Digital Marketing: A weapon in the armory of US Presidential Elections

"Friends, I cannot tell you how much digital marketers like you, mean to my chances of sitting in the Oval office next year."

It should not take you much to identify who spoke these lines. The use of digital marketing in the US Politics was fashioned by none other than former US President Barack Obama. In 2012 the Obama for America campaign brought targeted, direct marketing to the political arena at a level that had never before been imagined.

Introduction of Obama to the big stage

When Senator Barack Obama launched his campaign for the presidency in early 2007, the candidate faced long odds, strong primary challengers, and a well-financed GOP. He was a little-known senator running for president against Democratic nominee and household name, Hilary Clinton. If he engaged in campaign politics as usual, he knew he’d lose. Obama became the first administrator to give his Head of Digital, Joe Rospars in a position equal to his rest of senior staff. The New Media Department was the first department to exist in the way that it did. It  gave  respect  to  new  media  and  was  responsible  for everything related to the Internet beyond the technical  areas. A major success factor for Obama’s victory was how Obama’s campaign used social media and technology as an integral part of its strategy, to raise money, and, more importantly, to develop a groundswell of empowered volunteers who felt they could make a difference. 

Statistics behind the campaign

Obama’s campaign became highly active on social media. It garnered 5 million supporters on social networks. By November 2009, Obama has 3.2 million facebook supporters, while his opposition McCain had nearly one quarter of him. He also had, 110k+ followers on Twitter, 23 times that of McCain. Fifty million viewers spent 14 million hours watching campaign-related videos on YouTube, four times McCain’s viewers. The campaign sent out 1 billion e-mails, including 10,000 unique messages targeted at specific segments of their 13-million member list. Indeed, Blue State Digital, led by founder Joe Rospars, helped build a massive grassroots movement faster than any campaign in history.

The website, www.my.barackobama.com, allowed individuals to connect to one another and activate themselves on behalf of the campaign. Two million profiles were created. Registered users and volunteers planned over 200,000 offline events, wrote 400,000 blog posts, and created 35,000 volunteer groups. Obama raised $639 million from 3 million donors, mostly through the Internet. Volunteers on MyBO generated $30 million on 70,000 personal fundraising pages. Donors made 6.5 million donations online, totalling more than $500 million. Of those donations, 6 million were in increments of $100 or less, the average being $80.  The average donor gave more than once. The  campaign not only used these tools  more  effectively  than other candidates to organize, communicate, and  fundraise,  but  also  leveraged them to support its grassroots strategy that tapped into  the  hearts of the voters. What resulted was both a victory for the Democrats and Obama, and the legacy of one of the most effective Internet marketing plans in history, where social media and technology enabled the individual to activate and participate in a movement.

Traditional campaigns typically focused on getting votes and money. The Obama team’s grassroots efforts revolved around asking for a third element: time, which meant involvement and engagement.

• Existence on 15 social networking websites: Obama was the first presidential candidate to have profiles on Asian-Ave.com, MiGente.com, and BlackPlanet.com. These websites did not contribute in terms of money, but they help make Obama a relationship at even the remotest of such websites.

• Empowering people: The campaign understood that it needed to provide a variety of ways for people to be involved. On MyBO, registered users could create a profile, connect with others, create and find local offline events, raise funds and download tools. The more active a user, the more empowered he was.

• Movement getting bigger than Obama: They wanted the movement to be looked upon as the movement of an ordinary man. When they did the first set of fundraising, they focused on the number of people contributing, rather than the total amount. Showcasing the 75,000th donor on the blog, by e-mail and on the website, inspired a chain effect on others. The campaign eventually had over 3 million donors. The campaign had uploaded over 1,800 videos, viewed over 110 million times. YouTube was worth $47 million to the Obama campaign if they had bought TV dollars but they didn’t spend a penny on it.

• The Old Media and New Media Integration : The campaign was supported by another campaign Walk for Change. It held state-wide canvasses in the early states where the campaign had staff.

• Email Marketing: The e-mail team had three goals:  message, mobilization and money.  In terms of mobilization, its three-word mantra was: respect, empower, and include. The campaign developed more than 7,000 customized e-mails tailored to individual prospects. The texting program was also launched in May, sending between 5 and 20 targeted messages per month. Supporters could text “HOPE” to subscribe.

The fundraising arm did wonders to add to this email marketing campaign. They sent out two e-mails: the first asked prior donors to give again if the campaign could find a new donor to donate the same  amount;  in  the  second, non-donors were told that if they donated any amount, the  campaign  would  find  a  match  from someone  who  had  already  donated. Indeed a great way to engage people and get some money out of it.

• Dinner with Obama: This is one such event which broke all the previously existing traditions in the fundraising dinners. Traditional fundraising dinners allowed donors of high dollar amounts to buy access. The Obama campaign did the opposite and selected four donors of any amount who had shared their stories to meet Obama in a dinner setting and discuss their issues.

USA had a very talented candidate who was a great communicator and a campaign that matched and mirrored very well with the Internet: openness, inclusiveness, self-organizing, and grassroots. If it had been someone other than Obama or that he hadn’t had that philosophy, they wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

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References:

1.      Obama and the power of social media and technology, Victoria Chang, European Business Review

2.      How do you change the way campaigns are won? , Blue State Digital, Obama 2008

3.      How digital marketing will decide the next President, Al Urbanski, CampaignLive