Business Marketing Lessons from an Election

It’s a crazy time in my world of broadcasting.

It is Election Week 2019.

This year I have been personally involved in the process of helping candidates buy advertising time on my radio station, WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

There are a few Business Marketing Lessons that I’m going to share with you that were pretty obvious to me this year.

However, before I go any further, let me clear up a little confusion that some of you have right now.

You are thinking, “Election in 2019? I thought the Election is in 2020!”

In Indiana and several other states, we also have elections in odd numbered years.  While Federal elections are held in even years like 2016, 2018 and 2020; Indiana also has their local elections every 4 years, but a year before the Presidential election.

The way that works out is us Hoosiers get to vote for something 3 out of every 4 years.

It also means that my radio station, WOWO as a news and talk formatted radio station is the place to be for political candidates to run ads 3 out of 4 years.

Indiana has their primary elections in May, and so the weeks leading up to voting day is when the candidates run their ads.  April is often the month we start hearing political ads on WOWO, unless there is a race with a couple of strong candidates battling it out.  In the Republican Mayoral Primary, the two major candidates started early.  One of them with deep pockets actually started running his ads 6 months before the Primary!

This year I was tapped by the WOWO Management to help with the local candidates advertising.  It requires special paperwork and other details that must be followed exactly and because I used to do this for another group of radio stations years ago, plus I have a background in recording and know how to use the studio equipment… I was selected and said yes.

Here’s a few Business Marketing Lessons that I’ve learned this year from the Elections:

You have to invest time and money to get results. Last spring I attempted to reach out to all the candidates who were running in the primary election.  Some never responded.  Some responded and told me they were not going to do anything besides have their name on the ballot. Some said they would be spending money, but never did. The ones who said they were going to advertise and really did advertise with me on WOWO radio, won their primary election and are on the ballot this week in the General election.  (There is one exception, ask me about it if you want.)

You don’t need to convince everyone to buy from you, just enough to make you a winner. Historically off year elections have a poor turn out and primary elections also have a poor turn out.  We had just 14% of registered voters vote in our county this past May.  In one race the difference between winning and losing was 1,735 votes.  That candidate that I told you started his political ads 6 months before the primary… he lost by just 2,289 votes because his opponent also spent a lot of time and money getting his message out.  As I was reviewing the results from some of the races, I saw one candidate beat their opponent by 7 votes and in another race it was just 8 votes that determined the winner. How many customers do you need to be a winner this month?

It’s better to invest in your future than to sit back and rest easy. For the General election this week, I had two candidate campaigns come to me to invest in radio ads on WOWO that surprised me.  Both are running for Mayor in cities outside of Fort Wayne but well within our listening area.  The first one is the assumed favorite running against an unknown opponent yet he told me that he would feel foolish if he lost the race because “everyone assumes he is going to win and they don’t take the time to vote.”  That could happen. But he is taking the money he has in his campaign and investing all of it in advertising to persuade his supporters to actually vote on election day.   

The other race was going to be an easy win too for the candidate but then a new challenger has been gaining support and so they feel nervous.  They are also spending money on WOWO to convince their supporters to vote on election day.  Are you coasting along with your business or are you continuing to remind your current and future customers to do business with you?

I could add a few other lessons but I’ll do another article and podcast in the future on those.  Instead, here’s one very important lesson:  Once someone votes, it is too late to get them to vote for someone else. And if they don’t vote by the end of election day, it’s too late to convince them to vote.  Here’s the business lesson: You only have one opportunity to get a customers money. Once they have made a purchase, they are no longer a potential customer for that particular purchase.

This is contrary to what we think about brand building, but not really.  Brand Building is just as important, it’s the critical decision making process that leads to them decide if they should consider you or not.

More on this in the future too and remember if you ever have any advertising, marketing, sales or media questions, feel free to ask me.  Email Scott@WOWO.com

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