Online Marketing and Political Consulting

Over the past several election cycles, there has been a significant shift toward digital marketing for political campaigns. This effective strategy is ideal for candidates that want to gain more exposure and name recognition in their district. Technology, the driving force behind this change, has made it easier and cheaper to deliver your campaign’s message to a greater number of voters

In developing nations like India, this is a critical tool considering that by 2021 we would have over 700 million internet users in the country. Digital marketing would eventually decide who the next prime minister would be. In US alone, it is estimated that by 2020, a whopping $ 3.2 billion would be spent on US digital political ad spend. Political digital marketing also would aid in getting more citizen to cast their vote thus increasing their responsibility towards the country

It has been more than 8 months since I am working with I-PAC as Marketing Lead and the experience has been tremendous in terms of learning and development as each and every day has been a great learning.

The Misconception : The Misconception working in political consulting firm is that you need to just reply to comment and create Facebook Page !! Well let me hold you here if you come with mind-set as it's more than that you expected where you need not only to manage ad account but at the same you need to make assure that cost should be low than industry standard and you need to deliver in the limited time.

Learning with Mistake: In Online Marketing, mistake can be much costlier, so you avoid trying new thing which would always push you in the back seat but at I-PAC, I experimented a lot stuff in marketing which sometimes fails but as a team we learned a lot and delivered better result next time. Reaching to millions of people would never be possible through one medium and your message would never reach to target segment.

My First Success : I was thankful to my leadership team for proving our team responsibility to improve the social presence of properties and in just two months we achieved something that was a great motivation for our team.

In the month of June, I-PAC Facebook was India's fastest growing brand according to social bakers. This result was not at sudden as we managed to improve the likes at the most minimum cost.

PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING - NEW WAY OF TARGETING

Programmatic advertising refers to new automated forms of ad buying and placement on digital media using computer programmes and algorithmic processes to find and target a customer wherever she goes. The process can also involve real-time “auctions” that occur in milliseconds in order to “show an ad to a specific customer, in a specific context” . The use of programmatic advertising was one of the major changes in political campaign digital operations between 2012 and 2016—“the first time in American History”, according to one ad company, “that such precise targeting has ever been made available at such great scale”

SOCIAL MEDIA POLITICAL CAMPAIGN

We have given many examples of the social media political campaign and to understand its greatness, we have to move to the Presidential and Prime Minister level election campaign In India.We have seen millions of quotes and memes regarding the political Advertising Marketing. However, how much effective were they? How much did each candidate has spent on the promotions?

The candidates have used official Facebook and Twitter accounts to get the message out, but that’s not where the majority of the money have spent.

In the case of Mr.Narendra Modi political Advertising Marketing, the team has used many different ways like the Youtube.

The company who happens to be the responsible for all the task have approached many YouTubers to put the pre-ready videos on their channel.

Door to Door Strategies

There is no proof that the old ways are no longer effective. Trump did a good job at it.

In this case, Donald Trump has organized many events in various cities and small towns, where he has spoken to the people who he will do for them.

How does the process work?

1. Selecting the right place – Donald has selected the places where there are young people who are looking for JOBS, Security, Decrease crime, and more.
2. Instead of sending the staff, the main candidate has reached the homes of people to have a pleasant According to the researched, those who reach the people door to door have higher chances of getting votes from the people.
3. These parties do their homework by going to local election authority to meet the people who are on the list. In simple words, they only reach to those people who are eligible to vote in the county or district.
4. The candidate does not do all of the work. The candidate has a staff, who ring the bell, greet the voters, and when they are prepared to talk, that is when the candidate is allowed to talk. It saves time and energy for the candidate.
5. In election campaign In India, most of the candidates visit the houses of voters once in a week to ensure that they have the support of the people. To maintain the information about the candidate the political Advertising Marketing comes in handy, the staff hands over pamphlets and booklets which includes information.

There is no doubt that a personal visit from the Mayor, MLA and, Senator candidate does add tremendous value to the election campaign In India

Social Media Monitoring: 

Social media is the most massive focus group in the world, and its advantage is being taken by the political campaigns to get information about potential voters and also to communicate with the supporters.

Social media monitoring of political campaigns includes surveying the landscape, analyzing the data and reporting to the campaign. It is possible to run queries, allow the campaign to go beyond its goal.

Choosing the right social media tool is important. Tools such as Google Alert can provide with a tremendous amount of content which is relevant. Some other tools allow monitoring of multiple types of social media platforms.

Social media marketing or SMM is a part of any digital marketing now it involves money and time. Choosing the right marketer and having a well-planned SMM program can provide with many benefits for the political campaign.

Digital marketing is an important tool for connecting with the voters and increase visibility. It also helps to connect with influencers and bloggers. All this for a cost much lower than the traditional marketing cost.

Digital marketing is now the platform for political parties to connect with the voters and bridge the gap. Digital marketing is a part of political campaigns now, and the politicians or political parties are spending more and more time and resources on this.

The priority of political parties during election days is to reach a maximum number of voters, and this achieved through digital marketing. The success of the political campaign depends on digital marketing which is interactive and cost-effective.

To conclude, digital marketing for the political campaign should be a focused effort. All the social channels should explore before posting the content. Digital tools must be used to promote and analyze the performance of the campaign