Throughout the telephony and technology industries, there is much talk about the cloud. Organizations are moving their networks to the cloud; processes are running in the cloud; and now, an online political marketing strategy can also be managed in the cloud. To be sure users can take advantage of such a strategy; we are providing 8 tips for developing such a campaign offered by
CallFire, a leading provider of voice broadcast software.
#1 Market Your Candidate in Search Results on Google (News - Alert) and Bing
Consumers - i.e. voters - are increasingly turning to the Internet for their information and will use these search engines to search for candidates by name. Focus on driving your search result to appear for similar queries and relevant permutations. You may even want to show a candidate's ad in the search results.
#2 Place Site-Targeted Candidate Ads on Political Websites
Video and text ads for your candidate can be placed across various websites and mobile devices with content match advertising. To maximize your reach, target geographically relevant local news websites and political news sections of nationally read publications.
#3 Accept Campaign Contributions Online, Via Telephone and Snail Mail
How will supporters know to donate to your campaign if you do not make it extremely obvious? Make use of such services as Google Checkout, CampaignPay.com and PayPal (News - Alert).com to build web-forms to accept online donations. Implement variant testing to determent in the efficacy of different e-mail designs, landing pages and call-to-actions for each donation push.
#4 Enable Volunteers to Make Voter-Outreach Calls From Home
The ability to work from home can greatly expand your appeal to volunteers. Software available from providers such as CallFire (and its Cloud Call Center) and Five9's Virtual Call Center enable groups to bring in volunteers from all over the country to work on a campaign right from their home office.
#5 Use the Telephone and Social Media to Survey Your Population
Remember that people don't have a lot of time to spare and if you convey that in your practices, you are much more likely to engage them in a quick survey. Voters often find short, fun surveys via Facebook (News - Alert) and Twitter are an interactive way to find friends with similar political views while you can gain valuable data on voter preferences.
#6 Customize Communication According to Age, Location and Political Affiliation
When volunteers are paired with voters of similar backgrounds, trust is immediately felt and increases the chances the voter will discuss the issues of mutual importance. In e-mail campaigns, for instance, it is important to address issues that are important to that specific voter.
#7 The Google Surge
This network blast is the practice of buying an online ad real-estate for a single ad-network in a given geo-targeted area. This approach can be extremely expensive, but is also extremely effective.
#8 Partner With an Experienced Political Technology Company
Experience is truly the name of the game if you hope to drive results with your campaign. There are a number of cloud-based providers - such as ActionKit.com or CraftDC.com that can manage your campaign for you. If you need to keep it in-house, consider Salesforce.com (News - Alert) or Leadmaster.com.
Overall, if the waters of the political marketing campaign in the cloud are untested for you, the most important thing to do is partner with a provider who can help you get the campaign you need to drive the exposure you have to have to win the election - the rest is up to the voter.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan's articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Juliana Kenny