Barack Obama's presidential campaign broke new marketing ground in its use of online channels to sell the candidate by sharing the vision of the candidate.The campaign achieved its goal of acquiring a significant majority of voters, and votes. But now, like so many marketers, Obama must face the arduous, thankless task of developing an 8-year retention marketing plan (with one more acquisition push thrown in the middle). Can his administration use these same online tools as effectively when retention and loyalty are the goal?
Knotice works with many companies in the Cable, Broadband and Telecom industries. After the effort to win over new customers, our challenge immediately changes. The retention marketing goal may be convincing the new customer that the services they purchased are in fact a close representation of the promises that were made in the acquisition phase. We use email and text messaging, social networks and user-generated content to generate an attitude of openness that has not traditionally existed in these industries. The challenge to the client is always the same: to share without selling, be as open as possible, speak with relevance to each customer, and share with them the value of the service, 30 days of the month, 12 months of the year.
The challenge of the incoming administration will be to maintain the cool confidence to share itself, its challenges, and its ideas. To let the masses behind the curtain, and maintain the stark contrast between the new and the old administrations. As the level of scrutiny rises steadily like a tide, will the Obama team have the same discipline to engage the voters online for feedback and listen to their voices? When the administration’s inevitable first gaffe hits the news cycles, will he need to address the issue through a Tweet update? (Is Tweeting Presidential?) Will he continue to let his throngs of fans get the biggest scoops via text, email or social networks before the press? When the first crisis in office comes to light will the communications team pull up the curtain… raise the veil… and revert the paradigm?
President-Elect Obama’s successful acquisition campaign is complete. The question is: Can Obama’s administration succeed with the more critical dilemma of convincing a broad constituency the promise of change? Will his administration leverage their mastery of online communications to reveal how it thinks, how it interacts, to change the attitude to digital distribution of content, to demonstrate respect for the online voice of the masses? There is an opportunity to prove that everyday use of online tools for mass relationship development has become a reality.
