Lessons From Mitt
Mitt Romney and the Republican National Convention own the political headlines this week. So I thought it was timely to pass along some info on how the Romney campaign is using the marketing tools we fundraisers employ.
First is an article on Romney’s data mining.
Does this sound familiar?
“The project relies upon a sophisticated analysis by powerful computers of thousands of commercially available, expensive databases that are lawfully bought and sold behind the scenes by corporations, including details about credit accounts, families and children, voter registrations, charitable contributions, property tax records and survey responses. It combines marketing data with what is known in this specialized industry as psychographic information about Americans.”
We nonprofit fundraisers know how to do that, don’t we boys and girls?
The account continues:
“An early test analyzed details of more than 2 million households near San Francisco and elsewhere on the West Coast and identified thousands of people who would be comfortably able and inclined to give Romney at least $2,500 or more.
An AP analysis this week determined that Romney’s campaign has made impressive inroads into even traditionally Democratic neighborhoods, collecting more than $350,000 this summer around San Francisco in contributions that averaged $400 each.”
The second article describes Romney’s social media efforts.
In politics, you sell what you got. And Obama has the social media numbers by a mile. Check out the spiffy infographic below.
So the Romney digital team’s (more than 110 people) spin is to distinguish “vanity metrics and actionable metrics”. Romney’s digital chief claims that the “rate of engagement” for Romney Facebook fans is 27%, compared to Obama fans at 1.5%.
There are some good links within this article if you want to delve deeper into political use of the leading social sites.
Tom
P.S. Whether you’re for or against Mitt, you have to appreciate this brilliant send-up, The Real Romney, by David Brooks of the NY Times. I sure hope he does The Real Obama as well! I’ll pass it along if he does.
One response to “Lessons From Mitt”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Interesting article, though the infographic appears to report the Obama Twitter followers without mention of the controversy over the millions that are “fake” as reported by NYT, USA Today, and others: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/08/obama-has-millions-of-fake-twitter-followers/1
What do you see as the specific value of Twitter followers for either campaign when it comes to fundraising or actionable activities like campaign appearances? Thanks.