With the presidential nomination process claiming most of the news holes in the US, the authors of Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy are interviewed at the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge site. Here are some salient excerpts for social marketers and government officials.
...what's needed in politics is not less marketing but better marketing.
The two major parties should focus on learning current and emerging
citizen needs, developing policy and program solutions, informing
interested citizens about themselves, and making themselves easily
accessible. They should embrace reforms, such as lifelong voter
registration, that remove barriers to participation. Politicians need
to view citizens not as occasional voters, donors, and taxpayers but as
their customers.
Q: In the United States it seems
the public has a very low opinion of the federal government. Can
government market itself more effectively to its constituents and
customers?
A: The federal government and local governments can market themselves more effectively to constituents. First of all, they have to view their organization from a customer viewpoint and ask: Who are our customer groups? How are we going to add value to those customers?
Federal agencies that provide services to citizens can institute
service improvements and metrics modeled after those in the private
sector. They can call on social marketers to aid in communicating with
customers and creating attractive exchanges that will achieve desired
customer behavior. [emphasis added]
And this closing thought - ...what is needed is an international institute funded by multiple countries, representing different models of democracy, to create pull demand for democracy around the world.
Sometimes I hear people wonder aloud: is social marketing losing its relevance? Articles like this lead me to believe we are just finding it.
Thanx to Joe for the tip!
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