By Ilise Benun, marketing mentor
I [recently] ran for a seat on a local committee here in Hoboken, N.J., and, along with 10 other people on my team, I won!
Talk about self promotion! This is the essence of it: knocking on doors and asking for a neighbor’s vote.
One of the main marketing lessons I’ve learned so far is the importance of identifying the market—not just the general group of prospects, but the actual prospects, one by one.
With limited time and resources at our disposal, we couldn’t possibly expect to campaign to all the potential voters in our district. So we had to cherry-pick the voters most likely to vote for us and focus our attention on them.
I confess that I had moments of the type of fantasizing that I teach my clients to avoid. “He’ll slam the door in my face” or “She doesn’t like me.” But each time I overrode those voices, I made actual contact with a real person who, to my surprise, was in fact interested and sometimes even thanked me for getting involved.
I won with 37 votes (compared to my opponent’s 13)—a virtual landslide!
Read more about the experience on the blog www.marketingmixblog.com/blog/2007/06/self_promotion_.html
I’ll be sharing more marketing lessons from my burgeoning political career as we go along.
For more marketing tips, call (201) 653-0783 or visit www.marketing-mentor.com.
