Why did the country choose to elect Barack Obama as president? It came down to the hardest thing in the world to earn, and the easiest thing to lose — trust.
And these days, trust isn’t something to be taken lightly, noted Mary Anne Marsh, principal, Dewey Square Group and political commentator for Fox News.
“Today in this country, nobody trusts anybody about anything,” she said during a keynote to the New England Direct Marketing Association. “We don’t even trust peanut butter.”
Many have talked about the Obama campaign’s groundbreaking use of social media to rally the masses. But what really got him into office was the strategy behind the tactics, she said, noting that he smartly followed the four key steps to earning voters’ — or consumers’ — confidence.
First, he let America get to know him personally. He wrote two books, one on his life’s story and the other on this political thinking. And he was frequently photographed doing things like spending time with his family or playing basketball.
“None of this was by chance, it was all by design,” Marsh said, noting that no matter what the occasion, people always saw the same cool, collected, optimistic guy. “And the more people saw him, the more they liked him.”
Not coincidentally, getting people to like you — or your product — is the second part of the equation, she noted. And it follows that if people like you, they might then begin to believe what you’re saying. Then you have the chance to earn their trust — and their vote.
Commentary from the BigFatMarketingBlog.com
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