From ballots to business: B2B marketers can learn from politicians

Communications strategies with agility

Firstly, most political parties appear to build a pretty solid one-to-two-year communications strategy that stretches well beyond the election. As they campaign, they get a huge amount of real-time feedback and data from doorsteps and regular voter focus groups; and they ensure they’re able to be agile and respond to shifting views. So, the key takeaways here are: they have a longer-term plan, and their short-term election project is a subset of this, and meanwhile it is all constantly market-tested with voters and adapted where required. Could brands learn from this? I think so!

Proactivity and speed - key for ‘newsjacking’

Secondly, campaign teams are very proactive and ready to ‘newsjack’ and jump on big and small opportunities gathered on social media conversations and by the day’s news. There are lessons here for B2B PR and media relations teams: surfing the wave of a news story takes proactive effort to look for openings, a clear red thread or framework to serve as ‘scaffolding’ to make fast, go-now decisions, and a team that’s confident and empowered to act immediately. In my experience some big B2C brands are great at this but lots of B2B teams are not geared this way, nor do they move fast enough, so around key campaign periods they may be missing valuable opportunities.

Don’t underestimate the power of media events

Thirdly, politicians show us that set-piece media events can be effective without breaking the bank. The key is making it easy for the media by offering fresh testimonials, a range of people to talk to and visually engaging settings. Even if your product is highly technical or complex, consider taking media and influencers to a real-world application like a hospital, factory, or warehouse. It might seem like extra effort, but the media are more likely to attend if they can capture compelling footage, which will make all the difference when it comes to securing PR coverage. If you're a challenger brand with a tight budget, take inspiration from the Liberal Democrats' Ed Davey, who gained positive coverage with a highly personal video about his family and even a clip of him falling off a paddleboard. Both moments were authentic and resulted in positive, widespread coverage clearly connected to their ‘product’ - policies on carers and water quality.

What are your buyers ‘careabouts’?

As a small player perhaps you can focus even harder than the competition on your buyers’ real ‘careabouts’ and talk from there. In their campaign for their potential second-ever seat in Bristol Central, the Greens were talking less about a climate emergency and more about Gaza, street crime and bin collections, clearly as a result of responding quickly to feedback about local needs, issues and priorities. This created conversation, and trust in what the party were ‘selling’ – and the same message can be applied to your buyers, too.

Learnings for crisis PR

Politicians do occasionally demonstrate pretty good crisis PR too (they certainly get plenty of practice!). Many Westminster crises needlessly drag on in the public eye, but every now and then we see politicians get it right: rapid action and a heartfelt apology can quickly take the heat out of a crisis, take an issue off the news agenda and stop things deteriorating further.

And yes, election campaigns give us plenty of reminders of what not to do in media relations: attacking competitors, stoking fear, dodging issues, or making promises you can’t keep. These tactics may be tempting, but they will eventually catch up with you and cause lasting damage.

But overall, the next time you’re planning a launch you could do worse than take a look at recent election campaigns and apply the learnings.