I’ve been thinking about the role effective internet marketing played in the last presidential campaign. Obama was clearly looking to enter and dominate a space that was foreign to his competitors. The internet provided this space in the form of fund raising & social media tactics that were relatively unclaimed territory to traditional heavy weights Clinton and McCain. Clinton had essentially locked up every known major donor in the Democratic circle the day the primary had begun (maybe even sooner). Clinton stood a puncher’s chance. However, McCain was near bankrupt during his party’s primary and by the time he climbed into the ring for the main event, he was steam-rolled by the weight of a million five dollar bills. When the presidential election started, Obama had raised more money than any other presidential candidate in history. So how did this happen right under the nose of the most seasoned political strategist? There was one stone left unturned… and that stone was in Silicon Valley. Obama saw what Silicon Valley was doing with software, essentially building a subscription-based model where millions of people would pay very small amounts– $5, $10, $15 per month to use software (think SalesForce.com). He applied this same model to his campaign. I give credit to Obama for seeing the opportunity, organizing a strategy, and building the most impressive grassroots fund raising effort known to man. Like Kennedy used TV to captivate and mobilize an entire generation of followers, Obama has done it with the Internet.
I believe the next crop of elected political officials in this country, from the Senate to local school board officials, will be the ones that understand how the internet works. They will understand the value of achieving page 1 placement on Google for hot button voter issues. And above all else, they will see that internet campaign fund raising has changed the game. Visibility on major search engines was a big part of Obama’s strategy.
To learn more about search engine strategies and internet marketing please follow this link: www.searchengineconsultants.biz
Search Engine Consultants 