Digital Campaigns: Lessons Learned From Election 2008

Digital Campaigns: Lessons Learned From Election 2008 A digital strategy checklist for your next campaign Presented by:

Introductions

Chris Bonner

SVP Digital Strategy

Jon Carpenter

Senior Mgr. Digital Strategy

Presentation Goals

Cover seven elements essential to any digital campaign.

Highlight digital wins and misses of the presidential campaigns.

Go over strategic advantages for you.

Discuss trends for all types of campaigns.

Answer your questions.

Benefits of Digital Campaigns

Actionable

Measurable

Targeted

Often relatively inexpensive

Scalable

Conversational/Feedback eliciting

Empowering

More and more, digital is required in the “cost of entry” for serious campaigns, not a nice-to-have.

The Hype

The Technology

Our View Traditional Outreach Press releases Pitching reporters Fact sheets Special events We Media Search engine marketing Buzz Web 2.0 Citizen journalism MySpace Social Media Flogs Publicity Promotions Media relations IR Branding Viral marketing Tivo Social networking Metaverses Folksonomy Content optimization Online editorial outreach Syndication Flickr New Outreach Consumer- generated content Reputation management Public affairs Coalitions Third party outreach Grassroots Mobile marketing Advergaming YouTube PR stunts Employee communications RSS Blogs Wikis Tagging Podcasting Wireless Facebook

Big Picture…

People are online, gathering, organizing, conversing, agreeing, disagreeing, etc.

They are a click, a search, or a referral away.

You can ignore them , monitor them without engaging them, or monitor and engage them .

Drivers of Success

Most Significant Success Drivers

Know your story .

Know your goals .

Know your audience(s) .

The Checklist

Search engine optimization

Search engine marketing

Online competition monitoring

Existing online community participation

Appropriate content delivery

Scaled engagement options

Online-offline coordination

Invest in SEO

Invest in SEO “ economy” “ lower taxes” “ health care”

The Checklist

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Cater SEM to Your Goals

Search Engine Marketing

The practice of buying paid search listings

Improved message delivery

Measurable

Targeted

Contextual

Often inexpensive

Scalable

Cater SEM to Your Goals

Obama bought up keywords to run immediately after the debate: “Obama won debate.”

Obama spent almost $8 MM for digital ads, over $500K on social networks. (Techpresident.com)

McCain spent just over $1.5 million on Web media (clickz.com)

-MediaWeek, September 30, 2008

The Checklist

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Monitor Your Competition Online

The Checklist

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Utilize Existing Online Communities

Online Outreach

“… reached out to well-known political blogs…including a link to the "Hope Changes Everything" video on YouTube. We also targeted the blogs of regional daily newspapers… We even reached out to music blogs…because of the candidate-as-rock-star feel of the video … [We sent] messages to users on YouTube who had…"favorited" Obama videos… We also reached out on Facebook. 1

1 How Obama Became President Of YouTube Peter Kafka | March 20, 2008

The Checklist

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Communicate Based on Audience Preference

Text messaging: “What impressed me about the text-message campaign was that it was an effective device for collecting millions of voter contacts, while also signaling that Obama connects with young people.”