Yes we can! Obama’s campaign as as example on how newspapers should gain their audience
October 23, 2009 by marek.miller
The 2008 U.S. presidential elections demonstrated the power of new media in the 21st century to impact politics and society. The campaign included design, branding, web content, video, mass e-mail, text messaging, fund-raising, online advertising, and more. During the INMA Outlook 2010 conference, Matthew Mc Gregor, the director of the Blue State Digital – the company who helped powered the Obama Online campaign (as well as campaigns in Sweden, France, the United Kingdom) talked about how his experience can relate to newspapers in their efforts to grow audience and advertising.
Matthew Mc Gregor stated at the very beginning that Obama became the president of the US not because of media and new media usage, but because of who he is, and what he believes in.
Here is a bunch of information about what was done during the Obama’s campaign:
- 13 million supporters on a email database
- millions of calls made
- millions of doors knocked
- 200.000 offline events
- 1.2 billion min of video consumed
- 500 mln dollars donated
The goal for news publishers should be to engage the people with compelling and unique content. During Obama’s campaingn a special blog was set: Voices for Change with hundred and hundreds of stories updated on a constant basis. What’s even more important – those stories were used that way, so others could hear it.
Also the transparency of the campaign was part of its success. Every month the voters knew what was going to happen in the campaign, and how much money was going to be spent. This way Obama had created a totally different image to other candidates. When Hillary Clinton was asking for 10 million dollars in fund raising, Obama was saying something different – that he needed 100 million donors, not caring how much they will donate. Engaging his voters, giving people something to do, and putting them to work was Obama’s asset. That way he did not have to deal with passive voters. Millions of contacts that supported Obama are still being taken care of, and the relationship is still on. They are now council representatives, active citizens in their communities.
Technology makes many things easier in terms of communication. That’s why it was easier to ask people to act via such channels of communications as Twitter or Facebook than doing it face to face. Also individual tactics were engaged in the campaign including building personalized and real relationships. It was all about identifying what people were willing to do. An example of such action is “not in my name” project, where people were invited to upload their pics. This could turn the enthusiasm and engagement into the result.
Tagged: INMA, Marketing, Outlook 2010
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[...] Suggestions of what should be done in order to improve the business models of news publishers were given by Juan Senor from Innovation Media Consulting Group. While listening to Matthew Mc Gregor, the director of the Blue State Digital, news publishers could learn how Obama’s presidential campaign could inspire them to gain the audience. [...]