Obama knows interactive marketing

The guy is good. Maybe the best. I might have a hard time winning many votes of my own in this internet high school but I am a super big fan of Barack Obama. This might seem a bit choppy but I'll work to be concise:

First we need to get some facts out:
1) Customer Relationship Management (CRM for short) is very important and some businesses have turned to technological superpowers such as RightNow Technologies for support;
2) Barack Obama has women wearing "Yes We Can" tee-shirts and parading around YouTube;
3) Despite what your momma told you: No, Al Gore did not invent the internet.
4) You can buy "Barack Obama is my homeboy!" tee-shirts (www.zazzle.com) if you aren't down with the "Yes We Can" tees;
5) Senator Hilary Clinton might pay with the election for not jumping on board with technology;
6) Obama will win this election because his camp united their followers and empowered them through the internet.

Now, back to #1. CRM is a lot of things. Basically, you can do things to help your customers and how you interact with them. You can manage sales leads, track your return on investment (also known as ROI), and you can send clents and your boss analytics to keep track of your progress.

Three more facts:
1.) Obama Girl's real name is Amber Lee Ettinger and her career just took off;
2.) E! just named her the #1 Hottest Woman on the Internet;
3.) No she didn't actually vote for Obama;
4.) #3 really doesn't mean anything.

Obama has created an internet community of followers and there are poems, rants, paraphernalia, and songs online to support him. Some of these being passed around by Will.I.am from Black-Eyed Peas (see "Yes We Can" video) but most of the viral Obama content is being passed around by regular people. Most of it is user-generated content (USG).

The Obama campaign made a "defining moment" when they grabbed RightNow Technologies to handle some technical behind-the-scenes to make certain parts of their campaign run.

RightNow can be credited for handling Obama's state-of-the-art answer center. If you have a question, you will undoubtedly be able to find the answer in no time. This is in no small part due to the software they use by RightNow. I'm pulling an excerpt from a great article ("Barack Obama: First CRM President? by Erika Morphy) that I think can explain the magnitude of this offering:

"The more comprehensive of the RightNow initiatives is the Obama Answer Center. This was mentioned in the Rolling Stone article I covered in my last post. When you come to the AnswerCenter the first question is, “What is the Answer Center and how does it work?” The campaign can then adjust the next questions depending on the topics of most interest. For example, when I looked the next question was “Has Senator Obama released his tax returns?” Clicking on this you go to a format used for all questions. This happens to be the standard RightNow template for answer centers so many people remark that they have seen this format before in such places as Environmental Protection Agency, Electronic Arts, and Nikon, understand it. There is first the answer. In this case, there is also a link to his actual tax returns. There is also the section, “Users who viewed this answer have also viewed.” And you see a series of related questions to encourage more exploration. Once you view a question, you also see your previously viewed questions. You can search questions by category and key word and browse the most popular answers."

That's pretty good, right? Well, Obama's camp didn't stop there. They have used mobile text messaging to assemble their voting faithful the night before the campaign. They even had the smarts to include a phone number in the text message so voters can find the nearest polling station. In several states, they used internet technologies to design call lists so supporters could make phone calls and motivate local teams to get out and paper the city.

In another effort, they created ways to donate online where you could "challenge" other people to donate money.

That's why he's the man. That's why he is changing the way politicians look at the new vehicles of marketing. Don't cut down traditional venues just yet (I do have a day job at a newspaper) and consider that a good chunk of the $400 million that he's ready to drop on national advertising will be with some radio, t.v., billboard, and newsprint.

After searching online for Barack and seeing all of the exciting voice for "move" and "change" I couldn't help but get excited. Now, once he can explain where the money will come from to support his ideas of:

• Every high school student that graduates with a "B" average will get a free ride to college;
• How everybody in the United States will really get free health care;
• Giving illegal immigrants social security.
  

I'll be all in. Until then, I'll just keep the 'hope' alive.