A significant change for digital consultants in the last decade has been our status. That might sound surprising when measured against all the innovations in email targeting and display advertising.
As a touchstone, when we first started our firm we found ourselves having to convince candidates and party organizations that they needed to spend money on digital. It was a tough sell.
The entrenched media consultants would tell them things like, “digital doesn’t persuade voters,” and “only young people are online,” or “Likes don’t vote.” Now, suddenly those same media firms who thought digital was a waste now advertise themselves as digital “experts.”
Everyone is in the business of digital — even if that means they simply outsource those items directly back out to firms like ours. Our placement at the strategy table isn’t the only thing different from the last decade. Here are five other digital evolutions that standout:
1. More science, less art.
I used to believe that, like good social media, email and website work was art. Now, it’s 100 percent science. We can target our audiences with extreme precision and test messages against each other with A/B and multivariate testing. If a campaign has invested its resources properly, no part of their digital campaign is left up to the opinions of anyone — everything is backed up with data.
2. The age of averages.
This may seem out of place, but I think it’s an important distinction. When I started my business, the fact that I was 20-something was important. People wanted a young digital consultant because young people were the ones who knew all about the Internet tubes, the Google machine and the Facebooks. Now, knowledge and expertise in these areas is no longer exclusive to the youth. Moreover, the age groups involved in social media use have gotten older. I have to watch what I put on Facebook these days: my 70-year-old mother watches me closely. I love you mom!
3. Clients have in-house experts, which is exciting.
Our clients are starting to become sophisticated enough to have strong in-house experts. This is a wonderful change in the last few years that’s dramatically improving the quality of digital work in the industry. It keeps us focused on what we’re good at — delivering the right messages to the right people.
4. We’re becoming a larger part of the campaign.
I’ve started telling candidates that they need to understand a simple fact. For the first year (or more) of their campaign, their digital outreach is the primary means by which they’ll communicate with voters.
Earned media through traditional sources (local TV news, newspapers, and radio) is largely dead or too inefficient. Without a budget to spend on early television, the client has really just one option — to spend time and money on digital content and advertising. Good clients are recognizing that focusing on good digital work from day one is absolutely essential to build a strong coalition of voters that’ll propel them to victory.
5. Our ability to target voters is exceeding our ability to create targeted content.
With the massive increase in the use of big data in campaigns, we have now created a bottomless pit of data on our undecided voters. That amount of data far exceeds our ability to create targeted content. We may know that independent, pro-life women are a key demographic for our campaign, but do we have the digital content created and ready to deliver to them? That’s one of the biggest challenges of 2015 and beyond. How do we start generating enough content to make the most of our massive compilation of data? The targets are limitless. We just need the ammunition to come along.
Kurt Luidhardt is co-Founder of The Prosper Group, a digital agency serving Republican candidates like Govs. Mike Pence (Ind.), Chris Christie (N.J.) and Scott Walker (Wis.), and Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.).