Again, from the archive:
Part of the premise in this series of articles is that most Americans aren’t hearing the conservative message. Our country breathes liberalism because the K-college schools, pop culture, and the old but dominate media are all spewing information through a leftist slant. Conservatives, on the other hand, know how to get good information — from the web and certain talk radio shows. But they’re conservatives already — and we need to be winning converts not just talking to ourselves.
A few years ago Newt Gingrich said this:
On the really big things it is repetition that matters. I think our leadership has to get back in the habit of understanding that if you truly want to have a dialog with America, with over 300 million Americans, you have to pick a handful of big ideas, you have to talk about them endlessly, and gradually, over time, you’ll build an echo effect and a resonance and the country will learn and you’ll have a genuine dialog.
Do you see the Republican Party or conservatives engaged in anything like that? I sure don’t. We have thousands of elected Republicans from coast to coast and countless allied organizations so there’s plenty of labor available to get this job done. I’ve been referring to this as the “idle army” because I define activism as reaching the uninformed and misinformed. If that army is not reaching people then they’re not really in action in a way that’s going to increase our numbers and give us political and policy successes.
A friend of mine in the marketing business talks about the principle of “impressions” — which is a measure of how many times an advertisement is seen. He mentioned to me that studies have proven that a person has to see an ad seven times before it’ll be effective. He says that for Republicans and conservatives to be effective in their communications they need to be consistent so their message gets re-enforced.
Here’s what one writer had to say about this basic marketing fact:
The Rule of Seven is an old marketing adage. It says that a prospect needs to see or hear your marketing message at least seven times before they take action and buy from you. Now the number seven isn’t cast in stone. The truth of the Rule of Seven is you can’t just engage in a marketing activity and then be done. Marketing must be an on-going process in order for it to be successful.
The same writer added this:
In today’s world, people are being bombarded with messages constantly. It is truly difficult to get past all this noise and be heard.
The first few times someone sees your message its likely it won’t completely register with them. We all have marketing blinders we’ve built up over time – otherwise we’d be overwhelmed with the constant noise from businesses clamoring to be heard.
It’s no different with your prospects. They’re not sitting around waiting for you to show up. They’re busy living their lives and you may not even be a blip on their radar.
This is marketing 101 — and a great example of what Republicans and conservatives are oblivious to even as the political left spends all of its time selling selling selling — from the grammar schools to the TV situation comedies.
First posted November 26, 2013.
Image credit: waleoladipo.com.
