It is not just the White House elections this fall, polls are held (almost) all over the world, anytime. Since we are living in a connected environment more than ever, there is a lot of data that might be useful for election campaigners, politics, parties and last but not least – general audience.
In this blog post, our A4Everyone` team is sharing its point of view on data analytics application in elections campaigns.
It is well known that the first presidential win of Barack Obama over John McCain was backed by social media. His second run for the White House was backed by data analytics.
Obama`s campaign manager insisted that every action from any campaigner should be turned into data. His team mantra was like:
If you didn’t enter the data, you didn’t do the work.
Actionable data analytics
When volunteer works on the field, his main job is to record voters’ interest in particular issues. This is where Obama campaign excelled. The volunteer tracked not just the political attitude but also digital contact point as e-mail. This made follow-ups like a piece of pie. Digital team is sending a huge amount of e-mails to potential voters but guess what – they were tailor made regarding the voters` interest tracked by on-field volunteers.
Advertising spending optimization
Old school political campaigning strongly relied on bulk purchase of TV airtime which is an expensive effort. What if you are able to divide people to different audiences and serve them the right message at the right time and at the right screen? It is achievable via programmatic advertising which heavily rely on data analytics.
It enables campaigners not just to deliver the campaign message but to create tailor made and extremely focused communication. Last but not least – it is way less expensive than TV spots and much more effective.
What`s next?
We know from data analytics insiders that a company in the USA works on a project which goal is to link the entire 225 million person voter file to social media profiles in platforms like Google, Yahoo, Facebook and MSN by using personally identifiable information. Sure, it will be impossible to get 100% success on such a project but any progress might be really valuable for campaigners.
Prediction analytics and pop culture
The 4th season of “House of Cards” TV show is focused on the presidential run for the White House. Frank Underwood, exceptionally portrayed by Kevin Spacey is in a ruthless campaign against his opponent Will Conway. They both want to be a president of USA and both of them rely on big data to win. Conway`s team used a search engine to collect voters data to brainwash its users while Undewood campaign involved data scientist who extracted useful insights on voters behavior.
Is there a match between data analytics and elections? Definitely! And we are witnessing a true love affair which will evolve in a strong relationship.
