As I write this, I remember all that I have seen, heard or read about the great marketing campaign to catapult Obama to the presidency of the US. There have been enough and more articles about his great positioning, his terrific virals, his e-mail campaigns, of Obama's Twitter presence, his digital marketing, his websites, his TV campaigns…. and much more. For those who are interested, his social media statistics are mentioned at the end of this post, duly acknowledged.
But importantly and finally, Obama had to be "SOLD", and not just "Marketed". So as you can guess, this post is about "Selling" the product Obama, and not just "Marketing" it. I was privileged to hear and read highly respected marketing "Gurus" speak about marketing brand Obama. And all through, I kept on trying to get the answer – how did the Obama "Sale" finally happen? I am sharing here how I have perceived this whole process as an ever learning "Salesman". Readers will have to pardon me if I refer to Obama as "Product". I use this phrase only because I am looking at a purely "Sales" perspective here.
Once posed with this question, I began digging more, and came out with not only the social media statistics, but also importantly, the on-ground statistics of the two campaigns. Of the many statistics, I am presenting 2 interesting ones:
1. The table below shows the number of campaign offices opened by the 2 candidates in certain states:
| State | Barack Obama | John McCain |
| AK | 4 | 0 |
| MI | 40 | No Data |
| MO | 30 | 10 |
| MT | 6 | No Data |
| OH | 18 | 8 |
| PA | 18 | No Data |
| VA | 20 | 6 |
2. The second table below is even more interesting. It lists the number of events within 100 miles of specific US zip codes:
courtesy: www.thedailypage.com
| US Zip Code | Obama Events | McCain Events |
| 45416 (Dayton, OH), | 492 | 22 |
| 43963 (Tiltonsville, OH) | 231 | 21 |
| 48701 (Akron, MI) | 205 | 22 |
| 45203 (Cincinnati, OH) | 435 | 23 |
| 6607 (Topeka, KS) | 54 | 6 |
| 75968 (Pineland, TX) | 3 | 3 |
| 44127 (Cleveland, OH) | 243 | 33 |
| 95903 (Beale AFB, CA) | 320 | 23 |
| 12985 (Schuyler Falls, NY) | 55 | 4 |
| 73503 (OK) | 21 | 6 |
| 73105 (Oklahoma City, OK) | 30 | 7 |
| 62205 (Centreville, IL) | 84 | 4 |
| 12979 (Rouses Point, NY) | 41 | 3 |
| 81152 (San Luis, CO) | 22 | 1 |
| 29105 (Monetta, SC) | 84 | 1 |
| 50660 (New Hartford, IA) | 103 | 0 |
| 76105 (Fort Worth, TX) | 67 | 12 |
| 84314 (Honeyville, UT) | 389 | 1 |
| 61605 (Peoria, IL) | 30 | 0 |
CONCLUSIONS: What do the statistics above suggest? Obama clearly had more Effort going in. Whether it was on the ground or on social media. Obama was clearly OUT-SELLING McCain. On election day, more Obama followers were voting than McCain voters. Obama garnered support of more volunteers than McCain. He was more visible to customers – not just through TV or print campaigns, but importantly through his volunteers, meeting people one-to-one, braving the heat, the cold the rain.
They were his SALES TEAM. Meeting more customers. Generating a larger pipeline. Improving his chances of conversion because of sheer numbers.
Brand OBAMA was as much created through a great strategy, great positioning (Yes We Can), as through Superior Execution, a focused, more coordinated effort, more calls being made, more sms messages being sent, creating more followers ..... everything was more.
Well, tell me what you think about this, if you are not already bored with reading the reams and reams of articles already written about OBAMA.
Annexure : Social Media Statistics for US Presidential Campaign.
Courtesy: www.web-strategist.com
Internet Usage in United States
United States Population: 303,824,646
Internet Usage: 220,141,969
Penetration rate: 72.5%
Growth from 2000-2008: 130.9%
Stats from Internet WorldStats (Census, Nielson)
Obama: 2,379,102 supporters McCain: 620,359 supporters
Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain MySpace
Obama: Friends: 833,161 McCain: Friends: 217,811
Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain YouTube
Obama: 1792 videos uploaded since Nov 2006, Subscribers: 114,559 (uploads about 4 a day), Channel Views: 18,413,110
McCain: 329 videos uploaded since Feb 2007 (uploads about 2 a day), Subscribers: 28,419, Channel Views: 2,032,993
Obama has 403% more subscribers than McCain
Obama has 905% more viewers than McCain
Twitter
Obama: @barackobama has 112,474 followers McCain: @JohnMcCain (is it real?) 4,603 Obama has 240 times more followers in Twitter than McCain 1,000: The number of phone banks organized by volunteers using MyBO in the final week of the campaign.
150,000: The number of other campaign-related events organized on MyBO over the course of the campaign. 1 million: The number of phone calls supporters made using MyBO on election day alone.
35,000: The number of groups created by supporters on MyBO. These were clumped by geographic proximity and shared interests.
1.5 million: The number of MyBO accounts created by election day.
$650 million and counting: The amount of money Obama raised, more than half of it through his website.
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