What The Election Taught Us About Marketing

By Author: Wildfire Marketing Group Content Distribution Team
Total Articles: 49
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Regardless of which candidate you voted for in this election, today it has become obvious that as a country, we have come a hell of a long way from where we were thirty or forty years ago. As an American, you should be incredibly proud of our collective progress.

The campaigns that we saw during this election cycle have validated a lot of what those of us in the marketing field have know for a long time. They have also outlined a pretty clear blueprint for any business owner who is serious about building a solid marketing foundation. So if you're ready to take your company to the next level you should follow the steps that made the Obama campaign successful.

Branding can mean the difference between success and failure

Effective branding is the foundation of all marketing efforts. Branding determines how your message is conveyed. It is the image of who you are and helps people to quickly decide if they related to you or oppose you. This polarity is important. A powerful brand can make people feel like they belong to a particular community, ideology or movement. When people feel that they are a part of something, ...
... they become extremely passionate about it. Look at the United States Marine Corp, PETA or Tampa Bay Buccaneer fans and you can see that their believers share an almost blinding commitment and personal pride in belonging. They talk about their beliefs at every chance, try to recruit others and remain committed through the good and the bad times. Barrack Obama built this type of brand. John McCain didn't. Obama's supporters were energized, active and outspoken, while McCain's were only moderately engaged. Seth Godin makes a very valid point that Motivating the committed outperforms persuading the uncommitted.

Exposure builds more exposure

Despite showing a significant lead in the polls leading to the election, Obama continued wave after wave of advertising across a variety of mediums, sometimes outspending McCain seven to one. As the election got closer and the lead got smaller, Obama increased the frequency of his advertising.

Most businesses take a different approach and seem to look for every reason to reduce their advertising. When business is going great, they often assume that everyone knows about them so they don't need to advertise. When business slows down, they try to reduce expenses by reducing advertising and often justify their decision by saying they'll increase advertising when business picks back up. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. The more exposure you have, the more that you're going to get. There are an infinite number of views on any given story, and the more people that are exposed to that story, the more that will opine, and the cycle continues. Use every opportunity you can to create more exposure, such as traditional media, write-ups by bloggers, press releases and event participation, then leverage that into more exposure.

Form sometimes has a greater impact than function

Charisma works, plain and simple. No one has ever accused George Bush of being a genius, despite having some impressive scholastic achievements. This is because of how poorly he communicates. Obama, on the other hand seems to a comparable, or maybe even more proficient orator than Bill Clinton. Regardless of what he is saying, the pattern, tempo and intonation of his speech often makes it more compelling to most people, including those that disagree with him.

The same principles apply to your marketing. Don't think for a second that your prospects will look at your poorly designed website and understand (or even believe) that you're more concerned with taking care of your customers than improving your website. They won't. Instead, they will think that you are a bottom rate company that can't afford to invest in a professional website designer. They know that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of companies with the same level of skill as yours that also present themselves effectively, so they won't take the chance. Ensure that all of your marketing materials help you to communicate in a clear, powerful manner and your prospects trust in your company will increase dramatically.

Never underestimate your competition

The lead in the polls that Obama enjoyed through much of his campaign didn't give him a reason to become complacent because he knew that McCain was a worthy and competent opponent with a history of coming back from the bottom.

In business, we sometimes achieve a certain level of success and then forget how we got there. We begin to ignore our competitors, thinking that they could never reach, let alone, surpass our position in the market. IBM thought this once. So did Yahoo. It didn't work out so well for either of them as Microsoft and Google quickly took over their former positions as leaders in their respective industries. The same thing can happen to you. Take what ever you've done to get where you are and keep doing it. Better yet, increase it a little more each month. Just because you're in the lead today doesn't mean you will be tomorrow unless you keep working just as hard at it.
If you want your business to grow like wildfire, contact Wildfire Marketing Group today. We offer a full range of marketing services, such as website design, graphic design, search engine optimization and much more.