It pains me to do this already in July 2011, but here’s a rundown on what the emergent 2012 political campaigns are doing with respect to online fundraising.
The 2008 Obama campaign re-wrote the online fundraising handbook, and all the wannabees have studied it closely.
This report from Clickz.com provides several articles for you political groupies, covering Obama, Romney, Palin, Bachmann, Pawlenty, Huntsman … and even Ann Coulter.
As always, my interest in this political propaganda is chiefly from the perspective of … Anything here for us legitimate, principled fundraisers?
Tom
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I LOVED today’s post on political campaigns because nonprofits absolutely learn from the online-fundraising-petri-dish-on-steroids that we call political fundraising. In fact, I just published a paper on “Borrowing from Obama’s Online Fundraising Playbook” sharing how the online fundraising strategies that Obama (OFA) uses can be used immediately by nonprofits to boost their online response. Tiny url: http://tinyurl.com/3q9qb86.
Not every nonprofit is the focus of 24 hour news cycles like Obama. However, Obama’s entire online strategy is paying huge dividends in advance of his direct mail and television flights and I encourage us all to watch closely. What OFA has done right the past ninety days include strategies nonprofits can implement immediately, including:
· Online Advertising. Smart nonprofits are already using geo-targeted advertising to reach people who care about their issues to grow their supporter base.
· Insider Information. OFA let donors and supporters know in advance how successful second quarter fundraising had been and are making donors the hero of the story.
· Video. OFA gives you insider access to Obama’s campaign manager using video.
· Multivariate Testing. Like Amazon, Zappos, and Apple, a one percent (1%) conversion uptick for a campaign like OFA makes a huge difference. It looks like they’ve spent quite a bit of testing on online ads and their sign up to maximize conversion.
· Frequent Communication. Using multiple channels, email, Facebook, Twitter, the campaign didn’t shy away from sharing relevant information, especially on key dates.
· Celebration. The campaign, like almost all nonprofit issues, are a long haul. OFA is smart making milestones a big deal and then celebrating those milestones to keep momentum and enthusiasm up for the duration.
· Social media was fully integrated into the communication. Rather than treating Facebook, Twitter, Blogs as a separate channel, the campaign stayed “on message” through multiple channels.
Finally, the ClickZ article missed one major political-digital story: Using Facebook to defeat a Florida Ballot Initiative: https://www.facebook.com/notes/connectednonprofit/facebook-ads-help-defeat-a-ballot-initiative/128768493872469. Facebook advertising has been the poor relation to Google Advertising, but these stories are beginning to paint a picture that nonprofits and political campaigns can’t afford to overlook Facebook advertising one piece of an overall fundraising strategy.
Thanks again!