“Tailor your message to your audience.” Everyone knows that speech edict as the “golden rule” of communication. Different audiences require different messages, techniques and styles.
You must learn how to tailor your message to the specific audience or audiences to whom it is aimed, which requires audience research. This includes reviewing the information you already have about your audience or audiences, possibly gathering more about whatever group you are trying to reach, and so on and so on.
But never has this rule of thumb been more critically true, suited and relevant than in the sphere of politics. And even more particularly, when candidates have to develop messaging strategies for primary elections, knowing a general election (strategy) lies in waiting almost immediately after.
For the perfect embodiment of this type of messaging management, one need only deconstruct all the recent campaign activity springing from the GOP presidential campaigns.
Primary elections inherently compose a very concentrated, niched, politically resolute, ardent voter consistently representative of that particular party (Republican or Democratic) base. Simply put, the “primary” audience a) is like-minded, and b) consists of a smaller population of constituents than in the larger general election, relatively speaking.
Identifying messages that resonate, for the most part, is not much of a challenge. A “politically resolute” voter generally doesn’t deviate from party principles, so bedrock issues that are traditionally embraced are naturally leveraged and emphasized during that campaign. And a lot of those issues, points, etc. can be generated with even a modest amount of research and/or polling.
Using the GOP presidential primary again as an example, we’ve witnessed the more established and traditionally adopted issues like smaller government, responsible spending, strict immigration reform/enforcement, lower taxes, government entitlements and the like aggressively reinforced.
And inasmuch as the GOP has arguably taken a marked posture shift to the political right (i.e., the tea party movement), the campaign and candidate discourse must do so in order to ultimately capture the target that has seemingly moved slightly right.
The communication challenge inevitably arrives when the primary audience has been reached, convinced and secured, and a campaign must move on to the general election – which is composed of a much more inclusive, comprehensive, further-reaching and ideologically diverse voting audience.
A strategic message that was once originally geared toward and tailored to a particular constituent must now be somewhat overhauled, fine-tuned and injected into a campaign in order to offer broader appeal. Politically, the candidate and campaign must “pivot,” so as to appeal to a significantly wider audience – a more macro, general election audience.
This political pivot can be problematic in and of itself. During this developmental process, a candidate must be perceived as much “more,” rather than disingenuous or misrepresentative. Remarks and opinions offered previously during a primary election, which would not particularly resonate in a general election, are often difficult to censor.
We live in a high-tech world of messaging and communication, and there is really no probability of absolving oneself of, for instance, advocating for lethal electrified border fencing, saying Spanish is the (official) language of the ghetto or hinting, even slightly, that a state may want to secede from the United States.
The campaign operation that most creatively and astutely conveys its primary message effectively – without consequently alienating itself during a general from a broader and more ideologically inclusive voter – is far better positioned and has more flexibility with its messaging. That would mean there haven’t been any messages delivered that would be conflicting or at odds.
But regrettably, this is not often the case. During primary elections when the political discourse has moved too far to the right or to the left, campaigns are consequently debilitated in their race for the general election.
The current U.S. economic situation, among other items, represents an episode in our history when voters are angry, disappointed, loud and serious about looking in the other direction to what the current administration represents. As a result, the GOP candidate field has shifted slightly to the right of right.
And you subsequently have potential nominees making claims that may resonate with the smaller voter segment that is angry, disappointed, etc., whereas the same notion expressed later during a general election could potentially have an opposite, dampening effect.
This post-primary political pivot is sometimes seen as a watershed moment in campaigns once candidates are fortunate enough to get through primary elections. The political temperature of the time period plays a big role.
However, candidates who have the messaging facility to competently navigate the primary election opportunities and hazards, and to be in a general election race position to appeal to a wider and broader constituent base, are to be revered and admired.
These candidates not only are electable, but also know more than most about communication’s golden rule.
Marc Rodriguez is vice president/co-founder of the Latino Briefing Room, a Latino news-focused Web network providing content on commerce, government, religion and breaking news. The site is geared toward Latinos in the United States who want to stay on top of pertinent issues. For more information, visit www.latinobriefingroom.com.
