Your Business for President!
September 17th, 2008 by Amanda
Did you know we are in an election year?
No matter what your stance is on the issues, everyone must respect that this is one of the most interesting races we have ever seen. More than just exciting, it is history making.
You might be sick of the constant campaign coverage, but it got me to thinking about the candidates websites, their goals and their approaches.
What is your company’s goal? What does your website do to help you and your company achieve that goal?
Barack and John’s simplest goal is the same: they both want to be the next president of the United States.
Their messages are very different, their beliefs are different but their goal is the same. How do their websites help them achieve that goal?
John McCain’s site immediately pulls me in with User Conversion elements requesting everything from me: donate my money, time, recruit my friends, buy clothing and find local events in my area.
Barack Obama’s website stops the visitor with a landing page offer: if you donate $15 and sign up, you get the official Obama-Biden car magnet.
Barack’s actual site grabs you with its rotating center headlines. “How you can help hurricane Ike Victims,” “Reach out to neighbors in my Community,” “Watch the latest McCain slamming ad,” and “Read about Barack’s new book.”
On both sites “above the scroll” I can find out voting information, register, apply for an absentee ballot, read news etc.
McCain urges visitors to Volunteer; Obama urges people to ‘get involved now’.
Obama’s site I can view in Spanish.
I can visit my state’s Obama home page.
I can also view Baracks blog which is updated often.
McCain, I can listen to an audio clip of his week in review.
Just below the fold on Obama’s site I immediately notice something: The visitor is pushed to join.
Join other people like them. Join Hillary supporters or go to any of Obama’s 16 social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, etc. and all of those pages are updated regularly as well. By using Social Networking Obama supporters can connect with other people like them and talk about the things that are important to them.
McCain wants to put his word out. He wants you to volunteer to put the word out. But does he want you to do it online? No; at least, not to the extent that Obama does. But for the brick-and-mortar supporter, McCain’s site is great a resource of everything you need to know about him, his campaign, his coalitions and how you can volunteer for his cause.
Is one way or another wrong? Connecting with other supporters versus a place that is for visitors to get information? I don’t think so. Both have their place. Just because Obama has almost 1.9 million Facebook supporters, does that mean they will all make it to the polls in November?
For your company, is your website a place for your customers to gather information or to be involved in the process? Think about your brand’s buyer personas… What do they want out of the experience of visiting your site?
Want a few other peoples opinion?
Check out Read Write Web’s take or GovExecs opinion
Illustration by: mario zucca
Just wanted to turn your attention to a fresh webinar from just this afternoon available in our webinar archives: 
