Keynote at e-mail insider conference: Stephen Geer (Obama e-mail director)

Random notes (live blogging):

3 M's Messaging, Mobilization and Money

• Messaging - followed Obama closely; every word he said was considered for future e-mails
• After Ohio loss, presented loss in e-mail with unflinching honesty. Subject of e-mail: "The Math"; spoke about success metrics/criteria; response was exceptionally positive
• "Strategy updates": Moved to video (recorded on laptop; low production value) from top campaign strategist; sent out via e-mail; 10,000,000+ people who followed (subscribed) this list got the info before the press
• Mantra of campaign: Respect; Empower; Include - strategy at heart of grassroots mobilization (online and offline)
• Built list through online advertising, events + incentives (bumper sticker; invite a friend = T-shirt)

• Mobilization: Once signed up, registrants received carefully constructed follow-up e-mails that upsold people from volunteer to organizer to community leader
• Steered people to social networking platform: mybarackobama.com

• Money: $500 million raised online; 3,000,000 individuals who made it possible
• The non-test (versus contests - lottery laws etc): small dollar donors given access to Obama ($5 or more) could sit at a table and chat with Obama; logic? became a messaging outlet....duality; replacing the power of Washington insiders with the general public/ordinary people
• Did a big push the day after Sarah Palin's acceptance speech; Palin made a huge (tactical) mistake in going after community outreach (belittled Obama's invovlement with grassroots community outreach); raised huge amount of money = pivoted Palin's comments around ANYONE involved in Obama's campaign; this was the single biggest fundraising day in Politics
• Insight: build a strong relationship with community and if anyone upsets them, give them an outlet to take action (in this case, donating)

Innovation/Change: Rapid response power of e-mail: some words went straight from Obama's mouth to e-mail; normally this was a job for a speech writer

Interesting how the POV from Geer about overkill i.e. excessive outreach/frequency/etc. is that as long as it results in a vote, it's not overkill; he did mention that it's not exactly the most efficient use of resources but pretty surprising that "spamming" potential voters is not seen the same way marketers (the industry) would; Geer did concede that this is not the case with fundraising though (a little more sensitive)

What now? Where does e-mail strategy go from here? 2 things (that can be shared at this point) to do with a list this big: 1) Incorporate the lists into the Presidency - highly unlikely (Federal government owns the list...) 2) Create a standalone organizing community (like moveon.org) - advocacy/bully pulpit i.e. XYZ is not supporting Obama's agenda; stand up and voice your disapproval - this has not been done before and is potentially at odds with Obama's philosophy; Other??? Time will tell.....

Lessons learned? The more successful you are, the longer it goes; getting buy in and thinking about scaleability/structure EARLY ON is important