Political Online Advertising Recap: Part 3

So you say you want to work in politics?  Or perhaps you are one of those online gurus who can't understand why politicians don't spend more money online.  How about a vendor trying to sell a product, impressions, or some tool and can't understand why you are having trouble selling into this industry.  Well after surviving my first cycle there is one thing I am definitely sure of, this isn't like selling telephone service or a brokerage account.  Heck, the standard widget sales example doesn't apply. 

Typically a good product marketing person will put together a 4-5P marketing plan and maybe even a SWOT analysis.  These papers would be put together at the beginning of a campaign and then the marketer and their agency would brainstorm tactics and creatives.  Finally, this would be put into motion via a marketing campaign where the results are monitored and after sufficient time has passed an optimization of the creatives and placements would occur.  None of this prepares you for dealing with an online political advertising campaign.  There are so many forces and personalities impacting your campaign that the most important skills to have are to think and act quickly before your moment passes.

Eric's Top 10 Reasons Why Political Marketing Is Different from Private Marketing

1. You have a finite time to deliver your result
2. Being 90%-99% close to your objective (winning) means you failed
3. Creatives need to be brainstormed, designed and implemented within 1-2 days before your window of opportunity has passed
4. Media plans are constantly re-evaluated and need to be proved out over a period of time; large sums of money are rarely tied up to maintain flexibility
5. Making any mistake, no matter how small, can cost you a client or a media buy
6. Reports and feedback need to be simple, easy, and quick to digest; it isn't that the eCampaign manager doesn't understand, it is that they have a million other projects to work on and no time or help to complete them
7. Your target audience is constantly changing and in fact, the future is probably closer to the Long Tail of Marketing; more on that another day
8. Your product is constantly changing based on external forces and real-life trends
9. There is a large portion of people that will never, ever buy your product no matter how good you think it is or what discounts you offer; for example. George Washington got 97.8% of the electoral college results in 1792 and FDR got 60.8% of the popular vote in 1936.
10. There is no opportunity for testing and learning; learning is passed to the next election cycle

As my old COO at Harrisdirect Mike Hogan once told me "Selling brokerage plans isn't like selling phone service, Eric" and I can honestly tell you that politics is just what it means, politics.  If you can't handle the pressure and the deadlines, stick to selling books.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric