Analytics should run your eCampaign

I’m a metrics freak.  I love analytics.  Every tool I use has some sort of measurement figure that enables me to make good decisions that will have positive impacts and adapt to change.  Analytics SHOULD run your eCampaign, not gut feeling or perception.  The numbers are always right.

Let me give you an example.  As you saw from my last post, content distribution is insanely important.  The question is, where do you distribute your content?  What media outlets to you most aggressively send your press releases?  Is it based on that sites traffic demographics?  Is it based on their traffic count?  What is it based on?

Enough with the rhetorical questions.  It comes down to this.  It’s all, some and none of those.  The solution you’re looking for is the site that drives people to your site AND to the pages on your site that are most important for them to see.  We’ve heavily leveraged analytics in all our work.  In one of the campaigns we are working on, the results are astounding.  Of the three main competitors here are the monthly traffic levels:

Candidate 1:  From 1/20/2010 to 2/20/2010 they had 185 visits to their website.
Candidate 2:  From 1/20/2010 to 2/20/2010 they had 815 visits to their website.

Our Candidate: From 1/20/2010 to 2/20/2010 we had 1,610 visits to their website.

Recently we had a blog post on their site that received 218 unique visitors.  That one blog post had 18% more traffic than Candidate 1′s site.  How?  Effective distribution that was identified through rigorous analytics.  Our data was able to tell us what sites gave us the most referrals, which gave us the best referrals, which referred people to the pages we wanted them to view.  We can figure out anything and everything via analytics.  Whether it’s analytics on Facebook where we can independently measure click through rates or whether it’s on Twitter?  It doesn’t matter because we have the infrastructure built to handle analytics on everything we do.  Thanks to analytics, our candidate OWNS the eCampaign in his race.

The lesson here is this:  Don’t just trust your gut.  Don’t just trust perception.  Trust the numbers because they justify gut and perception.

How to win your race with technology

Today I’m talking to those of you that run in those statewide races that are won primarily on name recognition.  Races like Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of State, etc.  These are very important positions but are almost always over-shadowed by popular gubenatorial and congressional races.  They don’t spend nearly as much money and they don’t raise as much money either.  This makes it difficult to manage, especially in states like Iowa with 99 counties!

So the answer to winning is a combination of two things:

• Be competent and know what you’re talking about (people know a fool when they see one)
• Get your name out there

For most people the second is the more difficult of the two.  To do this there are three things you need to focus on to be successful in spreading your name.

1. Video:  You MUST leverage video.  Video is both highly searched and easy for any demographic to view.  Furthermore, we’ve given you EVERYTHING you need to produce better-quality video on our blog and you can do it everywhere you are.  I’ve been asked more than once, “Usually when I’m in front of groups I give my stump speech.  Which basically means if I record myself I’ll be recording the same thing over and over again.  So why do I need to record every event?”  The point is not to just hear what you have to say.  It’s to see the people listening to you.  See their reactions.  You shouldn’t ever upload your entire speech anyways more than once.  So take soundbites, create commercials, segment your videos into issue categories.  Use video.  At your events you or someone on your campaign should be walking around asking supporters why they are going to vote for you.  Ask “soon-to-be” supporters what matters most to them in your race.  Be creative.  Video is the top of the totem-pole and I have yet to see anyone fully leverage it.
2. Blogging:  Yes, I’m going to beat this dead horse into non-existence.  I love what we’ve done with Dave Funk’s campaign.  We didn’t design the site but have helped his campaign with content strategy.  If you go to his issues page you’ll see a list of 12 or so  important issues.  Now, obviously we don’t’ want pages and pages of positions on each issue.  No one wants to read that much.  So we’ve taken small excerpts that cover the general idea but links to a blog category.  So every time Dave blogs about Taxes and Spending, you can click on the issues page link for Taxes and Spending and see an archived list of EVERYTHING he’s ever blogged about on that topic.  It’s organized, and it gives everyone the level of content they want.  That’s step one.  Step two is to distribute your content effectively.  Sending it to the masses.  Your race may only be statewide but remember, in-bound links are important.  Publish your content on large networks.  We have targeted sites we use for Funk’s campaign and even the most obscure & bland posts get more than 50 clicks easy.  So create your content, organize your content and effectively distribute your content.
3. Email Marketing:  Go and get an effective email marketing tool.  Almost every demographic is using this tool.  This is equal to Facebook and Twitter in importance when you campaign.  This is a way to reach almost every demographic in one simple outlet.  Use a good email marketing system that allows you to customize your email blasts, automatically pull in your blog feed and allows you to build customized sign up forms for your website, Facebook and anywhere on the web.

These tools are key.  Just because you do them doesn’t guarantee you success, however, if you effectively leverage these three things and distribute them properly you are looking at unprecedented success in your campaign.  Remember, you need to create content, organize content and almost more importantly, effectively distribute content.

Fire Your Campaign Manager

If you’re a candidate or campaign team ready to hire a campaign manager…or you’ve already hired one please take note:

If the first thing your Campaign Manager tells you to do is to get on Facebook and Twitter…show him/her the door.

Sounds odd coming from we tech centric uber geeks who live inside the Matrix eh?  Not really.  Here’s why.  Although Twitter and Facebook are obviously KEY tools in the overall campaign arsenal…they are merely part of a multivariate marketing equation that will drive you to victory.

When a campaign manager is obssessed with Twitter and Facebook first without having an overall content / web strategy…that means there are serious gaps in their approach.  Okay, maybe you don’t have to fire him/her…but absolutely call us and we’ll do a 2 day immersion camp that will blow their minds.   It will be a good save for you campaign manager and the best thing for your candidate.

Iowa Caucus Recap – Technology Dilemma

I attended the Iowa Caucus yesterday and learned quite a bit about the process. See an off year caucus is designed to elect leadership and fill county volunteer positions on committees, to elect delegates, etc. I am now a delegate for my precinct and feel that much more connected to our great process. But here’s something I ran up against in my precinct huddle.

The group was vigorously discussing how we need to get sons and daughters engaged. We have so many voting age college students/high school seniors that are seemingly ignored by most candidates/officials. Ask Chris Hagenow how important even 80 little votes can be to winning a seat? What if those 80…or 200 or 1000 were between 18-24? There were great ideas but it wasn’t until the very end where someone mentioned “That twitter that all the young people are on”.  I don’t expect Citizen USA to know demographic data on these tools…but she was headed in the right direction.

I sat back trying to assess where this group was regarding technology and I chimed in, “Does anyone here NOT have email and is anyone unwilling to provide it as a method of organization?” (silence).  So we had our 100% possible compliance technology.  So I raced home, built a WordPress site, set up an email list on Aweber‘s email marketing platform and bought an easy to remember URL.  After all that, I had a moment of reflection, dropped what I was doing…and created a Facebook Group. The thought was “Keep it simple stupid”.

I’m sure we’ll end up doing what campaigns and candidates should do..and that’s to be where people ARE and communicate in the ways THEY want.  Is that more work? YES.  Does it require more infrastructure? YES.  But can one tie them all together to provide a “web” or network of information that “disperses to all of the content outposts” for a campaign automatically? You bet.

We’ll see how this plays out and I will report on a regular basis….but now that I’m in the trenches of my actual neighborhood, I’m going to learn a lot more about what works, what doesn’t, and what we can pass onto other precincts.

More to come.

Tracking A Candidate’s Online Reputation

We have 2 courses in our Interactive Learning Environment on listening.  Listening is the first step for some candidates and campaigns but not nearly enough of them.  Listening goes beyond Google Alerts on “Your Name”.  As a candidate (or campaign manager or consultant, etc.) you need to cast a very wide web.  There are tools and systems out there that will scour and filter for you beyond your wildest dreams.  One such system is FiltrBox (acquired by JiveSoftware just announced today).  We use this and provide customized “daily briefings” to clients’ in boxes (if they like email).  For some clients we actively listen, filter, and act (blog, tweet, comment, etc.).

The bottom line is that talking during the campaign cycle is a given.  Listen is a much rarer commodity.  Listen…and win.

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Twitter Debate Roars On

I get asked no less than 5x per week by politicos, “I mean come on who really has time for Twitter?” Usually that’s followed by, “I just have daughter do it for me.” Yes you do…yes…you do.

Twitter is an engagement and awareness tool. Sure you’ll have a percentage of tweets that are informative (links and event announcements) but this is usually where it stops for most.

Take it a step further. Ask questions. Provide answers. Find supporters and build a hyper local twitter following so you have a concentrated and high-power audience that markets your message for you.

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!

Twitter, an Incredible Search Engine

Well, we’ve done it again. Today we just launched another fantastic course on “Listening on Twitter.” For those of you that had tuned in last night to the Red Alert Hour you may have heard me say, “Twitter is one of the most powers search engines on the web.” In a world of Google, Yahoo and Bing you would think not much can compete. Well, if you search is news related or business/political anything Twitter may be the first place you want to stop.

Twitter is generating more content than any website I have ever seen. Okay. So maybe it’s not the original outlet of the content so it’s not really “generating” it but it is one of the most popular venues online to share this content. Seriously. Twitter had the following Google did it would blow Google out of the water in terms of searchability.

Why do I say that? Twitter has created the perfect search and share environment. It’s like a peer to peer content sharing site. Imagine LimeWire or Napster (back when it was free, years ago) but instead of music, pics and videos you are sharing links and information, legally . Furthermore, Twitter has provided a fantastic search mechanism, hashtags. I’m not going to explain hashtags because I’ve done that enough. But everything and anything is findable on Twitter.

All of that said (I noticed I say that a lot) here’s why this matters. Imagine the benefits of leveraging this tool to gather campaign intelligence. To understand what your listeners feel about issues. By leveraging Twitter you can move your campaign to the level it needs to be at to win your next election. Fortunately, there are applications that have been provided by third party developers that make listening on Twitter incredibly simple.

Find out more by subscribing to ORS, remember, it’s only $97 a quarter….for now.

Listening on Twitter

This course has been designed as a way to help you listen on Twitter.  Twitter has thousands of applications that do a variety of things but when it comes down to it, being able to listen clearly through the clutter is by far your most powerful tool.  Listening to Twitter can be a difficult task so we’ll take you through some tools that you can use to optimize your “listen-ability” while saving as much time as possible.  There are also certain programs out there you can use to aggregate the functionality of some of these tools.

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It’s Finally HERE! Hyper-Local Targeting With TWITTER!

That’s right gang.  I actually have two announcements to make today.  First, this is officially the 200th blog post at OperationRedState.com and I think that’s pretty freaking sweet considering we started blogging just under a year ago (104 of which were content posted from yours truly).  As lame as that might seem, I’m pretty stoked about it.

More importantly though….We’ve noticed an incredible need out there and it’s not just in politics.  Messages can be refined over and over again, tweets can be sent time after time and you can even update your Facebook status daily.  That doesn’t mean the right people are receiving your message.  You could be missing all the right people.

I’m not a huge TV watcher and when I do I like to watch the commercials.  I watch the commercials because I like to count how many ads reached me that I really couldn’t care about.  So either I’m an anomaly in the stations’s viewership or some of these advertisers don’t have a clue.  I’m sure to some degree it’s a combination of the two.  What if you could send your message to a hyper-targeted population?  What if you just want to reach out to those in the public sector?  Or those just in Waukee, IA?  What if you wanted to send multiple custom messags to different fragments of your constituency so they hear and read the things that are most important to them?

Now you can!  ORS will be posting an awesome course in the next three weeks on Hyper-local targeting with Twitter.  By local I don’t ever restrict the definition to a geographic area.  When I say local I mean people that are local to a category, like, say, accountants.  Local meaning you are able to reach out at a very granular level.  No more of these 5,000 mile tweets where you’re basically throwing stuff at the wall hoping it sticks.

This course will be especially helpful to those of you running in smaller races from city council to school board to State Senator.  I’ve felt that our courses, though fully applicable to small races, have somewhat neglected these candidates because we were missing this piece.  The ability to localize your eCampaign.  So keep your eyes out this month because we’ll be sending an email out to the lot of you when the course is officially posted.

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