Obama and DB Marketing

No matter what is your party affiliation, you have to give Obama and team the credit for the successful marketing efforts so far. The entire primary was very well executed.

One of the innovative marketing tactics the Obama team used was to make the vice-presidential candidate announcement via text message. This has some interesting impacts:

• increased buzz and anticipation
• provided a call to action and increased traffic to the BarackObama.com website
  
• created loyalty with participation and a sense of inner group with priority
  
• created a sense of cutting edge leadership and being closer in touch with the younger generation
• equally important, from the database marketing perspectives, he now has one of the biggest opt-in SMS list in America! Now he can continue the relationship building via one of the most sought after channel.
  

The actual text message was: “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee.” And, it went to 2.9 million people. Sure, there were some technical difficulties, but I am sure he would turn this into an opportunity. Also, I am not sure whether the team was savvy enough to negotiate a lucrative deal with the carriers, by my own estimate, this first blast should have made 30-100K for the campaign.

Sources: Nielsen Mobile, MocoNews