What CMOs can learn from the US presidential campaign

After what seems like an eternity, the US election is almost here. While the last election was about social media, this time Big Data analytics has transformed the race to the White House. These tools are critical for finding, engaging and activating both voters and donors. Like campaign strategists, CMOs need to find, engage, and activate customers in a data-rich landscape.

Here are five lessons CMOs should take from this campaign:

1. Go micro. Both political camps have hired more than 100 mathematicians, statisticians, data scientists, and software engineers to sift through data to find donors, customize donation requests, and create a coherent view of voters’ social graphs to find influencers in local communities. Marketers need to embrace this kind of advanced micro-targeting to connect the dots between people, networks, and preferences to understand how to motivate customers.

2. Go mobile. Both campaigns have released mobile apps with capabilities to enable supporters to donate, locate campaign events, and find polling locations, and allow users to post to Facebook and Twitter, and to coordinate events with friends directly from the app. Mobile apps are also a smart way for marketers to create a deeper connection with customers by delivering convenience and providing geo-targeted custom offers.

3. Get relevant. While the economy is widely acknowledged as the number one issue for this year’s electorate, additional hot button topics are simmering just beneath the surface: immigration, women and veterans’ issues, and health care. Both camps are developing targeted digital messages for identified segments directly focused on these additional issues. The micro-segmenting now possible means that marketers need to develop offers and content that appeal to the specific needs of their customers.

4. Empower your base. One of the cornerstones of a successful presidential campaign is building a base of supporters and then activating them to take action and vote. CMOs can make word of mouth come to life by providing enabling tools beyond share buttons that empower brand enthusiasts to share experiences and network with one another online.

5. Get your money’s worth. The Republican and Democratic camps will have spent an estimated $2.5 billion this election. Is the money on TV ads being spent effectively, or could it be getting a better return somewhere else? It’s a good question that CMOs need to ask themselves as well. In too many cases, marketing spend is dictated by historical trends or effects.

What other lessons can CMOs and marketers take from this election? (find the complete article on this topic my colleagues wrote here).

Learn more on our Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum site. And please follow me on Twitter @davidedelman.

[Picture: jeannerene, Flickr]