Obama Digital Marketing Best Practices

BEST PRACTICES FOR DIGITAL POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS Rahul Nambiar, 14 February 2009

Table of Contents

Overview

Obama Campaign- A Perfect digital Communication Mix

Hub and Spoke approach

Website – The Hub for all activities

Customer Acquisition

Customer Engagement

Customer Analytics

Overview

To conduct a best practice research of the Obama presidential campaign

To provide with the structure for the ideal digital campaign for polls

Obama Campaign: The perfect digital communication mix Online Search & Display Ads Social Media New media & Widgets Hub Twitter, Blackberry/mobile compatible site Linkedin, Facebook, Ning, You Tube, Slideshare Email Marketing

Campaign Website is the hub: Multi channel point of view Exceptional Customer Experience CampaignWebsite.com Customer Acquisition Customer Engagement Customer Analytics

Website is the Hub for all activities

Neat and uncluttered User Interface

Positioning of “Call to Action” at the right places

Tightly connected up with all social media websites

Exceptional customer experience without use of jazzy flash videos

Search Engine Optimized, Analytics enabled to track behavior

Messaging on the website to bring the aspiration value in the candidate

BarackObama.com – Some Screenshots Straight and Clean Messaging to create Aspiration value – Knowing your target audience Is the key Tightly connected up with Social Media Lead Capture Call to Action Uncluttered UI

Customer Acquisition - Strategy

Online Display Ads

Planning where to put your Banners

Segmentation based on Age, Sex and Geography is the key of a great online media/display plan

Intelligent Ad Serving campaigns- Be there where the world is

An Example of intelligent Ad Serving- Obama – 92 Million Impressions a month, McCain – 7 Million Impressions a month

Best practice for online Ad serving- Keep tracking. Measuring and optimizing

Search

Location Based targeting and messaging

Conversion analysis

Using SEO to minimize PPC spends

Straight messaging in the PPC Ads

Online Viral Videos

Youtube channel for publishing all videos

Creation of standalone Music Videos to spread virally

Customer Acquisition - Strategy

Customer Acquisition Strategy Online Viral Videos

Customer Acquisition Strategy

Digital Out of Home

Adcentricity to push Digital Signage Ads

Publishing Text Messages in the Digital Signage Ads

In-Game Advertising

Targeted at the youth

Xbox- Obama Spent a Whopping $44.5k

Appearances in Second Life

Screenshots In Game Ad’s In Xbox In Game Ad’s - Obama in Second Life In Game Ads - Obama in Xbox 360 OOH Ad in Times Square

Customer Engagement

Email Marketing

Best way to reach out to the marketers

Highly segmented campaigns can be run

Highlights from Obama Campaign

13 Million People contacted through Emails

More than 1 Billion Emails sent

7000 Variations of the mails

McCain and Obama sent an average of 2 mails per day towards the last week of voting

Email Marketing- Obama Campaign Screenshots Campaigns to Raise Donations and Cross Sell Merchandise Email Persona, Putting a Personal touch to the emails Feedback Mailers

Email Marketing- Adding the personal touch

Customer Engagement

SMS/Text/Mobile

Powerful way to reach the Younger Voters

Obama Campaign used a text message to announce Vice-Presidential Candidate

Campaign Specific application on iPhone

Obama Campaign saw 5- 20 targeted messages each month

SMS/Text/Mobile - Screenshots Take the run-up to the elections. Here’s what short code 62262 had to say in a text message at 2:53 p.m. EDT on Oct. 30 “ Less than a week until Election Day on Nov. 4th! Barack needs your help. REPLY to this msg with your 5 digit ZIP CODE for local Obama news and voting info.” Four days later, this writer received another text message at 3:15 p.m. EST on Nov. 3 from short code 46708: “ Put your country first and vote on Tuesday! To find your polling location visit Gop.com/ElectionDay. Forward to your friends.” That message didn’t even mention the Republican presidential candidate John McCain by name. Where was the emotional appeal? Why wasn’t there a stronger call-to-action? Exactly 24 hours later, another text message pops into the box, this time from short code 62262 on Nov. 4 at 3:28 p.m. EST: “ People who love their country can change it! Make sure everyone you know votes for Barack today. For voting info call 877-874-6226 or VoteForChange.com.” Obama Mobile

Customer Engagement