Fundraising with Obama

7 April 2008

As a freelance marketer, I believe marketing lies at the centre of all business. Without a market, you don’t have a product. I therefore investigate any business I can learn from, whatever or wherever that is.

So in March, over I go to Arkansas USA to talk to one of Barack Obama’s election volunteers. He tells me how wonderful Obama is. Never mind all that – every Tom Dick and Harry can get that from newspapers and TV.

What marketing tricks is Obama pulling?

After some experimental interrogation sessions with this volunteer guy, he starts to tell me all about Obama’s web and viral marketing techniques. How far ahead of his rivals the Obama team is in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), email marketing and website design. All of which are central to today’s publishing operation.

I decide to investigate Obama’s marketing further
Obama’s website has a really effective USP and a prominent ‘donate’ button. You can’t miss them. But Hillary Clinton’s messages are mixed and all over the home page. Her USP (‘I’m a woman. Make history’) is negated by Obama’s (‘I am black. Make a change’) Hillary’s donate button is found under a list of five other options.

Take a look here: Marketing Obama

Inside Obama’s Internet marketing team
I discover the inside story on the expert Internet marketing team Obama has assembled.

The Clinton’s didn’t even bother to visit Silicon Valley when they were in California – whoops!

Now – how clever is this?!
We can all learn from how the Internet marketing team was brought together. Obama doesn’t waste time going around interviewing dozens of Internet wizards (all of whom have probably arrived from the distant planet of Gobbledygook.)

No – Obama is far wiser than that; wiser even than the average publisher. Instead he recruits a partner in a San Francisco venture-capital firm, Mark Gorenberg. These VC guys invest in Internet entrepreneurs. So instead of loosing his sanity listening to fast gobbledygook from a long list of computer guys, each who will insist he can build the right fund-raising system at the right price, Obama gets this guy Gorenberg to do it.

(How to run a company, lesson one: if you know Jack about Internet marketing or indeed, not much about marketing at all – delegate the job to someone who does. Then do as he says.)

As a venture capitalist, Gorenberg spends all his days listening to and investing in computer people talking fast gobbledygook. So he has the experience to quickly spot what he wants. But Gorenberg, like Obama, is also a wise man – wise enough not to take on the task himself. He teams up with a friend whose job it is to recruit executives for tech firms. So she does all the listening and all the hiring.

(How to run a company, lesson two: that’s how ‘networking’, ‘delegation’ and ‘marketing’ at the top works. It’s about a man knowing his own limitations).

These tech-types think in terms of networks. That is why Obama has a hugely successful viral marketing email campaign and why he has pulled in much more money than anyone else – around 23% more than Hillary Clinton. That’s enough to give Obama market leadership.

Many of the donations are in recurring monthly payments by credit card – but that is another story, another lesson.

Take a look here: Marketing Obama

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