By Tod Sacerdoti
October 7, 2008
While recent politics have been intoxicating, the candidates’ online marketing efforts have been weak and at times, appalling. In an age of technological capabilities to get real messages, not simply advertisements, to the right person at the right time with a reasonable cost, why are our political campaigns so ineffective?
The reasons are an over reliance on YouTube and Facebook mini-sites, weak marketing creativity and an overall lack of sophistication in online advertising tools. Shockingly, studies show that voters don’t actually know the candidates’ positions on key issues and don’t seek this information out on their own. The Internet is optimized to solve these problems and a consistent, committed online marketing effort would significantly impact swing state voters, undecided voters, voter registration, fundraising and volunteerism.
The following combined marketing efforts could win the White House. For this plan, consumers are divided into three buckets:
1. Swing State Voters: voters in the 24 battleground states including Ohio, Florida, etc.
2. Supporters: site visitors, YouTube page visitors or donors regardless of location
3. Other voters: voters outside the swing states
See the full article on the Video Insider at MediaPost.