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Rating Clinton, Obama, & McCain’s Online Marketing Efforts For The Presidency
By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog | March 1, 2008
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A friend told me yesterday that he donated $50 to the Hillary Clinton campaign online and was:
- Annoyed that he didn’t even receive a thank-you email (?!)
- Surprised and disappointed that he didn’t receive an “upsell” offer to donate more money (he said he would have donated more money again if he was asked, and was expecting to be upsold).
It’s always possible that he typed in a bad email address when he donated the money or there was some kind of glitch, so I won’t jump to conclusions about how bad the Clinton campaign “followup machine” may be, but it got me curious…
Let’s look at the candidates’ main websites to
see who’s using smart marketing and who’s not.
First up: BarackObama.com - Right off the bat, he’s using a “Squeeze Page” (a term for capturing a visitor’s email address immediately) on his initial landing page prompting for your email address before you enter his website. Very smart, he can then do email followups to his heart’s content and stay in communication with supporters for free. Note: There’s no privacy policy or info about what he will and won’t do with your email address…. I guess they figure that his “true believers” will probably trust him automatically, which is probably true. But for people on the fence, explaining what will happen when they submit their email address would probably increase subscriptions even more.
There’s also a “Skip Signup, Go Straght To The Website” link (also smart) on that page. Clicking through, his call to action (donate) uses Social Proof: “Over One Million People Own This Campaign”, with a “Donate Now” button. Clicking through again, you get a short inspirational video and some inspirational language above the donation form. Overall, very good job.
For those who don’t enter their email address on Obama’s Squeeze Page (and you only see it once, if you return to BarackObama.com you get his main page instead), there’s a very sensible subscribe prompt on his other pages: “Get Involved - Sign Up For Email Update” |Email|Zip Code|(SIGNUP Button). Again, nice… It gives a short reason (get involved), tells you what you’re getting (email updates), and the submit button says “Signup”.
Next: HillaryClinton.com - Her starting page says, “Give Us The Momentum To Win On March 4th! Be One Of 30,000 To Donate In The Next 24 Hours“. Uh… that doesn’t really make sense… why 30,000? Why 24 hours? What’s the significance of those numbers, and why do I care? It’s wasting valuable headline space when they could have said something more inspirational or motivating.
Her free email subscription is also a little confusing, it says “Make History!“|Email|Zip Code| (GO Button) -It’s not clearly even identified as a prompt for visitors to subscribe, and having the submit button say “Go” instead of “Subscribe” also doesn’t clearly explain what it’s for. It’s less explanatory and inferior to Obama’s “Get Involved” subscription prompt.
Clicking through to the donation page, we get a very dry, “Make An Online Contribution” headline, with no re-statement of benefits (why helping her win would be good) or anything else. That’s a terrible mistake. Smart marketers know that re-stating key benefits on an order page increases response.
Next up: JohnMcCain.com - His current headline tag is, “Ready To Lead On Day One“… I thought that was Hillary’s tagline (?), I suspect McCain doesn’t think she’ll have any reason to use that phrase in the near future (wink wink, nudge nudge) so he might as well take it.
McCain’s call to action is “Show Your Support And Become An Ace - Join McCain Aces Today“. Excellent… the Aces reference reminds readers that he’s a pilot war hero, and you can “become an ace” yourself by contributing few bucks. Using the language that contributors are joining a Club or Inner Circle is a proven way to increase response.
Even better: He lists his “McCain Aces” contributors by their first name and initial on his website, which combines Social Proof (look at all these other people who’ve already donated, you should too) with the incentive to have YOUR name added to the list. Excellent.
It’s not like this is groundbreaking stuff or anything, but it’s proven effective and he’s using it. The Jerry Lewis MDA telethon does the same thing, reading contributors’ names on the air during the local segments of the telethon, although the telethon does it even better by offering “reward” incentives for donating more (You become a “Silver Star” supporter if you donate $250, and a “Gold Star” supporter if you donate $500). They mail you a paper star in the mail for donating (along with another pitch to donate again).
The only thing McCain’s website falls short on is the call to action to subscribe to free updates. All it says is “Sign Up For Email Updates“.
Final Scores:
Barack Obama: A- …He’s the only one with a strong push to capture email addresses, and the only one who re-motivates people who have clicked through to his Donation page with an inspirational message.
John McCain: B … I love his “McCain Aces” concept, but not aggressively capturing free subscriber email addresses like Obama is doing knocks him down to a B.
Hillary Clinton: D …In one sense she’s a C, but in a larger sense, a C IS a D (or even an F), because there’s no excuse for it, and it’s hurting her response unnecesarily. Of the 3 candidates, she has the most confusing (which makes it arguably the worst) free subscription call to action, and she has the weakest call to action to donate money.
To non-marketers, some of my comments and observations may seem minor and almost petty, but as someone who has made his living online making quote-unquote “small” changes to websites that have been responsible for large increases in response and revenue, I can assure you that the issues I’ve pointed out here are neither small nor minor.
I hope you’ve found this useful. - Tim Gross, Executive Director of Educated Media, LLC
P.S. - I’m NOT accusing Hillary Clinton’s online donation process of not thanking contributors, it was told to me anecdotally and it was what caused me to write this comparative article.
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