Want to know how presidents Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump won their elections? It’s simple; digital marketing leadership and transformation that dominated their markets, and achieved the marketing goal – become president of the United States of America.
This article is about how Brad Parscale helped Donald J. Trump win the last presidential election. When it comes to winning a presidential election, the stakes are enormous, and the money invested, incomprehensible. But the fundamentals for driving digital marketing leadership and transformation are the same for every business as it is for politicians, non profits, or any other organization that must compete for attention, engagement, conversions and a win.
What I’m about to reveal deals mostly with the recent Trump announcement about his 2020 intention to run for office again. However, it is fair to say that everything you’re about to see is very similar in approach and discipline for the Obama election. You can read more about this The Atlantic article, see why president Obama was viewed as the first president to embrace social media, and use it effectively to win his election.
What triggered my desire to write this article and record the video is a Wired Magazine article written by Issie Lapowski. In case you don’t have time or interest to click through and read the article, or watch my video, here are the highlights …
- Brad Parscale is a political novice. I am a political novice, and highly independent as an active voter. But, the entire purpose of my article has NOTHING to do with politics.
- Brad’s a digital marketing expert with a strong track record in leadership of his own company. Their campaign grew because Brad, his strategy, and team are highly effective at digital marketing. Brad is quoted, “What began as a one-man operation in 2015 grew into one of the most successful-and controversial- digital campaigns in presidential history, with Parscale’s team working alongside …”
- “Brad was ‘essential’ in bringing a disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016 campaign was run.” Brad is a great leader, apparently, not to mention marketer.
- Brad’s “unconventional background” garnered him buckets of attention. It appears Brad knows how to stay calm under pressure.
- Parscale reveals in the Wired article that Facebook and Twitter were their secret weapons in winning the election.
- These are the same digital marketing strategies used by corporate America.
- The campaign invests millions of dollars for social media advertising on Twitter and Facebook, primarily.
What can we all learn from this, especially if we own or lead a business?
The only way to build a company effectively, and to win the biggest of elections, is to embrace a digital media transformation from the top down. There are no shortcuts when it comes to making digital marketing work well. We all know how challenging digital marketing can be, especially for emerging companies and professionals who struggle to be effective with digital.
Digital transformation begins with digital leadership. Who’s driving your digital marketing bus, and how’s that working? If you don’t have the right digital marketing leadership in place, maybe it’s time to do something about this.
Here’s the bottom line, especially for small business America – Invest in disciplined technology and data-driven approach to transforming your digital marketing. This begins with leadership.
Imagine what your organization would look like five years from now if you did what the big dogs do? And if you believe it costs too much to hire a qualified digital marketing leader, how much do you think it’s costing you not to have the best digital marketing leadership your money can buy, even if you’re never want to be a president.
Got a question or comment about small business success, sales, digital marketing or my opinions in this article? I always appreciate it when you post your comments and questions here on the blog.
To your success.
