Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you lean, you have to admit that what just happened in our electoral process is unprecedented in our lifetime. A candidate with no public office experience was voted in as the next President of the United States. There are a lot of talking heads giving their opinions on why it happened. Let me make an analogy between this election and marketing.

When you ignore your base, they will look for someone new

There was a very large segment of our citizenry that felt that their elected leaders were not listening to them. For the first time in my memory, claiming you had been a part of the established elected leadership was a big minus. It was paramount to saying I have not listened to my base in the past and that’s okay. The time was perfect for a political outsider to come along and point this out and win them all over. It is the same in business. There comes a place when a business gets so big and successful, their customers don’t feel like they are being heard. They are ripe for the picking from your competition. How do you keep this from happening to you? If you are smart, you will build a strong retention marketing plan that includes hearing and acting upon the opinions of your customers. It also involves staying in touch with them on a frequent basis. Big companies don’t feel too big when they are focused on staying in contact in this way.

Engage with real people

It is so easy to build strategy in a boardroom based on the opinions of the people around the table. Too often, those ideas are not tested on real people who make up your target market. If you think you are smarter than the people who are potential buyers (or voters), you are only fooling yourself.

Your image (brand) makes a big difference

A lot of accusations were made between the candidates during this election. Some they were able to shrug off, others stuck. In politics, if you can label your opponent with a negative and it sticks - in fact it is substantiated by your actions - there is no amount of marketing that will save you. That is why it is the job of marketing to guard your brand image. Accentuate your positives. Shore up your negatives and build that into your marketing message.

Pay attention to social media and drive the narrative

I noticed something about the winning candidates. Those candidates that prevailed had a strong presence on social media. Every day, I saw these online messages. They used Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more. They didn’t wait for someone to post something on their account and give a response, they actually drove the narrative. In other words, they posted something every day. The same is true for your marketing. Don’t shy away from social media. Learn to use it. Post content that engages with your target market. How do you know if it’s engaging? Ask them. Look for their response and use what you hear.

There is a lesson to be learned beyond politics in this election. Make sure you are building marketing that works for your customers or you too could be making a concessions to your competition.