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Pacific Perspective Tung Bui |
E-campaigning is a
great idea but needs work
THE elections are finally over, and while the 2004 elections will be remembered for a number of historic records, it will also be known for the prolific, yet somewhat misguided use of telemarketing in political campaigns. Thanks to advanced technologies, pre-recorded phone messages from popular and high-profile personalities invaded millions of households to declare their support for their favorite candidates. Based on widespread opinion, these polished messages seemed ill-received. Ironically, they even lacked the humanness of the annoying telemarketer.
Telemarketing firms claim that e-campaigning techniques -- which include candidates' Web sites, e-mailing, and wireless distribution of press releases -- are effective because they directly reach a vast number of targeted constituents. While this claim has yet to be verified, the current use of direct marketing in political campaigning seems to ignore a number of basic e-marketing principles.
Perhaps the most generally accepted principle of effective e-marketing is personalization. Information should be tailored to each prospective voter based on his or her political views and concerns. The "political campaign computer" should know beforehand what the most critical issues are and what messages the voter wants to hear. The campaign phone messages may have initially amused potential voters who were surprised and flattered to get calls from VIPs. But eventually, the repeated standard calls activated by poorly designed computer programs surely would have annoyed them.
The respect of one's privacy is another golden rule of e-marketing. Not surprisingly an online survey by usgovinfo.about.com reveals that 98 percent of 1858 respondents declared that telemarketing calls really bothered them, especially when they got them at a bad time. However, citizens might be willing to give up some privacy if they could be convinced that information sent by e-campaign would make them more informed voters.
E-marketing professionals would advise politicians to practice both push and pull campaigning.
On the one hand, personalized and updated information should be delivered to each prospective voter in a timely manner. On the other, the politician should stand ready to provide his or her constituents with all the information they need to cast their vote.
This pull model resonates with the perceived culture of the Internet where unsolicited messages are considered wasteful and unacceptable. While most politicians did have a Web presence, a more sensitive use of the push tactic was left to be desired.
Undoubtedly, communication technologies have the potential to be the most cost- effective media channels for political campaigning. They are environmentally clean, expedient and inexpensive.
The experience of the 2004 election season suggests that politicians did not use some of these technologies to their full potential.
However, unless the basic principles of e-marketing are applied, voters will continue to be annoyed by computer-driven phone messages or ignore them completely.