What Politicians Can Learn From Marketers

Another Presidential election is less than a year away. The Democrats are backing President Obama, since the incumbent is usually a safe bet. Unfortunately, this means an unusually large number of Republicans spent most of 2011 wrestling endlessly amongst themselves for the chance to take him on in 2012. I’m not sure if this is the longest pre-convention tussle ever, but it sure feels like it, and I for one am happy it’s beginning to wind down. Still, the wrestling continues.

As I watched the Republican debates from the point of view of a marketer, I realized that these politicians didn’t quite understand what it means to be a politician in the early twenty-first century. If they did, they would see that they have become products, not people, and today’s constituents are the media savvy, Internet-saturated potential customers they have to convince to “buy” them with their votes. 

Some in the Grand Old Party see the importance of spinning the debate by choosing their words carefully (see the article here).  However, NOT knowing the rules of marketing is one of the main reasons it took forever for the current crop of Republican potential candidates to narrow itself down to a more manageable number.

It’s time for someone to remind politicians that winning an election means becoming a market leader. That means you need to set yourself above the competition by showing your customers why you’re better.  The only way to get voters to buy what you’re selling (meaning YOU, politician) is to sell it properly.

Here then are the three main marketing rules for a potential market leader to live by.

1. Avoid attacking your competition directly

In fact, if you can avoid it, never mention them at all, unless you have clear, factual and irrefutable proof that what you have to offer is better. If you attack your competition – heck, if you even mention its name – you have just told prospective customers that there is an alternative to YOU out there. You’ve also let them know that you feel this competitor is so dangerous to your own hold on the market that you waste your precious time and money warning your prospect about him or her.

Now, to be fair, a voter would have to be pretty dim not to know who the current President is.  However, at best, the only thing being negative about the current market leader actually does is make potential customers avoid that particular “product.”  It doesn’t make them want to buy yours. Keep in mind that you have no credibility when it comes to condemning your competitor’s product – after all, consumers aren’t stupid. They already KNOW you want them to choose your product over the alternative.

That’s why, in marketing, the object of the exercise is to find out what it is about your product or service that your potential customer needs and let them know about it – not attack your competition because their offering is somehow less than yours. If your offering is better, people will notice. And no matter what market you’re in, if your competitor’s product doesn’t deliver, you won’t need to tell customers. People will know.

So turn it around and explain why your product is better. Let your products virtues speak for themselves.

2. Determine your unique selling proposition and spread the word

You would have to be foolish or crazy to spend millions of dollars promoting a product if you didn’t have a way to differentiate it from the competition in a positive way. There must be something about your product that makes it appealing to the customer on its own merits – aside from NOT being your competitor’s product, I mean. 

Given the nature of politics, what you’re often selling is the belief that your way of doing things is better than everyone else’s.  In short, you’re selling an idea – a plan of action. If you want anyone to take you seriously, you need to back up that idea with facts — proof that the plan you’re selling is going to work. Just smiling and saying “because” when someone asks “why” isn’t going to cut it in a crowded market, and waving a flag while you tell people to trust you won’t work either. That’s not a unique selling proposition, it’s a blatant emotional appeal dressed in an Uncle Sam suit. It’s an easy path to take, which is why everybody who doesn’t have the evidence to back up their “better idea” is off doing a variation of that. It’s easy, but it won’t make you stand out.

But treating your customers as if they can think just might make you stand out from the crowd – if you have something real, different, and true to say.

And that brings us to the third rule in today’s lesson …

3. Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

I know, I know. It’s hard for a politician to be honest, but if your customers (voters) actually see you as the only honest individual in a field known for being the last refuge for scoundrels and pathological liars, that will REALLY make you stand out. Nobody trusts a politician – and the way it stands now, no one has a reason to.

But if you play against expectations and tell the truth, voters will be attracted to you precisely because you aren’t spinning anything.  For example, look at something every Republican candidate insists is true: you can’t raise taxes on the wealthy because they are “job creators” and they need that money you would take from them to create jobs.

Sounds like it makes sense, but unfortunately, it doesn’t. Anyone who has ever run a business will tell you that the people responsible for running businesses aren’t going to “create jobs” unless they have a need to increase production or deal with a rise in demand. They can’t just hire people for the sake of hiring people. They’re obligated to their shareholders. They’re supposed to make money, not waste it. Unfortunately, the economy is so broken, with so many former consumers unemployed, business owners have no reason to ramp up production on anything … because no one in their customer base can afford to buy. No customers, no demand. No demand, no production.

No production? No jobs.

So even though it’s not true, every one of the potential Republican candidates spins it as if it is, because they really don’t want to raise taxes. Even though government needs revenue just to do what its supposed to do, they took a pledge. So they deliver the “job creators” lie as if it’s so obviously true, no intelligent person would dispute it.

Strangely enough, that’s exactly the kind of behavior that gave advertising and marketing a bad name back in the old "snake oil" days, and they eventually passed laws against it.  Unfortunately, today’s voters still haven’t learned what consumers from the early days of advertising realized at the turn of last century and took steps to outlaw — that lying loud enough and long enough doesn’t make a lie true.

It just means someone has been lying to you. A lot.                                                           

What's needed in politics is better marketing, both strategic and tactical.  Why? Because above everything else, good marketing is honest. No, really, it is. Think about it. To do marketing right, you need to figure out what your customer needs, develop solutions that deliver, inform customers about them, and then deliver on your claims.

Just imagine what a great world we’d live in if the people who were supposed to work for us … well, WORKED for us. What if they told the truth instead of trying to sell a convenient lie? What if they made policies that fixed problems, instead of fighting amongst themselves to make the other guys look bad? If only politicians could learn to preserve, protect, and defend the people of the United States instead of their own power base, maybe … just maybe … we could climb out of the hole we’re in and start getting things done again.

Nah. It would never sell.