Lessons political communication can take from corporate marketing

Putting People at the Center

In a world where the flood of communication is increasing daily, the art of effectively conveying messages is more central than ever. Let me start with a disclaimer: Voters are not customers, and political parties are not businesses. Elections are not transactions, and party affiliations are not points on a discount card. What works in business cannot always be directly transferred to the political arena (Savigny & Wring 2009).

D'accord!

That being said, it is nonetheless evident that political communication can draw inspiration from both established and innovative methods of corporate marketing. In previous articles, we have demonstrated that electoral decisions result from complex processes based on the interplay of identities, experiences, and personalities, which are becoming increasingly volatile. Therefore, building and nurturing relationships are central to creating long-term voter loyalty.

The Importance of Direct Interaction

Corporate marketing has long focused on direct interaction between individuals (customers) and institutions (companies). Modern direct marketing programs span the entire marketing funnel. Using traditional "one-to-many" media such as commercials or billboard campaigns, customers are initially motivated to establish a relationship (Schweidel & Bendle 2019; Witzleb & Paterson 2021). Subsequently, they are identified through an email or telephone number to be managed dialogically in large, automated CRM or loyalty programs.

This so-called relationship management relies on a simple yet effective mechanism: value exchange. Each interaction forms the basis of an experience, which can be positive or negative. Over time, companies can collect individual information and use it to enhance customer experience. This creates a win-win situation where companies benefit economically, while customers also gain value on an emotional level.

Just as interactions form the basis for experiences, experiences form the basis for relationships. Based on this foundation, relationships can be optimized as a sum of orchestrated individual actions, thus creating consistent experience spaces that are automated and individually tailored using modern technology.Die Bedeutung der direkten Interaktion

Adapting to Political Communication

The challenges faced by political communication are well recognized in corporate marketing. These fundamental mechanisms, along with similar ones, are initially independent of communication strategy and creative execution, and thus not exclusively limited to economic applications. The primary difference between marketing communication and other fields of communication lies in the so-called business case – that is, the question of what communication aims to achieve and why.

Although communication in the economic and political realms is not directly comparable, basic concepts can indeed be adapted (Poorrezaei et al. 2023). However, this requires the development of an equivalent to the economic business case – the support case – which considers the specific goals and conditions of political communication.