It is presidential campaign season here in the USA. Personally, I find much of the political process annoying (at best). Yet, in the midst of the abysmal pre-election morass (and I mean that in the nicest way!), you and I can learn a lot to grow our businesses.

Politicians have to win votes to survive. You and I have to win the hearts and minds of our customers to get their votes (dollars). This is where Relationship Marketing is so important. Relationship Marketing – or what I call "R-Commerce" – focuses on more than just making a quick sale. It’s all about building a solid, long-term relationship with your customers by learning where they are coming from and what their needs are.

The principles of Relationship Marketing apply to both politics and what you and I do in our businesses. Here are some areas where I see similarities between the two.

It Is Not About Just Using the Web – It Is About Embracing Web 2.0.

You have to engage the customer. Merely shoving a bunch of information at people (think 1960s television, radio, newspaper ads) doesn’t cut it anymore. Politicians actively embrace the Net to raise funds. They allow supporters (and detractors) to comment on blogs, websites, etc. YouTube is an active part of the political process. Embrace these tools for your own business and reap the benefits.

Learn What Is Important to Your Customers and Play to Their Needs.

Politicians will stress the economy in economically challenged states. They slant their messages to the areas of "pain" for voters in any particular geographic area. Are they only pandering to those folks? Well, a case could be made for that. But it is important for them to address the issues that are relevant to the people.

You might know a lot of ways your widgets can help your prospective customers. However, the only ways that matter are the ones buyers think matter. An old phrase is still so true: What is important is what important people think is important. Buyers are the important people for you and me. Focus on their pain and be the pain-reliever.

Build Relationships on Two Levels: Retail and Wholesale.

Politicians build relationships at the retail level. They know certain people and call them directly. They make it a point to meet other people in person. But they also embrace the masses at the wholesale level through rallies, fund-raising dinners, the media, and more.

As businesspeople, we have to do that as well. Have some relationships that are very close. And other relationships that are made through the media. On the retail level, it means pressing the flesh. It means you have to be there. Yes, e-mail is great. Yes, telephone calls are great. And, yes, Skype video over the Net is fabulous. However, none of that takes the place of sitting down with someone and sharing one-on-one over some drinks.

Think of how you could use this same principle to get to know – and bond with – your customers. This is Relationship Marketing at its best.

Have a Compelling Message.

You have to stand out from the crowd. Without offending, you must have a unique message your customers can’t get elsewhere. A politician who sounds too radical or too much like everyone else is doomed. Yes, it is a difficult tightrope to walk. But successful politicians (the ones who win the race) – and successful businesspeople – have a clear, compelling message.

Public Speaking Is Critical.

Barack Obama is a good example of a great public speaker. Think, too, of Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy, and Winston Churchill.

In business, public speaking is a vital tool for extending your brand and building trust. When people see you speak in public, they will either want to embrace you and your message or discard you. In most cases, audiences want to support the speaker. People like saying they heard a particular person live and in person. However, if you come across as unsure and violate some of their core beliefs, you can alienate them.

Build Your Base of Supporters.

All politicians stress the message that their mission is not about them. It is about something bigger. "I can’t do it alone," you’ll hear them say. Realistically speaking, every candidate is after power. However, they can’t say that. They have to communicate the impression that they are seeking election to serve their voters.

Realistically speaking, you are in business to make money. But marketers who focus on a bigger goal ("Helping you become financially independent" or "Making the world a safer, greener place") garner more long-term support from their customers.

Michael Masterson has long demonstrated for us how to "think like the buyer." That means understanding the buyer’s needs and problems. When you make it your mission to fulfill those needs and solve those problems, the money will flow to you.

Pollsters (and Tracking) Are Vital.

Politicians watch the polls to find out which issues matter to voters. You can find out what matters to your customers by using tools like Google Analytics, and WebTrends.

Know who is coming to your website. Know what they are looking for. Be aware of what is happening with the numbers that are vital to your business. Identify those key metrics and ratios and monitor them closely. Blogging and YouTube are two excellent tools for this. Wendy Montes de Oca’s article in ETR on polling shows what you can do to capitalize on this major trend.

Make Sure They Vote.

It is one thing for people to say they support a candidate. It is quite another for them to make the effort to actually vote and let their voices be heard.

Instead of voters, you’re looking for buyers. You want to make it easy for people to buy from you. Make your website easy to navigate. Make your retail store a joy to visit. Make it easy for clients to purchase your services. Promises won’t do it. You want to get your customers to vote for you – and continue voting for you – with their dollars. This is where Relationship Marketing really pays off.

As I said, the principles of Relationship Marketing apply just as well in the world of politics as they do in our own businesses. However, there is one very big difference. For us, "Election Day" is every day. And our campaign to win votes (customer dollars) starts all over again the next day. By making a strong commitment to continually make your business better and improve your campaign, you will always come out on top.

[Ed. Note: You can learn a lot about marketing from watching politicians. You can also discover valuable tricks of the trade from some of the top marketers in the business with ETR's Direct Marketing Masters program. Learn more here.

Terry Brock is a marketing coach and professional speaker who helps achievers succeed in business through profitable R-Commerce - Relationship Marketing. You can read his blog and watch his ground-breaking videos by going to www.TerryBrock.com and clicking on the "Terry's Blog... Latest Update" button.]

The Big Idea for an advertising campaign comes from your product’s USP (unique selling proposition). If the USP is strong, the Big Idea will be strong too.

The Big Promise comes from the Big Idea. If the Big Idea is the right kind of Big Idea, it will have a Big Promise contained within it.

Your specific marketing scheme should be based on that Big Promise. If the Big Promise is big enough, you won’t have any trouble coming up with dozens of claims that will excite your potential customers and persuade them to buy your product.

Here’s a checklist to walk yourself through the process:

• Make a list of every feature of your product that you can think of.

• Make a separate list of every possible benefit those features can provide.

• Identify a rising trend in your market – a trend that is just beginning.

• Ask yourself: "Which of my product benefits could tie into that trend?"

• Identify those benefits as potential USPs.

• By talking to experienced industry professionals and interviewing potential customers, find out which of your potential USPs are the strongest.

• For each of those strong USPs, create a Big Idea.

• For each of those Big Ideas, create one or several headlines that express a Big Promise.

• Working with a copywriter, make a list of claims for your product, including proof of those claims.

• Get at least two versions of the advertisement written – each version expressing a different copy approach – and test them.

• Take the version that works best, and make that the basis of all your sales and marketing efforts.

As you roll out an advertising campaign, make plans to start the process again so you can keep your selling ahead of the market.

[Ed. Note: The above was excerpted from Michael Masterson's book, Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat, published with permission of John Wiley & Sons. The book has hit the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Business Week lists of business best-sellers.

Teaching you the best way to sell your products isn't the only thing Michael does in Ready, Fire, Aim. He shows how veteran and rookie entrepreneurs alike can take their businesses to the next level. You'll learn how to identify and solve the problems that crop up during each stage of a company's growth... and how to take advantage of profit opportunities along the way. Order your copy of Ready, Fire, Aim now.]

I’ve learned a few things in my two-score and 16 years – stuff that some other pretty smart fellas figured out a long, long time ago… 

"There’s nothing new under the sun." - King Solomon 

"What is past is prologue." - William Shakespeare 

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana 

Now, keeping those quotes in mind, consider this… 

• Huge expenditures from a massively expensive war are coming home to roost.

• The U.S. economy and stock market are stalling; unemployment is rising.

• In an attempt to pull the economy out of its funk, Washington is printing money like there’s no tomorrow.

• Inflation – our cost of living – has begun rising.

• Oil and gasoline prices are at all-time highs.

• Food and raw materials are in increasingly short supply and prices are soaring worldwide.

• Gold and silver prices are on a tear.

• Congress is already controlled by the Democrats and voters are set to throw the Republicans out of the White House.

Have I left anything out?

What’s that you say? "Hannah Montana is breaking all box office records?" 

What? Wait. You think I’m talking about TODAY’S headlines? 

Sorry. No. I was reading the above headlines 30 years ago – in the mid-1970s! 

The debt from the Vietnam War was hitting home. The term "stagflation" was being coined to describe the new environment of slow (or negative) economic growth plus inflation. Washington was printing money out of thin air to pay its bills. Inflation was accelerating. And oil, gas, food, and just about everything else under the sun (especially gold and silver) were roaring higher. 

And, of course, in 1976 – with both houses of Congress already firmly in Democrat hands – disgusted voters abandoned the hapless and clueless Ford (remember the "WIN" button?) and installed an equally clueless and soon-to-be one-term Democrat peanut farmer in the White House. 

So sorry if I misled you. Maybe I also should have mentioned "Disco is all the rage."

Nevertheless, here’s why I say some of the life experiences I’ve had in my 56 years on this planet are beginning to come in handy: 

I know how to make money – a LOT of money – in times like these, because I’ve been there before. All you have to do is hit the history books, figure out who got richest the fastest the last time around, and then do what they did. Only better. 

I was there. I remember how the realization that Washington was out of control… that the government was incompetent and incapable of governing the economy… that even harder times were most likely ahead – and that in such times, prudent people take responsibility for their own financial and personal security – made a bunch of us a huge pile of money. 

I remember how my old pal Howard Ruff built The Ruff Times into a 180,000-subscriber behemoth telling people to buy gold and guns and stockpile food. I remember Investment Rarities, Security Rare Coin, and Blanchard & Co. exploding sales as much as 43 times over in as little as a year. 

I remember how just about everybody and anybody who promoted information or three-dimensional products aimed at helping people become self-sufficient and prepare for hard times raked in huge bucks. 

Most of all, I remember how marketers who recognized and then tapped into the public’s widespread and growing disgust with the establishment, fear of the worst-case scenario, and desire to take matters into their own hands created the greatest profit explosion in the history of the financial information business. 

And I remember how, years later, those self-sufficient investors turned out to be every bit as distrustful of the medical establishment as they were of the political establishment. And how they went on to create the multi-gazillion-dollar alternative-health publishing and supplement businesses we know today. 

And this time around, the smart money is betting that the profit opportunities will be even greater. 

Because last time around, there were no food riots around the world. No countries cutting off exports of wheat and other foods and stockpiling agricultural commodities to make sure they could feed their own people. 

There was no China with its $1.3 trillion foreign reserve war chest buying up resources and resource companies like there’s no tomorrow. And there certainly weren’t three billion new consumers on the planet in a bidding war for everything that makes middle class living what it is. 

Last time around, our home equity – the #1 source of retirement money for the vast majority of Americans – wasn’t evaporating before our very eyes. Nor was there a credit catastrophe hammering and even destroying lending institutions and making it next to impossible to borrow money. 

Oh – and we also didn’t have a way to get our message out for free. Today, we have the Internet. 

So before you do that next promotion, why not take a moment to crawl inside your prospective customer’s skin a little bit? You don’t have to be writing about investing or health to make this work for you. The fact is… understanding your prospect’s disgust with the establishment – the status quo – and then giving him a way to take control of his own life is likely to pay you huge dividends. 

[Ed. Note: As a direct-marketing consultant and copywriter, Clayton Makepeace has helped four major direct-marketing firms at least quadruple sales and profits to well over $100 million per year each. Clayton publishes the highly acclaimed e-zine The Total Package (www.makepeacetotalpackage.com) to help business owners and copywriters accelerate their sales and profits. Check it out.

The best way to position yourself to take advantage of this groundswell of anti-establishment feeling is to start your own Internet business. Learn how to build one - from the ground up - with the help of ETR's team of experts this July. Get the details here.]