Netiquette & Marketing Political Campaigns
There are two types of marketing on the internet:
1) Interruption Based Marketing
2) Permission Based Marketing
Interruption Based Marketing is when companies or corporations blast you with ads that they want you to see. These ads are prevalent on one of my favorite websites, ESPN.com. At the top of their main page, you always see an ad for a few brief seconds before you can actually click on the main page. (I can't imagine this hastle on dial-up.) Another website with invasive advertising is MLB.com. If you go to the Washington Nationals homepage, you will see replays from the night before. You can turn them off, but it's set to automatically start with sound and video. This is distracting and annoying.
Permission Based Marketing is a more adventurous type of advertising because instead of blasting you with advertisements, PBM hope to attract you to a message you want to hear. Visiting a website on world hunger? How about advertisements telling you how to help in your local community? Permission Based Marketing is the most successful form of advertising online.
Political Advertising should almost always stick to permission based marketing. You want to tailor your message to suit voters, not blast them with what you think the audience should hear. If you anger your audience, they probably won't vote for you on election day.
If I get sick of the Nationals highlights, I might not come back to their website - but the Nationals know that plenty of other people will visit to buy tickets or see scores. They are not worried about losing one customer. Politicians, however, cannot think in those types of terms. They must be worried about every vote. After all, one vote makes the different in 50 percent + 1.
2 Comments:
It think it's interesting that I become so angry about interuption marketing techniques on the Internet, but accept it as normal on television - even television that I pay for. I never seem to quesion it in other media.
The Internet has given us such total control of our online experience that it makes sense we would have strong feelings against any road block on our information super highway. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be a while before that is put into practice. I just read that both the RNC and DNC email lists are mostly made up of purchased lists.
I agree that interuption marketing should be frowned upon on political websites; however, as long as the recipient has the ability to end the demonstration before it begins - by clicking the X in the far right corner - or installing a pop-up blocker (I believe it can stop them) then no one should really care....although I hate the ones that don't give you the chance to cancel....you have to watch the whole thing or click the back button to get off the page...at least in my experience.
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