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As mid-term elections near, campaign strategies offer valuable insights.
In this blog post we identify valuable marketing insights to be gleaned from the campaign trail.
With Mid-term elections just a few months away, the airwaves and social media are filled with messages speaking to issues that touch the heart-strings of many Americans. The candidates talk about current events, issues that are on the ballot, reasons why they need to be elected and how their opponent is unfit to effectively perform. But where do these deep insights into the hearts and minds of their constituents come from? You guessed it, “The Polls”.
Behind the scenes, market research firms are supporting political organizations, politicians’ campaigns and lobbying groups to do the very same thing corporations do…identify those hot buttons that will cause their clients and customers to act. In this case, though, what issues will drive the voters to vote.
So these politicians and other political organizations engage researchers to conduct telephone interviews and to facilitate focus groups in selected geographical areas. Millions of emails are sent with links to online surveys asking prospective voters to select who they will pick when they close the curtain and pull the lever in the voting booth this fall. Al this data is compiled and analyzed and then disseminated to the masses in packaged form.
From this data, the campaigns message is born and they touch on all the hot buttons impacting the country at this moment in history. Some are new. Some are old. Some come from the depts of hope and others from despair. In any event, a candidate finds a way to connect with a predetermined number of people who can get him or her elected to office.
There are some valuable lessons for marketers in this process:
1. Identifying and connecting with customers and driving buying behavior does not take a long time.
In many instances campaigns run a few short months. Through the use of strong market research, they are able to identify and target those people who are strongly aligned with their candidates and get them to act, to go vote.
2. Campaigns use their constituents to set their message.
If jobs are in and education is out, then the campaign’s message resonates this. If the majority of the constituents favor an issue, it will be incorporated into the candidate’s speech at the precise moment to make them feel heard. If there is a hot button that enrages or elates the voters, it will be pressed to convert emotion into buying behavior.
3. Campaigns employ laser-like alignment between their message and the voters. Laser-like means precise, strategically targeted and strong. A laser can cut through steel with its strength and power and so can a campaign message.
Political persuasion aside, campaign messages offer marketers some great insights into using highly specific and targeted market research to connect with prospective customers and form a message that stirs emotion and engages buying behavior.
What could happen if you engaged the same practices with the same intensity and passion in your marketing departments?
