Why Obama Is Unstoppable
What businesses can learn from his bully e-pulpit
| Vol. 6, Issue No. 2 January 19, 2010 By Denny HatchIN THE NEWS
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release, Jan. 7, 2010
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE
THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
THE SECRETARY ENERGY
THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY
THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
THE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
THE DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER
SUBJECT: Attempted Terrorist Attack on December 25, 2009: Intelligence, Screening, and Watchlisting System Corrective Actions
After receiving the conclusions of the White House-led review of the U.S. watchlisting system and the performance of the intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement communities as related to the attempt to bring down a Detroit-bound flight on December 25 by detonating an explosive device, and a Department of Homeland Security-led review on Aviation Screening, Technology and Procedures; I have concluded that immediate actions must be taken to enhance the security of the American people...
/s/ Barack Obama
The presidential memo under IN THE NEWS came to my inbox, and I printed it out. It was the 751st e-mail I received from the Obama organization since the first effort I received back on March 5, 2008, titled, “What Happened Today.”
This one stunned me—the real deal, the actual take-no-prisoners, kick-ass directive to the cabinet and intel agencies from a controlled but obviously furious president ordering them to cease and desist the turf wars and set up an information sharing system pronto. Implied: “or else ...”
Back in March 2009, I requested to be put on the Obama e-mail list and sent a small donation. I have saved all Obama organization communications (so far) in my computers as a record of the most successful outreach to voters by a politician in the history of the world.
“Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” said the late Jesse H. “Big Daddy” Unruh, speaker of the California State Assembly.
Since 2007, the Obama campaign has built a database of 3.1 million supporters and raised more than $700 million, surpassing what all the candidates from both major parties combined collected in private donations in 2004.
It doesn't matter whether you like Obama, hate Obama or are somewhere in between. If you are in business—any business, consumer, B-to-B or nonprofit—and do not monitor how this extraordinary organization communicates with its constituency and prospects via e-mail, you're a damn fool.
This guy is a great communicator, and we can all learn from him.
The Secret of Success: Watch What Others Do
It’s a story most of my readers know—I heard the [then] US News & World Report circulation director, Dorothy Kerr, tell a luncheon meeting in 1982, “The way to be successful in direct mail is to see who’s mailing what, see which mailings come in over and over again (which means they are controls and making money), and then steal smart.”
I immediately started building an archive of junk mail, created a system to quantify and qualify the stuff, and reported on it in my newsletter, WHO’s MAILING WHAT!
Today, the WHO’S MAILING WHAT! archive has information on more than 200,000 mailings in 200 categories—business, consumer and nonprofit—going back 20 years. It includes marketing gold—nearly 1,000 grand controls that were mailed for three or more consecutive years.
Takeaways to Consider
- Since 2007, the Obama campaign has built a database of 3.1 million supporters and raised more than $700 million, equaling or surpassing what all the candidates from both major parties combined collected in private donations in 2004.
- It doesn't matter whether you like Obama, hate Obama or are somewhere in between. If you are in business—any business, consumer, B-to-B or nonprofit—and do not monitor how this extraordinary organization communicates with its constituency and its prospects via e-mail, you are a damn fool. This guy is a great communicator, and we can all learn from him.
- It was political direct mail pioneer Walter Weintz who first asked for contributions of money back in 1952. His rationale: (1) An influx of cash would help pay for the direct mail campaigns, and (2) those who send money have a stake on the outcome—like betting on a horse. They want their candidate to win and will spread the word among friends, family, neighbors and business colleagues.
- Obama supporters started receiving a dizzying array of seemingly personal e-mail messages from the candidate himself as well as many of his operatives—nationally, on the campaign trail and in Pennsylvania (my home state). They arrived in a variety of formats and typefaces—as emotionally charged memos, letters, position papers, fundraising efforts, invitations, thank-yous, and personal responses to those who wrote in with ideas and questions.
- “Creating direct mail without studying other people’s successful direct mail is like trying to do brain surgery without studying brains.”
—Axel Andersson - Same thing with e-mail.
- “Public relations is the business of letting people in on what you are doing."
—Evelyn Lawson - Barack Obama is doing that, and doing it very well.
Web Sites Related to Today's Edition
Presidential memo to cabinet and intel chiefs to clean up their act
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/potus_directive_corrective_actions_1-7-10.pdf
Sen. Barack Obama’s announcement of record-shattering $150 million fundraising total
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/us/politics/20donate.html
“Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster” in last week’s issue of New York magazine.
http://url2it.com/brl
In case you haven't seen it there is a You Tube video that describes the testing the Obama campaign used to craft their website and email messages.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIpLwIRytMw
New media doesn't use the same language as direct marketing. They seem to be starting from scratch rather than building on the cannon of direct marketing.
Dear Denny,
Obviously you “bet on this horse” and now all of us have to live with his damaging legislation and backdoor “Chicago Style” politics. The reason Obama is such a great business-man is because he is making all the rules and managing the government in ways that would amount to felony crimes in the private business sector.
I agree that he is an excellent and organized communicator but he is also a liar who gets things done by saying what people want to hear and then twisting his words to cover his tracks (like any good lawyer I guess). While I generally appreciate your newsletter I now must question your common sense on a much larger scale than that confined strictly to the business world. While being a smart business person is important it is not worth sacrificing who I am or throwing my support behind someone that makes moral or spiritual compromises to get ahead which is what I believe Mr. Obama has done.
I will be unsubscribing from your newsletter and wish you well in your ongoing subscription to the Obama propaganda machine while it lasts.
I disagree with your notion that Obama is a great communicator; if he was then there would be overwhelming support for his initiatives. Apparently that is NOT the case since Scott Brown ran AGAINST the Obama administration's policies and won.
The democrats themselves have said that they have NOT made themselves clear to the electorate on the healthcare debate, so how could you possibly consider this president a great communicator?
If Obama's marketing makes him unstoppable; if Americans can’t distinguish between marketing and product in issues as grave as where the country is politically and where it’s going—then America is finished and deserves to be.
Hi, Denny.
Thanks for reminding us about the most effective "new media" political campaign effort seen so far. But the Scott Brown Senate campaign in Massachusetts reminds me that in the digital world, it's very hard to sustain a lopsided competitive edge for long.
Looking at the results the Brown campaign has been able to accomplish pretty much on its own -- collecting an estimated $4 to $5 million in online donations in one week -- I suspect we'll never again see such a lopsided edge as the Obama campaign had over Hilary Clinton and later John McCain in 2008.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the activity in 2010 and 2012 turns out to be even, or even slanted slightly in favor of the Republicans.
Which means ... Obama could very well be "stoppable."
Politics aside - What about being inundated with email? How much is too much? Daily?? I would be getting frustrated by the end of the first month.
For instance, we have a local non profit organization trying to help mistreated and abused women. I am all for them. I do not want to unsubscribe, but they send me email at least once a week. Way too much for me. I now delete most of emails after glancing at their re:.
I was thinking for business the email cycle should be close to what the direct mail cycle is. What's your opinion?
Rich
Hi Denny -
Thanks for another great story and for sharing what you learned. That brings me to something I've been thinking about and wanting from you: Denny Hatch's Concise Guide to Marketing. You talk about the hot buttons, exclusivity, etc. - I want a short book that would capture all this information that I could easily reference. I can take it from there.
- DS
In less than three years, we can go back and dissect how what he's doing now doesn't work over the long haul. Why? Broken promises and failure to follow through.
Barry's promise of transparency has become his "read my lips" mistake that will haunt him throughout history. He promises to put the health care debate on C-SPAN. Then he reneged. That's an unforgivable sin.
In a few hours, we will very likely witness the beginning of the end of this round of collectivist tyranny.
Interesting chronicle, Denny. I just wanted to throw in a bit about the Tea Party movement. They may equal or surpass Obama's e-mail efforts. They just don't show up on the national radar. It's more like local direct mail. And like local direct mail it escapes your archive of "Who's Mailing What". Uncounted mechanics, heating companies, dentists, and restaurants mail millions of pieces in small local batches week in and week out. Hundreds of local/regional Tea Party groups send multiple e-mails a week, notifying their participants of rallies, candidate platforms, representatives' home office schedules, who to write, policy stances of elected officials, YouTube postings, photos of recent rallies and events. And they are finally starting to even do some fundraising -- though mostly not directly yet. Keep an eye on them. They're out there doing effective direct marketing on a local level.
Good points Denny.
I regularly read some other blogs and am constantly amazed at the number of people who blame Obama on the economic mess. My replies are always that he didn't create the mess - he is trying to clean it up so that it doesn't happen again.
There are a lot of anti Obama people out there. So anti, they can't even rally behind him to aid the disaster in Haiti - Limbaugh for example. Jerk.
"boring as a suitcase full of rocks". Good line, unless you're a geologist, then you might be interested.
Another great piece, Denny.
I too collected all Obama and the campaign`s communications and it is really a treasure trove.
One thing stands out above all others. All the documents involve the reader, at the emotional, intellectual and financial levels. Obama never once promised HE could change things: he promised that WE could change things.
The growing application if this principle is singly the strongest change in today's one-to-one marketing.
Peter
"'Public relations is the business of letting people in on what you are doing.'
—Evelyn Lawson
Barack Obama is doing that, and doing it very well."
Would you really say so? You have all the emails saved, so you can go back and check, but I'm on the list too, and I stopped reading them about 6 months ago because every single one was begging for money. Every time it did, something inside me asked, "why does a sitting President need to do fundraising for health care reform? Shouldn't that be something the government just does because we pay them with our taxes? If we've come to the point where we accept the corruption is so rampant that nothing gets accomplished without bribes, then shouldn't we abandon this system now?"
I'm not saying this to make a political statement, I'm saying it because this is what this email list has inspired in me as a citizen. If I'm not the only one, I can't consider this email campaign a victory. Rather, it makes me think of Coldwater Creek -- who emails me despite attempts to unsub and the fact that I bought 1 thing from them ten years ago and asked not to be put on the list then -- as a better email marketer. Sure neither got my repeat business, but at least CC didn't actively work to kill what faith I have in our country's ability to operate.
Though I may indeed be the only one.