced by the intelligence and features they get through their subscription. In fact, Bloomberg Government enabled almost all surveyed customers (95%) to complete their core responsibilities faster while equipping them with the tools and insights necessary to develop long-term strategies. This time savings could help users free up more time to devote to building strong relationships, map out long-term advocacy strategies, and work on multiyear planning.
Below, we dive deeper into these findings and how public affairs professionals say Bloomberg Government helps them gain strategic influence.
Access to comprehensive, real-time policy data
Instead of spending time searching various databases and publications, Bloomberg Government’s all-in-one platform offers customizable tracking tools and real-time alerts for news and updates related to federal or state legislation and policy areas, including legislative milestones, hearing transcripts, committee markups, and bill summaries. Plus, our state and federal congressional directories are updated daily with insider-only details about elected officials and staff, so you can stop spending hours looking through records to find what you need.
Elizabeth Duffy
Principal, Federal Affairs Office
Advanced analytics tailored to public affairs professionals
When your success depends on your ability to stay ahead of legislative activity, you can count on Bloomberg Government to have the tools you need to inform your strategy:
- Text comparison and heatmap tools help users gain a deep understanding of the detailed contents of proposed legislation and compare similar bills across states.
- Track scheduled committee meetings, markups, and other important events in real time with interactive calendar tools.
- Get a complete financial picture of proposed budget and appropriations activities with budget tables, CRS reports, and CBO cost estimates.
Domenic Boresta
Sr. Public Policy Analyst, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Trusted by industry leaders for accuracy and reliability
To stay ahead, public affairs professionals need quick and easy access to trusted data and intelligence across jurisdictions. Bloomberg Government offers access to breaking news and analysis from our own top-notch journalists as well as more than 35,000 other news sources, including international and local coverage. Plus, save time with simplified analysis of some of the most pressing policy issues and ready-to-use presentations that are ideal for keeping stakeholders updated on evolving policy issues.
Chase Burgess
Director of Government Relations, Bally’s Corporation
Our commitment to innovation
As technology continues to evolve, so does the public affairs landscape. Public affairs software will need to harness cutting-edge advancements such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and predictive analytics that make it even easier for professionals to stay ahead in an increasingly complex policy environment. With more than a decade of experience applying AI to government affairs data, we believe in serving our customers with unparalleled industry expertise alongside state-of-the-art technology. Our platform is built on technology that makes our vast collection of news – as well our directory, legislative, and regulatory intelligence – searchable, discoverable, and actionable.
Bloomberg Government leverages AI in four broad areas of our products to help process and organize the ever-increasing volume of information needed to work more quickly and efficiently:
Text comparison
Customers can easily run an instant comparison search of semantically similar content to identify key points to influence action or alignment from key legislators. Results are presented in an easy-to-skim exportable table, saving hours of reading through dense legislation across all 50 states.
Extraction
We use machine learning and natural language processing algorithms to read and accurately extract raw text from various official documents, including federal and state legislation.
Summarization
To help speed up your legislative research, our AI extracts the most important information from a large volume of documents to help you understand key themes and critical details. This way, users can focus on the most important aspects and key provisions of a bill without having to read the entire document.
Search
To help users more quickly pinpoint information and documents, our platform leverages a large language model to automatically select search filters based on keywords from their plain language query. This makes our content more discoverable and unlocks connections among millions of documents, leading users to useful information and insights they may not have otherwise found.
Transform your public affairs strategy with Bloomberg Government
Public affairs professionals operate in a complex and dynamic political environment where staying informed, organized, and proactive is essential for success. Public affairs software has become an indispensable tool for navigating the intricacies of government outreach, legislative tracking, and advocacy.
Bloomberg Government’s comprehensive platform offers the tools you need to make better connections with key decision-makers and advocates, more easily track and understand legislative changes, automate manual tasks to free up time to focus on more strategic work, and ultimately be better prepared to execute a winning public affairs strategy.
Ready to transform your public affairs strategy? Request a demo to discover how access to our unmatched real-time intelligence, powerful insights, and trusted expertise can help you achieve your strategic goals with clarity and confidence.