There are SO many things we can learn from the presidential campaigns of both of these gentlemen. There hasn’t been an election with anything close to this in terms of lessons in marketing. Let me just give you a couple from both camps.

McCain
Know who you are you…and be that person.

While it seems that people are trying to cover their butts by pointing fingers there is one main reason McCain lost this election: identity. He didn’t know who he was. He started with “experience” but then moved to “change”. Bad move. You have to know who you are and what your story is before you can ever expect anyone else to. He tried out “maverick” in the end and while that might have worked awhile ago…it just wasn’t believable.

When a hip new church rolls into town down the street, resist the urge to adjust. That is not the time to try and cater to the hip crowd. Steady as she goes. If you’re hip, be hip. If you’re more yourself in jeans wear jeans…if you feel better in a suit, wear a suit. Not only do you need to be who you are because that’s who you are…it also produces stability within the church atmosphere.

Obama
Set an expectation that you know you can meet, or exceed.

Obama’s biggest challenge is filling the shoes he made for himself. The nation, and even world, is excited to see the change that he held onto so tightly…if he comes to the table with same old politics it’s going to be a big fail. If on the other hand he reaches across the aisle, looks out for the people and meets those expectations big win.

You can do the same by creating consistency in your communications. Don’t call us up and want to a great mailing campaign and then meet those people who respond with a mediocre guest packet, bulletin, etc. You only get one chance for that first impression. Be consistent and start from the ground up. Prepare for greatness and then tell people how great the experience is. Here’s another one that to me seems obvious but I see it to often. Don’t put pictures showing diversity if your church isn’t diverse. Putting a picture of a black man on your brochure does not make you diverse. What it does do is disappoint that family that shows up thinking you’re the church they’ve been looking for.

Okay…you’re turn what other lessons can we apply to the church from this campaign?

Tags: consistency, expectations, identity, learn, message, personality

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 5:57 pm and is filed under growth . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.