the management process which identifies, anticipates, and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably .
a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others .
Marketing is the art of making someone want something you have .
Marketing deals with two important things: money and emotions .
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Political marketing is an area of growing interest and importance. Marketing is now used by a wide range of institutions within the political arena, including not just parties but also individual politicians, parliaments, local and regional councils, government departments and even monarchies. All have in common the need to communicate effectively with their publics in order to maintain support for their existence.
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Marketers already influence or control a significant chunk of the election process. Advertising messages, particularly the negative ones, carry great weight in influencing opinion about the candidates. It may be logical, therefore, that marketing people should manage the actual polling process. .
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As any good marketer knows, we should always view transactions through the eyes of the consumer (the voter). With that fundamental shift in mind, one can easily understand the need to make the existing process more voter-friendly.
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A candidate who sees himself or herself as a brand can cut through the communication clutter and achieve the message discipline essential to a successful campaign.
For the past 25 years, I have had the opportunity to advise political candidates and their campaigns, including gubernatorial, congressional and local races. For 15 of those years, I also have owned a marketing company that specializes in licensing and brand extension. Through these distinct -- yet similar -- experiences, I have observed that there is a great deal that can be learned and applied from both perspectives, that is equally beneficial to the political world and business world.
