How Successful Search Engine Marketing Can Take You to the White House!

Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama, who is now the President Elect of the United State of America. Search engines and technology paid a crucial role in his journey from Chicago to the White House.

What can we learn from his targeted and effective online campaign? Here are some of the online strategies that worked for him.

• Get the Word Out to Niche Markets
  Target the Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen in your sphere. I have invoked Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point at almost at every speaking gig I have done in 2008. You can’t deliver the same message to everybody. Repeating a script to everyone you meet will eventually expose you as a telemarketer, and nobody likes those guys. Take some time to identify who you want to sell to, and then market to them the right way. The Obama campaign took their story online to different niche markets and let the right people do their marketing for them.

• Use a Targeted Keyword Strategy
  At the heart of any successful campaign (presidential or search) is keyword strategy. Case in point: In the final weeks, the Obama campaign began to expand their keyword lists from generic Obama/Biden keywords with non-optimized landing pages to include issues-related keywords with relevant landing pages. Results: lower cost per click, better exposure! In contrast, Senator McCain’s campaign pulled back from targeted keywords to broader keywords with landing pages that were not optimized. Results: Costs went up, exposure went down.

• Turn Undecided to Decided
  STOP wasting your time and energy on the people who are already sold. Expand your search engine campaign to target people in the purchasing funnel who are undecided. By focusing on “Economy Crisis” keywords, the Obama campaign targeted topics the undecided voter was searching for. This narrower focus helped them to reign in spending and reach a crucial new audience.

• Use Videos
  Americans love videos! Obama’s campaign and supporters nationwide dished out some pretty awesome viral videos! Delivering a message through online video is one of the least expensive marketing investments you can make. Most of these videos were not Oliver Stone productions (I love saying that), though some Hollywood folk did lend a hand. But in most cases, posting even a brief video on YouTube can go a long way for your business.

• Issue Clear Calls to Action
  Don’t bother spending on marketing if you are not asking your target audience to do something. While you can never control what your customers will do, you can offer suggestions: relevant calls to action in your search campaign that users can identify with. For example, pushing the non-partisan message of getting out to vote is something the Obama campaign did very well. Refrain from using MBA lingo the average user won’t understand, or blandly praising your brand. State clearly what you have to offer, and then try something simple like “get a free estimate” or “get out and vote.”

One thing we should all be very clear on in this day and age: Search Engine Marketing is a crucial weapon that — if used successfully — can make you a true market leader, or even the President of the United States.

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