Digital Marketing Lessons from the Obama Campaign

Joe Rospars, a founding partner at Blue State Digital and New Media Director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, spoke at the 2009 AEP Summit about how he and his team integrated digital marketing into the campaign to empower the online voting community. Using three guiding principles and adhering to three main missions, his team mobilized over 13 million supporters through their website and digital marketing strategy.

As the first new media director for a presidential campaign, Joe Rospars said that the key was that his department was integrated laterally into the organizational structure. They were not lumped in with the tech department–they were editors, marketers, designers, and writers focusing on the online community. More important, they worked directly with the offline marketing group, making sure that their efforts supported each other.

Educational publishing’s top marketing products honored

AEP has announced the winners of the 2009 Beacon Awards for excellence in education marketing. This year’s winners were honored at a special luncheon held during the AEP Summit in Washington, DC, at the JW Marriott hotel. The featured speaker at the event was Joe Rospars, founding partner at Blue State Digital and New Media Director on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

What cost-effective marketing strategies might my company use in these challenging economic times?

In this new blog series from AEP, “What’s Keeping You Up At Night?, experts offer their advice on the most pressing issues facing the educational publishing industry. AEP members may sign up for a free half-hour consultation with the experts for 30 days after their entry is posted.

The following question was posed to our current featured expert, Gerry Bogatz of MarketingWorks, Inc.

Q. What cost-effective marketing strategies might my company use in these challenging economic times?

A. The tendency of many companies in and out of the education sector is to pull back on marketing when times are tough.  After all, isn’t marketing one of the few areas of a budget that can be reigned in without hurting the bottom line “too much?”  While this may be true in the short run, sales a few months from now can be hurt significantly if a company isn’t putting itself in front of its prospective customers continually.

Here are just a few of the cost-effective ways that a company can market its products in tough times.

How do you get your content discovered once you create an e-strategy and deliver your content online?

In this new blog series from AEP, “What’s Keeping You Up At Night?, experts offer their advice on the most pressing issues facing the educational publishing industry. AEP members may sign up for a free half-hour consultation with the experts for 30 days after their entry is posted.

The following question was posed to our current featured expert, Sameer Shariff of Impelsys Inc.

Q. How do you get your content discovered once you create an e-strategy and deliver your content online?

A. In the electronic space where more and more people are reading online, viral marketing tools like widgets and book previews provide good opportunities for publishers to market their titles across the web. Here are few ways you can use widgets and book previews to get your content discovered online.

How difficult is it to use Web 2.0 social networking tools to connect with and grow our client base?

In this new blog series from AEP, “What’s Keeping You Up At Night?, experts offer their advice on the most pressing issues facing the educational publishing industry. AEP members may sign up for a free half-hour consultation with the experts for 30 days after their entry is posted.

The following question was posed to our current featured expert, Andrew Pass of Pass-Ed.

Q. How difficult is it to use Web 2.0 social networking tools to connect with and grow our client base?

A. You’ve probably heard of many social networking tools: blogs; podcasts; videocasts; mini-blogging platforms, such as Twitter; social networking sites including Facebook; and, video/picture hosting platforms. It’s easy to become overwhelmed when considering the vast array of social networking tools that exist. It’s even easier to feel uncomfortable when you recognize that the most popular tools that exist today will likely be obsolete next year.

In the face of this discomfort I like to keep three principles in mind.