Paid Search and Election ‘08
by Kyle Flaherty on Aug.29, 2008, under Social Media
A fascinating read yesterday in The Wall Street Journal about the campaign of Senator McCain purchasing search terms. The article quite correctly states that the McCain camp has outsmarted Senator Obama’s campaign, at least in this one area. Here is where it gets interesting, in my opinion:
“The big downfall is that Obama’s not reaching the undecided voters,” says Janel Landis, senior director of search development and strategy at SendTec, a search-marketing firm that has been tracking the candidates’ techniques since June. “He’s not bidding on issues or his competitor’s name.”
In the past few elections we’ve heard about ’soccer moms’ and ‘NASCAR Dads’, will 2008 bring us the ‘Searchers’? The ability to be found around specific policy issues becomes more and more important as we enter into the post-convention portion of the campaigns. This is when people really start to dig deep and look at what the candidates have to say about the economy, drilling, eduction, religion and more. Just like you should be doing for your own company, these campaigns need to have that list of keywords and have a strategic vision for both SEO and SEM.
‘Searchers’ are going to be the portion of the population who are using Google to get information about the topics that are important to them and eventually leading them to a vote. In an election that surely will be close, the ability to be found versus the other guy will be critical.