From social media to email marketing, big data has become the new key to marketing success. This narrative holds true even for political email marketing. President Obama has been noted as one of the most connected politicians of his age with the highest voter database. Use of personalized landing pages, use of opt-in forms, follow-ups, split testing of keys etc. is one of the many elements used in his email marketing campaign that took things to the next level.
Come 2016, and every candidate has leapt on the email marketing bandwagon in the same way that companies do on hip social networking platforms like Peach, Medium, and Snapchat.
CONTENT MANAGEMENT
These days, democratic and republican candidates develop websites where they explicitly ask for three things: email addresses, donations, and voters’ time to explain standpoints on political issues.
USER TRACKING
Some of this website you visit add a cookie to your browser, which means the website will follow your web activity. For example, right after you visit Hillary Clinton’s official website, you’ll notice advertisements on the web following you or remember you when you revisit the website.
USER ENGAGEMENT
Democratic and republican candidates want to assemble donors and votes to gain support to the cause. This is similar to a support campaign with brands like Pepsi or McDonalds, where the topic of discussion is the brand. So when they think about soda or burgers and buy Pepsi or McDonalds when they’re hungry.
In addition to tracking, when you visit a candidate’s site you are also asked to share your contacts list so your favorite leader can reach out to your friends, family, and acquaintances, and have the right tools to do so.
INFLUENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
According to how people respond to the candidates’ social media and online content, Sanders has the most shared content, Clinton has more influence while Trump has the most followers.
Sometimes, the influence is erratic. There are more google searches on Donald Trump’s hair than Marco Rubio.
In the good old days, candidates would reach out to people via telephone or mail. The digital age has afforded political candidates with newer ways to use data, reach out of people via email or digital advertising. For political parties, voter databases are like gold mines, and the technology uses to reach them has become increasingly common in campaigns.
The candidate who can collect and leverage a political party’s database is always at an advantage. It should be noted that having data isn’t entirely important, candidates also need to put it to good use.
Everything boils down to a single most important concept: If you’re a marketer, having a voter database is of little help if you don’t put it to good use.
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