In the world of 2015 there’s constant chatter about the growing responsibilities of millennials and the slowly diminishing charge of those who came before them. Ronn Torossian discusses the best ways to ensure that your marketing message connects with the audience you want it to despite the changing tides.

1. Changing of the Guard: Refining
the Message with the New
Majority

2. One of the primary dictums of any profession that deals with large
numbers of people is to know your audience. It is common for groups
in charge of essential social structures to change suddenly and
drastically. Although there are important surface differences that may
occur in any “changing of the guard,” the structural similarities often
overwhelm the disparities. By careful attention to what changes and
the nature of what stays the same, it is possible to direct a message to
an important audience with great specificity.

3. The recent turnover in the United States Congress is a wonderful
example. There is no need to dissect the specific ideological differences
between this Congress and the last one, although they are very
significant. It is more important, from a public relations perspective, to
note that this has occurred before and will again. For reasons that are
poorly understood, the party of practically every two-term President
has lost control of the Congress in the second midterms. The only
exception known occurred in 1946, under Harry Truman. This fact is so
well known in American and other two-party political systems that it is
almost axiomatic.

4. This demonstrates that in the case of Congress, change is the only
constant. Therefore, one of the first tasks for any public relations
strategist is to eschew excessive identification with any one faction.
Although they may sometimes ascend, it is virtually certain that they
will fall out of favor. As pilots say, “Takeoff is optional, landing is
mandatory.” Therefore, any excessive allegiance to one temporal
faction has the possibility to severely damage all efforts in the future.
This is as equally true in politics as it is in the business world.

5. It is also wise to address public relations attempts to the structure of the job,
instead of the particular inhabitants of a particular position. Democrats,
Republicans and Independent politicians all have very different worldviews
and ways of processing information. However, it is almost universally true
that they are ambitious, organized people with an interest in understanding
the world around them and a job that puts them in contact with the public
on a regular basis. This means that, no matter what the political persuasion
of the specific person in question, they will want practical information, hard
facts and polls that show what percentages of people hold a particular
opinion. They will want to hear about things that have direct application to
the problems before them. Within that framework it is possible to convey a
great deal of public relations information.

6. Interest groups may benefit from studying the language of the
incoming group. It is often helpful to note key terms and phrases and
try to work them into presentations. There are always ongoing
dialogues within any given social group, and people who speak to the
specific concerns of that group in language they find comfortable and
familiar will almost always find a more receptive audience. However,
people find it easy to detect when someone tries to use unfamiliar
jargon in order to fit in. It behooves anyone with interest in lobbying or
delivering public relations information to discuss the concerns of their
audience, but in their own terms and with their own authentic voice.

7. The most important principle that can be conveyed is the importance
of research. Knowledge and familiarity will unfailingly open
communications between disparate sets of people. The better that a
lobbyist knows the people that they need to talk to, the better they will
be able to talk to them. Knowledge will allow them to prepare
information more fully, to anticipate specific concerns and to have
intelligent answers ready for pertinent questions. Their message will be
amplified by their ability to speak more clearly.