listening to the audience is part of your Influence strategy
How important is it for political parties to use audience- listening tools?
Well, very! But before we explain exactly why, it's important to first understand what voices are worth listening to at all. In general, we're talking about the 'Voice of the Customer' (VoC) and the 'Voice of the People' (VoP). In both cases, the intention is a process of listening, monitoring, and analyzing feedback, opinions, preferences, trends, and expectations of audiences regarding a political party . This process is no less than critical for businesses and political figures who want to gain important insights and wisely shape their marketing and influence strategies. But wait, let's do this in an organized manner. Let's start with the steps required to implement VoC methodologies.
1. Encourage them to share their positions and responses across various channels. This means surveys, social media platforms, or other digital assets of the party.
2. Collect data from them. In other words, comprehensive data that will give an accurate picture of trends, opinions, and even popular terms people are using now.
3. Decipher them. Remember that data and information are just raw material. Within it, look for patterns or anchor terms of each group to identify central insights, and to quickly understand which areas need improvement.
4. Incorporate their voices. That is, use them in your messaging strategy. This is actually the stage where you implement what you've learned. The insights you've gathered from analyzing customer behavior should lead to changes in your messages, the services you offer, or even in the entire policy. When this succeeds, you're essentially adapting yourself to the expectations of your target audience.
5. Maintain them. It's not simple, but nurturing ongoing communication with customers helps them stay engaged with your updated ideas, insights, and messages
Shall we move on to talk about understanding the 'Voice of the People' (VoP)?
After all, these are very important skills for political parties for several reasons. For example
1. Alignment with public needs. If you understand the 'Voice of the People', you can present policies that match the real needs and desires of voters. Such alignment can lead to increased public support.
2. Focused campaign. Political parties spend enormous amounts on campaigns. It's highly recommended not to set out based on feelings alone, but only after you've tailored the campaign to the most urgent issues of different demographic groups. At the end of the day, people want answers to what "hurts" them, and recognizing this will maximize their engagement and support.
3. Message adaptation and trust building. If you know which issues receive high attention among voters, it's easier to adapt the party's messages. Along the way, you also gain the trust of the public who feel heard, and strengthen the party's credibility value.
4. Legitimacy and crisis management. Naturally, decisions that reflect the people's needs , perceptions and expectations, will always be perceived as more legitimate and just. If you still find yourself in a crisis, understanding voter sentiment will help make decisions that will benefit them, thereby reducing unnecessary backlash.
5. Promoting cohesion and reducing polarization. These are the kind of things that happen when you properly manage a tactic of understanding the 'Voice of the People'. Feathers that any party today would be happy to flaunt.
6. Empowerment and continuous improvement. When people feel they are listened to and their input is implemented, they get a sense of empowerment and participation in the democratic process. In return, parties can use this engagement to receive ongoing feedback, allowing them to improve strategies and refine their policies.
In conclusion, the importance of using VoC or VoP methodologies to stay updated cannot be overstated, but it's also important to remember that just listening won't be enough here. In fact, asking someone what bothers them - or what they need, or what's important to them - and then not acting accordingly, will only achieve the opposite effect. This means that after listening, analyzing, and understanding the information, comes the implementation part. True, not the simplest task there is, but one that can be professionalized and reached at very high levels.