Session Description: Marketers and activists alike have taken notice of the strategies and tactics that helped put Barack Obama in the White House. Jascha will discuss the tools and techniques used by the presidential campaign’s record breaking online efforts. In addition to telling the inside story of the campaign’s online engagement efforts, he will also discuss how these strategies and tools can be applied to a variety of other sectors beyond politics.

This session took place Friday, April 3, 2009. The speaker:

• Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Blue State Digital

This was a great session and was packed to the gills with people, of course!  The My.BarackObama.com site has been hailed as one of the chief reasons Obama won.  It was great to hear the creator of this site speak.

Bullet Point Review!

• Blue State Digital – design, technology, strategy.
• Obama 2008 By The Numbers
  • 1 billion emails to 13 million email addresses.
  • Over 1 million SMS subscribers.
  • 200,000 offline events planned via the website (non-official).
  • 35,000 local volunteer groups.
  • 14.5 million YouTube viewing hours (this is a conservative estimate; it doesn’t include embedded or UGC.). This would have cost $40-50 million had it been traditional, purchased air time.
  • $770,000,000 raised (35% offline, 65% online).
• Professionals tapped into the grass roots efforts.
• How we did it?
  • Drive Action
    • No such thing as too much email, just too much unwanted emails.
    • Match the action to the medium.
      • Doesn’t work to just shoehorn your existing web experience to every medium.
    • Set high expectations.
  • Be Authentic
    • No Press Releases and people don’t read newsletters.
    • Personalize communications
      • Example: personal note from Al Franken after donation.
    • Go behind the scenes.
  • Create Ownership
    • Turn users into advocates.
    • Traditional donation matching is one wealthy donor <-> existing + new donors.
    • Grassroots donation matching is existing <-> new donors.
    • It’s not about me + large organization; it’s about all of us together.
    • Recognize your leaders and engage them.
    • Invite people to participate.
    • Create user content and share the best.
    • Solicit ideas from people and use the ones that make sense.
    • Connect people with each other.
  • Be Relevant
    • #1 Obama fundraiser: Sarah Palin.
    • Within 24 hours after the end of her first speech, campaigned raised $11 million via email and some organic donations.
    • Don’t just react, anticipate.
  • Build a Strong, Open Brand
    • Brand professionally
    • Brand consistently (don’t forget your plane!).
    • Empower people to do interesting things.
      • They might paint their barn.
      • Or illuminate their bike.
      • Or create iconic artwork (Shepherd Ferry HOPE Poster).
  • Measure Everything
    • Emails, online advertising, engagement, fund raising, persuasions, election activities.
    • Do at least A/B Testing, if not multivariate.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• Have you considered a grass roots tool kit for local organizations?
  • As a business, Blue State Digital isn’t at the point where they can do that.
• 1 or 2 most unexpected lessons?
  • How important it is not to underestimate people.
• Was there also traditional marketing to drive people to the website?
  • Not really, but there were Google PPC ads.
• What one thing would you have fixed retrospectively?
  • Start earlier and work on scalability. Build with a longer term vision in mind.
• If the other side level the tech playing field and catch up, will Democrats keep an advantage?
  • Yes, Republican’s challenge isn’t the tech, it’s their culture.
  • They need to recognize this cultural gap before they can keep up.
  • Democrats will keep innovating to keep an advantage.
• Did you measure demographics?
  • Yes, average age of website user was 37. Surprised by age diversity.
  • Bounced ideas of his own mom to make sure they appealed to a broad audience.

Overall this was a great session to end the conference on.

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