Run a Killer Campaign for Public Office through MLM

I was sitting down in my living room a couple of days and had this epiphany (though maybe blatantly obvious to you, so just humor me) on how to run a killer campaign for public office.  It’s quite simple actually.  It’s called something that a few have grown to love, many don’t understand and many have made zero dollars trying it out.

It’s called Multi-Level Marketing (MLM).  Initially my thought was this is the means to winning the local political campaign.  Rather, it works on all levels of political office it’s just a matter of applying it properly.

MLM, for those that don’t know it very well, in very general and simple terms, is a pyramid scheme.  Think about those running for Congress or any Presidential campaign.  They have County Chairs, State Chairs, Coalition Chairs, etcetera.  It’s one giant pyramid scheme where each chair-person is raising money, motivating volunteers and getting out the vote.  Here are the problems.

On large statewide or national campaigns many don’t think of themselves as MLMs when they should.  Each County or State chair needs to recruit “X” number of volunteers and raise $XX.  Each of his/her recruits need to recruit “X” number of volunteers and raise $XX.  It’s the never-ending circle that creates sort of a top-down grassroots effort (yes, I see the contradiction there).  This mindset will enable you to reach the largest number of people in the most effective way.  Stump speeches in front of hundreds work, but recruiting my 10 best friends/family and having them do the same is much more effective and personable.

On a local level campaign run you typically don’t just think of this, you’re likely not even doing it on accident like the higher-level offices.  Just because you have a small constituency there’s nothing wrong with having a Teacher’s coalition, veteran’s coaltion, etcetera.  You may have to get a little more creative because city council won’t be too involved in Veteran’s issues but it can be done.

Lesson:  Be an MLM marketer.  It works because everyone involved is working for the person at the top and to put them in office rather than working for themselves.  It’s a self-less pyramid schemed.  I’m actually going to pick up some books on MLM marketing because, in all candor, as bad a rap MLM gets it’s precisely the thing your campaign needs.  To put in words a little easier on the ears, you need the organization.  Money doesn’t buy organization, money buys ads and yard signs.  Imagine if you had both.

Diminished Importance of Mainstream Media

(By John Burnley, Contributing Author to ORS)

Last time I discussed the importance of constituent engagement and how technological tools were beginning to transform the political campaign process. However, I also issued some warnings about utilizing these tools without purpose, strategy or gauging effectiveness. Whether social/new media tools like Facebook or other software, voice or video offerings etc. are implemented, mimicking other campaigns in their use of technology may not produce the desired results. Nevertheless, online campaign initiatives are beginning to take hold. There are more examples surfacing of candidates realizing the importance and relevance of embracing newer approaches to reach constituents, whether to pass information, solicit donations or promote volunteerism.

We are also seeing a shift in the way information is being delivered to the public. I recently ran across another example of social media being used to distribute political technology related content. According to the Facebook page “California governor’s race travels the information superhighway”, the Golden State’s 2010 gubernatorial race may be the most technologically based contest yet to be seen by the state. Candidates have been using Twitter, YouTube videos, Google search advertisements and other social media and online tools. One candidate even made his campaign official via Twitter.

The page also questions if alternate methods of information delivery will diminish the importance of traditional media such as radio and television. YouTube videos, as well as other online or social content delivery mechanisms can be used to respond more quickly to events than traditional media as well as go on the offensive against an opponent. While I’m not intrigued by a new wave of negative candidate bashing YouTube videos, this does allow a candidate the opportunity to respond quickly to comments, inaccurate claims etc. without the possibility of the content being edited or diluted down by traditional media or fighting to have the information delivered to the public at all.

There is no hint about any of the underlying strategies for tool utilization or determining effectiveness, but it does illustrate how campaigns are becoming more innovative in their attempts to reach constituents.

As with most political venues, funding for information and technology for the various candidates is across the board ranging from $17,000 – $900,000. In an economy where many grassroots candidates may struggle for financing, these numbers illustrate the importance that some high profile campaigns are placing on newer methods for constituent engagement. Seriously, Doug, raise your rates for ORS!

The state of campaign software and new media engagement

(Please welcome John Burnley to the ORS family.  John brings a vast amount of more traditional infrastructure expertise to our “cloud based thinking”.  His knowledge and understanding of systems and architecture will certainly round out the ORS team as we move forward, expand, and bring you more content aimed at helping you developing a winning online campaign strategy.)

After being in the technology sector for over 20 years, I’ve developed a passion for finding opportunities to integrate technology in ways not envisioned by the original developers. One area that has recently caught my attention is political campaigning. Sure, if you Google political “campaign technology” or “campaign software”, you will get a laundry list of products, services and consultants. There are even some vendors who have built their offerings around cloud computing themes offering their products as SaaS (software as a service). The “Cloud” is another interest, but I’ll save that for a later time.

From the basic research that I’ve done, it appears that most, if not all offerings deal with the backroom functionality of tracking donations, voter lists, the general business of running a campaign etc.

What they don’t address is the integration of all the tools that may be necessary to successfully run a campaign whether at the local, state or national levels.

It’s important to efficiently run the ‘business’ of the campaign, but it is equally important to have an effective strategy for engagement. Constituent message delivery and adoption, volunteer motivation and fundraising are all part of the engagement process. This is where campaigns can fall short. How many times have you thrown away direct mail, hung up on the pre-recorded candidate message, changed the television channel to escape negative advertisements or vowed not to vote for the next candidate that called and interrupted your dinner?

New technology and media tools are changing the political landscape, and candidates who do not embrace these methods may not have sufficient fundraising, volunteer workers or voter turnout to compete with better managed or funded campaigns. Many still solely rely on traditional methods, although some have started to use social media tools. However, having a Facebook page or Twitter account without effectively using them to reach out to the constituency may lead to failure.

The best example of utilizing technology within a political campaign is the successful 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama. Dan Siroker, Director of Analytics for the Obama campaign has just released a video entitled “How we used data to win the presidential election”. Here is a great example of aligning technological tools with strategy and analytics to make good decisions, increase funding and engaging constituents and volunteers. (First 20 or so minutes is focused on the political side of things vs. private sector)

There are other examples of how campaigns are becoming more innovative. Alex Beam, in his article “Beam on politics: What’s Working” writes about candidates using tele-town halls to enable constituents “a chance to participate in a talk-show like exchange with the candidate”. In an interview with the University Of Michigan School Of Business , Michigan Republican Governor Candidate Rick Snyder says his campaign is leveraging cell phone cameras and databases in a ‘get-the-vote-out technology’ that he has dubbed “Rick’s Innovation Network”.

How successful will candidates be? No doubt, results will vary because of differences in the candidates, platforms, issues and specific strategies and implementations. Beam was skeptical on how effective using new media tools are, but did acknowledge there are success stories. The Obama campaign is the only case study I have found where analytics were used on measurement data. I’m still searching for more case studies at the local, state and national levels. However, many of these tools are free, and in the Obama campaign, the ROI was phenomenal.

Campaign managers will need to be careful about jumping onto the bandwagon. Instead of just opening a Twitter account or developing a Facebook page, an overall strategy must be developed that aligns with the campaign goals. As innovative technological strategies are implemented, some type of monitoring and measurement must also take place to help evaluate the effectiveness of actions taken. Sending out blast Email, text messages etc. without purpose or measurement is the equivalent of SPAM, and will in all probability be rejected by the recipients.

As far as our current political party system in the United States, it appears the Democrats are paying more attention and may be further ahead in implementing these strategies and techniques…but that’s where we at ORS come in.  We’re changing the game and providing conservatives the campaigns of tomorrow…today.

Facebook’s Demographic Shift Becomes Advantage for Political Candidates

We all heard last week how Facebook has finally reached the 200 million user mark.  What’s even more important is who that 200 million user base is comprised of.

New media has been primarily comprised of younger users, less than 25 years old.  Until the last twelve months, it didn’t even make sense to use these tools as a way of communicating your political message if your target was outside that age range.  Facebook’s demographic has taken such a strong shift that it has now asserted itself, once again, as one of the vital tools to an campaigns online web strategy.

Check these numbers covering the last 180 days of Facebook growth.  They are astounding. No more is the world of Facebook confined to the younger crowd.  We actually saw the same shift occur on Twitter over the last six to ten months.  Twitter has not only been penetrated by other age groups but there has even been a large swing to the right.  I don’t think I’ve seen a @barackobama since the election.

Why is this shift in Facebook so particularly powerful?  Facebook has the ability to mirco-target groups of individuals.  From an advertising perspective I can go in and find market segments that would only have 90 people in it out of 200 million.  At the same time, if I have a message for the masses I can still reach the 200 million.  Now that there is an increasingly diverse demographic on this social network you can cater your message to anyone you want.

What should you watch out for when using this tool?  When you have access to different demographics it’s very easy for a politician to not just cater their message to the segment their reaching out to, but also change it. Your online brand cannot change if you want to be successful. Be sure that your message is the same across the board.  You may talk to the elderly about prescription drugs and to the youth about education no problem.  As long as your message is consistent you can be successful.

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