Unless you’re living in a cave, you know that 2020 is a presidential election year for the United States. While the big day is still months away, candidates have been campaigning since early 2019. These campaigns require a tremendous amount of planning and support to maintain momentum and break through the onslaught of competing political messaging to be successful. While there are key differences between political campaigns and marketing campaigns, the strategy that goes into politics can help professional services firms reap greater results from their marketing efforts.
Research: Political strategists know you can’t win a fight if you come in swinging blindly. Similarly, firm marketing campaigns do not have much chance for success without putting some effort into understanding factors that can influence success. For example, if a political candidate doesn’t understand the interests of the audience they are trying to reach, how can they couch their platform in a way that resonates with that audience? After all, what appeals to a small town of steelworkers might not apply to an urban-based, white-collar voter base.
Know Your Competition: Politicians are trying to win votes. Professional services firms are trying to win business. These two desired outcomes are not that dissimilar. To compete effectively, you have to know what competitors are putting out into the marketplace — whether that be the consumer marketplace or the marketplace of ideas. For firms, understanding the values, brands, core competencies and key differentiators of your competition can help you develop more-effective messaging and capitalize on what sets you apart to win new business.
Set Goals: Political goals are all about numbers. How many voters are in a particular district, and how many votes do you need in that district to tip the scales in your favor? While marketing campaigns are necessarily trying to win a particular majority, their success is aided by setting quantifiable goals. From the outset, create reasonable expectations for your campaign, define conversions, set key performance indicators, and develop a way to track and evaluate progress.
Targeting and Messaging: If you’ve done your research and know your audience, then you have the prerequisites for effective targeting and messaging. That’s because targeting is all about how to reach your audience, and messaging is all about how to resonate with your audience to inspire action. For example, if you know you are trying to reach a younger demographic that receives most of their information from social media, then you know your marketing campaign will probably need a social media marketing strategy. For messaging, you need to understand the values, motivators and challenges of your audience. By leveraging this information, you can develop key messages that speak deeply to your audience and inspire them to take the next desired step.
How Can Jaffe Help You with Marketing Campaigns?
For a marketing campaign to be successful, you have to ensure you’ve got the skills and the strategies in place to pull it off. Jaffe provides professional services firms with the combined expertise of creative and digital marketers, business development consultants, and publicists. Our integrated marketing approach ensures that your campaign will be consistent and effective across all platforms. We make sure to do what is necessary to achieve success, and that includes conducting thorough market research to ensure you know the channels and messaging you need to use to reach your desired audience. Once we have an agreed-upon game plan, we execute it for you. We then evaluate activities to track progress and inform strategy throughout the life of the campaign.
If you’re interested in learning how Jaffe can work with you to plan and launch a marketing campaign, contact Terry M. Isner, CEO/Owner, Marketing & Branding, at tisner@jaffepr.com.