Marketing Lessons from Obama Campaign – It’s All Web 2.0

Look at the excerpts from a Financial Times article on Obama’s use of technology. Some good lessons here. We’ll help you execute these kinds of changes in your marketing.

Obama Steals A March With Technology - By Edward Luce in Washington - Published: February 21 2008

Mr Obama has run the model new technology campaign, in which staff and volunteers have the autonomy to make their own decisions and in which potential supporters who visit his website are offered multiple online materials.

The Obama website offers almost instant video replays of his speeches, which are also packaged by Obama officials for YouTube. A few mouse clicks from each webcast provides a simple procedure to make online donations. Users can set up blogs, join the Obama Facebook group and even download ring tones featuring recordings of his speeches.

The contrast with Mrs Clinton's relatively conventional website is instructive. In one of her first webcasts Mrs Clinton offered to "have a conversation with America". But the questions she received were obviously screened. The fact these "conversations" took place online could not disguise the fact they were controlled.

"Even businesses find it hard to change their organizational structure to fit the demands of new technology," says Mr Leyden. "But for political campaigns, which are classic command-and-control operations, it is particularly difficult. Mrs. Clinton maintains a competent and solid website but Mr Obama has made it the central organizing tool of his campaign."

it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mrs Clinton has maintained a much less flexible campaign than her surging opponent, in which technology has been treated as an add-on rather than a central tool. Early on, Mr Obama hired Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, the social networking site, to advise his campaign.

"Candidates get the campaigns they deserve," says Bill Galston, a veteran of Democratic contests. "The media needs a narrative and Mrs Clinton did not provide one.

Mr Obama's better use of technology has enabled him to raise funds at more than twice the rate of Mrs Clinton in the past six weeks from an expanding universe of online donors. She, in contrast, has had to divert valuable time to attend traditional "offline" fundraising events. "Once you have your online fund raising network in place it operates at virtually zero cost - in time and overheads," says Mr Leyden. "Mr Obama has built a kind of online ATM. Mrs Clinton doesn't have that."

You can build the same kind of compelling technology strategy. You can do it for your clients, prospects, partners and referral sources. We’ll help you do it.