How Email Marketing Just Changed the World

The Barack Obama Presidential campaign <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/summary.php?cid=N00009638" title="See the donation numbers">raised a record $750 Million dollars</a> almost entirely from individual donors using a modern, online grass-roots strategy powered mostly by it's email marketing.  While I haven't found an official case study on their specific tactics, as a list member (and somewhat of an expert in the field) I saw first-hand the effective use of this powerful marketing tool. Here are 7 observations about what they did right, and why it mattered. 1. Personalization. Almost all messages led with my name - if not in the subject line, then in the greeting or the body of the message.  While this may sound obvious, it's amazing how many marketers still don't personalize their email marketing. The evidence is overwhelming that personalization increases open and clickthrough rates. Despite this, most marketers are apparently happy with just collecting an email address and lumping everyone in to the same bucket. Why not use the technology that exists to personalize each message? This is just the first step of making your message relevant, which is the most important strategy for an effective email marketing campaign. 2. Relevance. Not only did the campaign link my name with my email address, but they also tracked how much money I had donated to the campaign. They used this information by always being grateful for the previous donation, but making a strong case why I needed to donate more. And the amount they asked for was exactly the largest amount I had donated previously. This was pretty smart. Why ask for only $25 if I had donated $100 in the past? Since everyone has a different ability to donate - their strategy was to make sure the request was reasonable without leaving money on the table. Genius, and relevant. 3. Conditional Content. During the campaign I compared emails I received with those sent to a friend. This gave me insight into how the Obama campaign was using what we call Conditional Content. Since my friend had not yet made a donation, the exact same message asking me to donate another $100 when sent to her ended with this: “And if you make your first online donation today, your gift will go twice as far. A previous donor has promised to match every dollar you donate.” Conditional Content is the ability to change the content of a message based on an attribute of that individual person’s profile (like whether or not they had previously donated). It’s an advanced technique that makes a big contribution to "Relevance" and was well executed by the campaign. 4. Variety. Many of the messages that came across from the campaign were educational - including <a href="http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/giveadayvid" title="Watch the Video">one with a video link</a> from the campaign manager about how they were going to compete in the final days (and why they needed more of my money). Other messages were emotionally charged to provoke a gut response - like the ones showing the smear tactics of the other side. Some messages were text, some led to videos on the website, and others called for personal involvement. Some messages came from Michelle Obama, some from campaign leaders, and a few from Barack himself. The moral of the story: mix up your messages (educational, logical, emotional) and your media delivery (video, text, photos) so you appeal to all types of people and their different decision making styles. 5. Triggers. Though I wasn't on the design team for Obama's email marketing campaign (maybe they'll call us next time!) I can be almost certain that they used follow up trigger messages based on my behavior. (I noticed that when I clicked on an email - maybe to view a video, but did not take action, I would soon after receive a second message with a stronger call to action to follow through.) This can be a very effective tool when your first message gets your reader close, but not over the "will-buy" line. An effective and automated follow-up message can help motivate your reader to finally take action. 6. Value. Throughout the grass-roots campaign the Obama team promised (and delivered) to tell their list members breaking news <a href="http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/firsttoknow" title="Be First to Know">first</a>. I noticed that even many media people closely watched their iPhone's for incoming news from the campaign on strategic choices - like who would run as VP. Making your list members feel like they are part of an exclusive club who will receive information or offers that no one else will receive pays large dividends. One of our clients, Mor Furniture, does this extremely well by offering Private Sales to their list members that are not advertised to the public. During these sales, Mor has a huge response and customers feel special when they walk in with a 20% (additional) off coupon that the general public never received. 7. Viral. On certain key messages, the campaign asked for my help to spread the word and made it easy for me to pass along the message.  This expanded their reach well beyond just their list members. Again, an obvious benefit to using email marketing (you can't forward a postcard to 6 of your friends), but the interesting thing here is that they did not do this on every message. They knew the power of this technique, but reserved it for only very important messages to make sure they didn't wear out their list members, avoiding what we marketers call "list fatigue." Improvements? While the campaign definitely wins an Email Broadcast award for "Email Marketing Done Right" it wasn't a perfect execution. Some list members I spoke with were slightly annoyed by the volume of email coming from the campaign and there was no way to select your preference of frequency - like "Just send me the really important stuff" or "Don't send me more than one message a day."  In fairness, this level of customization is rarely seen but it is doable and a great way to keep people from abandoning your list entirely. There was also a dis-connect between the campaign's email marketing and the "Personal Fundraising" pages they encourage activists to create on the Obama website. Donations made in response to an email were not reflected on that list member's personal fundraising page, to the disappointment of many donors. Conclusion. Even with room for improvement, it's abundantly clear that the Email Marketing campaign was one of the keys to victory for the Obama team.  While the future of communications is unwritten, and many new exciting technologies (facebook, twitter, etc.) are making headlines, Email Marketing still reigns supreme in it's ability to deliver the goods (or the votes) - when it's done right. Congratulations to the Obama team for an election campaign win and for doing email marketing right. 2009-01-05T02:46:23Z

2009-01-05T05:42:16Z

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how-email-marketing-just-changed-the-world

2009-01-05T05:42:11Z

This article discusses 7 observations about how the Barack Obama campaign effectively used advanced Email Marketing techniques to win the 2008 Presidential Election, written by Ken Mahar, CEO of Email Broadcast.

How Email Marketing Just Changed the World

2009-02-24T09:48:15Z