Marketing,Lessons,from,the,Cam marketing Marketing Lessons from the Campaign Trail – Part 1

Automation technologies represent a fundamental aspect of any modern industry. The major types of industrial automation solutions, such as DCS, PLC, SCADA, and MES, are used on a large-scale in process and discrete industries.DCS technologie Awhile ago, I got an email from one of the "gurus" I follow and it shocked me. The gist of it was this person wanted to trade services for a household item.To say it floored me would be an understatement.What was worse was a few days later t

Around St. Valentine’s Day, I washelping my daughter Daphne make her mom a card. She’s five (“five andthree-quarters, thank you very much,” she says) and she frequently spells wordswithout any vowels at all. In the card she wanted to let her know how “budfl”(beautiful) she thinks mom is. The conversation went something like this:Me:The consonants are pretty close in that word. I think you need a few morevowels.Daphne: Daddy, what are the consonants and what are the vowels?Me:The consonants are B, D, F, and L. The U is a vowel.Daphne: No, dad, I mean in all the alphabet, which are which?Me:Oh, I see. The consonants are the sounds you make with your lips and teeth andtongue, like S, and K and T, and the vowels are the sounds you make in the backof your mouth, like ahh, and ooh.Daphne: No daddy, you don’t understand. What letters are they?Me:Well, the consonants are S, K, T, V, like those. There are a bunch of them. Thevowels are A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y.(Long thoughtful pause)Daphne: Is Y a vowel today?My incomplete explanation to Daphnegot me thinking about how we communicate, or specifically how we don’tcommunicate our message as effectively as we could, especially in ourmarketing. If you find you’re not reaching your target market the way you’dlike to, see if these ideas help.Being a bit of a political junkie,I’ve been watching the primary races keenly, specifically focusing on how theycraft their words in a way that reaches below the surface. Here’s what I’veobserved:Great campaigners (and marketers)focus their audiences on two things.1. What isn’t working. If you’ve turned on the news of the election for only fiveseconds, I’ll bet you’ve heard the word “change” about eighteen times. Everyonewants to be the face of change, and for good reason: a quick visit to the websiteof Gallup Polls shows consumer confidence down, fears ofunemployment and recession up, etc.Point people to the pain they feel,and they’ll respond quickly and viscerally.You may remember Ronald Reagan’smantra in 1980: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” It was abrilliant rhetorical question because in the face of relatively highunemployment, rising inflation, and a perceived energy crisis (soundfamiliar?), most people in the US were fearful and longing for “the good olddays.”It worked in part because it was immediateand simple. A question like that takes no time to answer and hits people wherethey live every day.George W. Bush pushed the tacticover the line in the 2004 election, getting at the deeper fears Americans had(and still have) about national security and terrorism after the attacks ofSeptember 11, 2001.Please make no mistake about this: Iam not encouraging scaremongering. There’s a great difference between on onehand provoking insecurity and pushing people into fears they wouldn’t otherwisehave, and on the other hand, asking them to look at their very real challenges,problems, and concerns they want to be addressed. The first is unethical atbest. The latter is the very reason your business exists—to help peopleovercome their challenges and have more, do more, and be more than ever before.2. Paint a picture of what thingscan be like. One thing that impresses me aboutBarack Obama is the way he eloquently points out how the country is on thewrong path (a sentiment the vast majority of Americans agree with), and thenoffers solutions. In a recent interview, Obama saidabout healthcare, “This is something that I’ve been emphasizing everywhere Igo. The rise in the incidence of diabetes, childhood diabetes, all directlytraced to increases in obesity, is astonishing. If we went back to the obesityrates that existed in 1980, we would save the Medicare system a trilliondollars.”Notice in one simple statement, heshows an image of saving the lives of children and saving taxpayers a hugeamount of money. The bottom line is his message of hope.Effective campaigners take thistwo-step approach—pointing to the problem, and then showing how they can solveit—over and over again.And the key to really reachingpeople effectively? Keep it simple—you’ve probably heard it many times, andit’s still as relevant as ever. Consider Vladimir Lenin’s slogan to get thelargely illiterate population on his side during the Russian Revolution:“Peace, Bread, Land.” It doesn’t get much simpler than that. Or Herbert Hoover exactly 80 yearsago, repeating, “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.” Thatprobably didn’t do much to garner support from the vegetarian or green votes,but since those blocks didn’t really exist in 1928, no harm done.When I meet people for the firsttime and they ask what I do, I say, “I work with solo business owners who arestruggling to attract new clients. I show them how to bring in their idealclients easily and consistently.” It’s easy to understand, it gets at whatmight not be working for them, and offers a brief description of what it can belike when they work with me.If you’re struggling to attract newclients, use this basic two-step approach. Talk to them simply about whatobstacle you’d work with them on, and what life will be like when you’ve helpedthem. Nothing gets attention quicker. It’s better communication, because it’sclearer and addresses their actual concerns.