Today's professionally managed political campaigns can serve as valuable blueprints or models for corporate marketing and communications efforts.

The effective political campaign begins with the segmentation of the electorate on the basis of who will vote: what are the demographic characteristics of probable voters, what are their needs and interests, what media and communications delivery systems reach them most efficiently.

Having defined the priority audiences, the best political campaign develops a profile of the ideal candidate, and identifies the key drivers that will exert maximum impact on voting behavior.

That profile is translated into a communications platform that includes message points, language, tonality, graphics, music and surrounding environments---because political professionals know that what you call something, what you say about it, and how you articulate those messages is as important as the content itself.

The campaign then introduces metrics to pre-test and evaluate the effectiveness of campaign strategies and messages vs. competitive communications and responses---providing accountability for campaign investments and a basis for fine tuning campaign strategies and messages in line with audience reactions and voting intentions.

In corporate marketing and communication initiatives, audience segmentation extends beyond consumer demographics and characteristics to include employees, distributors and retailers, opinion leaders, government officials and regulatory agencies, news media, investment community influentials, professional groups, political and religious organizations, NGO's and shareholders.

Key drivers can include a wide range of attributes: company, product, brand, user, occasion, value and benefit characteristics. Multivariate analyses allow us to pinpoint the specific dimensions of the product or service, and the company behind that product or service, that offer the greatest appeals and impact on target audiences.

Message point evaluation requires measuring reactions to advertising and other marketing communications in real world terms-not just printed words on a page, but executions of those messages in formats that audiences can relate to.

And while sales and profits are the ultimate votes that count, metrics can predict which strategies are most effective, what the results of staying on message over extended time periods will be, and the adjustments required to meet competitive challenges.