Inbound Organization

Chapter 14Politics, Personas, and Inbound

Todd learned the value of focusing on a persona and how important it is to inbound success during a unique experience. In 2006 he ran for state representative in Beaver, Pennsylvania. In this chapter, Todd tells the story of the campaign.

We lived in an area controlled by one political party for as long as anyone could remember and, as in all power situations without accountability, the party had descended into corruption. One day around Christmas, I was reading another account of one of the latest insults to the electorate by the ruling party, when I put down the paper and said to my wife, “I can beat that guy.”

Believe me, I knew it was a long shot, but it was worth a try.

So, we filed the petitions with the requisite signatures, and I set out on my first campaign. With no campaign money and limited time (I was still employed full-time and needed to keep my job), we had to figure out how to reach out to approximately 20,000 people. Then we had to convince them to vote for me, an average citizen with no name recognition, no formal political organization, no volunteer organization, and no funding.

Against these odds, we developed a very simple and powerful plan. We gambled the success of our entire campaign by focusing on a very specific niche. We did the research and decided to engage only with voters who cared enough to vote in an off-year election, which represented our targeted persona and key to success.

During our research, we ...