Online Marketing strategy lessons learnt from 2008 Presidential campaign.

The 2008 US presidential campaign is a perfect example of superior marketing strategy and return of investments in the form of collected dollars from voters and business houses. Funds raised online is also an amazing example of the reach of Internet and its potential.

I am sure people managing those campaigns have to constantly adjust or change there offerings and messages in the same way we online marketers manage our online ads and keywords to reach a larger and targeted audience.

Following are some of the marketing strategies that can be learnt from the 2008 presidential campaign and can be brought into use for our day to day online marketing efforts. It really doesnt matter be it a BLOG, an online store or a business directory, the marketing strategies are almost the same at broader level with different paths separating as we move further and deeper into different streams and / or businesses.

• Monitor your competition - Just like presidentail campaigns I would start by monitoring the competiotion both past and present.You can get a lot more info by studyig any successfull campaigns in the past. A lot of case studies are available online. Have a look at there online presence. The kind of tools yur competition is using. The affiliate programs that your competition is using.
• Campaign Planning - You must spend some time laying out a proper plan or road map of your entire campaign. Search about yourcompetition online and keep logs of all your findings. I personally find it very helpfull to write down all the wonderfull ideas or at leat save them to a file on yor computer. Online marketers must have an ongoing plan to continue to raise their visibility and engage prospects. If you are new to Online Marketing I would suggest you not to put any money while learning, you can get a lot of free promotions on the web or with your hosting that canprovide you free adwords. Use those adwords to run campaigns - you will never learn unless you jump in the market and this is a good and risk free way of doing this.
• Sufficient Funding and set your budgets - This is very important. I remember during my initial days I had a tight budget and Istarted bidding on most expensive keywords. So keep in mind - stick to your budget, keep a low daily spending limit and concentrate on increasing your impressions initialy. And last but very important DO NOT BID ON EXPENSIVE KEYWORDS, pick up related keywords e.g. if you are marketing for hosting, you can pick up a keywords say - “how to host a blog” instead of bidding on “web hosting”. Budget your campaign and stick to the spending as planned. Among the factors to assess are the number of potential prospects reached and the number of prospects converted to sales, as well as total costs, total revenue, and relevant ratios.
• Change your campaign as per the need - Just as candidates must modify their platform to meet the public needs, online marketersmust consider whether to adjust messaging to reach the appropriate audience. If your campaign is not working, try creating new ad groups, try changing your keywords. Spend at least one hour everyday trying different combinations.
• Base your marketing strategy on the basis of target markets - Keep in mind the kind of audience that you are catering to.People living in different countries, states or even cities might have a very different way of looking at advertising or life to that matter. You will be surprised how people and there spending and web surfing behavior differ based on the area.
• Debate other campaigns - From an online marketing perspective, this is akin to comparison shopping. How does your product standup to the competition’s?
• Build a base of advocates - In politics, this consists of other elected officials and highly visible people who support thecandidate. Online marketers must attract advocates as well. They can use well-known celebrities, blogs, marketing gurus or enthusiastic customers to promote their brands.
• Act quickly to turn any moment into an opportunity - It’s critical to react promptly and decisively to issues that maystimulate consumers. Where possible, online marketers should consider alternatives that enable you to create purchase opportunities. e.g. Blog gurus John Chow and BLOG Mastermind Coach Yaro Starakvisited Toronto at LIVE restaurant about a month ago. Me and one of my friends not only attended that event but also write articles on our visit and experiences. And this resulted in creation of Dot Com Food Toronto, a toronto bloggers club. Noe we share our ideas and experiences blogging and learn new ways of online marketing,. And not to mention that post did created a lot of traffic as we were listed on John Chow’s web site.

So these were a few lessons that we can learn from 2008 presidential campaign. This is your friend MK signing off for tonight from coolwebdeveloper.com

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