US Election votes for Internet Marketing

Internet plays an increasingly important role in politics as a way to reach voters; presidential candidates are employing sophisticated Internet marketing tactics to maximize the impact of their websites. I enjoy following politics and have been an avid spectator of the on-going 2008 U.S Presidential Elections. It’s very entertaining to see how political parties compete with one another during an election to win votes.

The internet has been moving to the mainstream of political life in the US for some years. The internet favours the outsider, and gives them the ability to quickly mobilise supporters and money online. www.barackobama.com chalked up some 1.5 million volunteer accounts. In an age when voters get their information from a multiplicity of sources, internet reaches region, age groups etc. It allows candidates to target voters with pin-point accuracy. And it’s free. It costs $60 to mobilise one voter through direct mail, $30 via telephone - but only $1.56 through social networking sites and email. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have made it clear that they will use the Internet to communicate effectively if in office. Mr Obama use of social networking sites has helped Mr Obama to mobilise young people. Social networking sites are a chance for Obama to engage supporters. A stream of celebrity-fronted ads has targeted the You Tube generation, encouraging them to register to vote or vote early.

Every candidate has a blog but for the most part, it's just the voice of the campaign -- or one particular campaign staffer. People searching with the term 'end war in Iraq' will see the Barack Obama website in the results. Candidates who are identifying themselves with certain issues should look closely at how they are performing on those keywords. It is the social networking opportunities offered by the internet that has paid Barack Obama the richest dividends. Internet video clips have become mainstream, both as a way to illustrate political points and to view clips of the candidates from news and entertainment television shows.

Obama's victory in the general election was aided by his tremendous fundraising success. Since the start of 2007, his campaign relied on bigger donors and smaller donors nearly equally, pulling in successive donations mostly over the Internet. Obama’s fundraising haul was more than twice the amount Democrat John Kerry raised in 2004, and more than twice what George Bush and Al Gore combined brought in during the 2000 presidential campaign. The Democrats are succeeding with young people because they are targeting young people and they are using the Internet to successfully micro target. Micro targeting uses sophisticated computer models regularly used in commercial marketing, which helps campaigns to locate sympathetic voters and target them with individually tailored messages on issues that are predicted to be most important to them

His online success has had an impact at the polls. Internet marketing has become powerful weapon for candidates to increase their voters, fundraising etc and finally presidency. What I found most intriguing was how the campaigns are approaching social media and how they could be doing better. Their blogs are a perfect example.