By the time the U.S. Presidential election is over, the two candidates will collectively have spent close to a billion dollars on the largest, most complex political marketing and PR campaigns in history. Although most of us will never have the huge budgets and manpower behind these campaigns, here are six valuable tips business-to-business marketers can take away from the election campaigns that can be applied regardless of the size of your company or budget.

1) Find Smart, Trustworthy People to Advise and Help You

One of the first things McCain and Obama did when deciding to run for President, well before they announced themselves as candidates, was surround themselves with exceptionally talented, passionate people with proven track records of success in their respective areas (yes their choices of advisors is debatable, but the concept is solid).

If you’re like many marketers I know, you’re smart, talented, hard-working, and capable of forming effective marketing strategies and tactics and implementing them. But trying to do everything yourself (or not being able to rely on your colleagues or staff) means you’re making decisions in a vacuum, not necessarily based on the best knowledge or information available. An outside perspective can be very valuable in making decisions objectively. Also, being able to focus on your core responsibilities allows you to perform at your best, while other capable people handle other details.

Who can you turn to for help?

• Marketing/PR consultant

• Virtual assistant (to aid with administrative tasks and campaign details)

• Industry associations and interest groups such as MarketingSherpa, MarketingProfs, Business Marketing Association for third party research and professional opinions

• Partner with other companies and utilize their expertise

2) Multi-Channel Marketing/PR Strategy is Best

Most voters I know don’t just view, listen to, or read one source for information on who they’re going to vote for, and the Presidential campaigns certainly know this and take advantage of the available communications avenues: TV, radio, Internet, blogs and social media, telemarketing, direct mail, signs, bumper stickers, word-of-mouth, you name it.

You may be thinking, “If I had the huge budget that the candidates do, my company could do that too.” But it doesn’t have to take a huge amount of money to make multi-channel marketing effective for any business, and it’s necessary as your customers, just like when their ‘voter’ hat is on, gather information about solutions to their problems (i.e. what you’re selling) from many sources. Using a mix of traditional and online marketing and PR tactics ensures you’re reaching your key audiences.

However, it is possible to do too much marketing, which leads me to my next point….

3) Don’t Wear Out Your Audience

I live in Virginia, and if you’ve been watching the news you’ve maybe heard it’s one of the states both candidates most need the electoral votes from. For the past 3 months not a day has gone by that I haven’t received a direct mailer from one or both candidates (and local election candidates as well), much less seen them on TV, Internet, etc. At least 15 campaign volunteers have visited my door in the past 2 weeks alone, and the telemarketing calls are endless. I care deeply about the election and the future of my beloved country, but ENOUGH ALREADY!

Your customers and prospects will begin to feel this way if your company is over-marketing, particularly when it’s outbound marketing such as emails, phone calls, and direct mail. It’s been proven that it takes multiple encounters with your company and/or your products or services before someone purchases, but if you ‘interrupt’ your audience and demand their attention too often, you become like the boy who cried wolf and your audience will either ignore you or be irritated. When they are ready to buy those negative feelings may carry over and prevent them from contacting you, because they don’t want to be marketed to even more frequently if they do.

Some signs you’re over-marketing:

• High rate of recipients un-subscribing from your email campaigns
• Email recipients reporting your emails as SPAM (even if they opted-in to your list)
• Low rate of subscriptions to newsletters
• Telemarketing campaigns contact same people repeatedly in short timeframe

4) Embrace Social Media

Both candidates used social media marketing via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and several other outlets to “reach younger voters,” but many older voters have also caught on to the value of social media to stay up to date on the candidates and campaigns.

Using social media for B2B marketing is valuable on its own (see my blog post re: use of industry peer blogs and RSS to influence B2B technology buyers), but using it to support your other marketing efforts makes it twice as effective. For example, if you’re launching a new product or service to a specific market, posting about the problem it solves on your blog, discussing it on other industry peer blogs, using videos on YouTube to demonstrate it, and using Twitter to drive like-minded followers to your blog or website are effective, low-cost avenues of promotion.

5) Face-to-Face is Effective and Valuable

There is a reason Obama and McCain spent so much time traveling the country to speak to groups in person and rally supporters – it works. Both candidates and their campaign advisors are well aware that trust is a big factor in deciding whom to vote for, and one of the most effective ways to gain and maintain trust is for voters to see them up close, to listen to them live, maybe shake their hand and have a brief word. Although the vast majority of people that go to campaign rallies and events are already supporters, they need to be reassured that their candidate will meet their needs once the candidate is in office. The actual number of voters who attend rallies is very small compared to the total number of voters registered, but the ‘hard core’ supporters are usually the most vocal and will carry the campaign message to others.

A similar scenario plays out in the business-to-business world. When comparing products and services of similar type and cost, people are much more likely to buy from (and continue to buy from) people they trust and like. The ability to meet your prospective and current customers in person at some point in the sales cycle and/or after the sale gives your company a big leg up in gaining and keeping their trust and confidence and subsequently a steady stream of repeat sales.

How do you meet your customers face-to-face without breaking the bank:

• Several regional or local events hosted by the sales team responsible for that territory, instead of one big annual event

• Attend industry conferences and events, you don’t have to sponsor it to enjoy the great networking benefits. Let your customers know what events you’ll be attending, they may be attending as well (via e-newsletter is good option). Gather those you meet and take them to dinner or drinks after the event is over for the day.

• Since your top 20% of customers normally produce 80% of your sales revenue, concentrate your efforts on them first before reaching out to meet with others

6) Help Your Supporters Help You

As I mentioned above, the biggest supporters of each candidate are the most likely to vocalize their support and actively campaign on their behalf. Each campaign has many regional and local offices, special websites, and a multitude of other tools used to ‘mobilize the troops’ and make it as easy as possible for supporters to use offline and online means of convincing others to vote for their candidate.

Does your company have particularly happy customers, partners, industry analysts, media, or other fans of your products or services? Make it as simple as possible for them to pass along your information to others, and most people are happy to do so.

Some simple ways to accomplish this:

• Post a ‘referral toolkit’ on your website, or better yet your customer intranet site if you have one. It can be as simple as a .zip file containing your company brochure, a couple of customer case studies, and a white paper or article. It enables supporters to easily email the information to others.

• Ensure you post a press kit to your website and send it (ask permission first) to industry analysts and media you know are fans

• Encourage your website and/or blog readers to share the information posted by using widgets that enable them to quickly share it with others via social media or email

• During a customer feedback survey, provide the option for them to write a brief testimonial quote (if they wish to be named)

• Include a ‘forward to a friend’ button in your e-newsletters and ask readers to pass it along to non-subscribers who may be interested

• Always give out 2-3 business cards to contacts you meet, one for them to keep and some to share

What marketing or PR lessons have you gleaned from the Presidential campaigns? I’d love to get your thoughts.