Even though the presidential election in 2016 is still about a year and a half away, people are already talking all about it. Candidates are starting to announce that they are running, and they are also starting to spend money to build themselves up (or more likely, tear the opponents down). What does this have to do with digital marketing you ask? A lot! According to a recent report, the amount of money these candidates spend on digital advertising is expected to more than quadruple from the previous election. That means there is a potential $1 Billion in online ads.
Will you get Your Piece of the Pie?
So, with this massive influx of money coming into the digital advertising space, one has to ask themselves how they will get their piece of the pie. If you start now, it may be possible to set up a quality site and get some good rankings. Building up your brand now and you could position yourself well for the months just prior to the election, which is when the big money will be spent.
Don’t forget, however, that there is more than just the major presidential election. There are also the primaries where both Republicans and Democrats will have many state wide elections. Making sites for these types of elections can also be quite wise.
As you can imagine, there are many different ways that you can capitalize on the elections. In addition to the $1 billion in digital ad spend from the campaigns themselves, there will also be a bump in advertising money from related industries, supporters of candidates and others.
Step One: You Need to Start Now
The important thing is to start as quickly as possible. It can take time to build up an audience for a site, create social media accounts and all of that type of thing. Fortunately, you can begin today and have all your pages up and ready and ranking well with Google and the other search engines.
Step Two: Choose Your Approach
Creating quality content about the candidates, linking to related stories, and becoming a ‘go to’ place for your specific niche within the election cycle industry is a great way to go. You can focus on a single candidate, a single issue or go broader. Whatever you decide to do, do it now.
Pick an idea related to this election and run with it. There are many different options out there so don’t be tricked into thinking that only the major news sites and established options can profit from this event.
Step Three: Build Relationships
The next thing you want to do is build up relationships with others who are interested in politics. Just click through Facebook and you will undoubtedly see hundreds of groups and posts on the topic your site is about. The great thing with political sites is that you don’t necessarily need a huge established site to get in front of people.
If you have ‘that friend’ who is always posting their political opinions, ask if they will share a post you wrote, or even write a Facebook post with their opinion about it. This will generate traffic. Repeat this process with individuals and other pages and you’ll soon find yourself getting a steady stream of traffic.
Step Four: Build on Success
Once you have some traffic, you can begin reaching out to different sites to guest post or ask them to post on your page. You can also start running ads (even just Google ads is a good place to start) and earning a little bit of money. Build yourself up as an authority in the area of the campaign that you are focusing on.
Step Five: Profit
The next step is to start really earning money. Depending on your specific site setup you may be able to profit from traditional ads, running an affiliate promotion, building a list or any number of things. Just like any other site, you can find what works and focus on that. The sooner you are able to choose your monetization strategy the better you will be able to focus your efforts during the heavy spending months leading up to November, 2016.
Step Six: Long Term Profitability
The biggest problem with election cycle sites is that they are often rendered irrelevant after the election is over. While this can be ok if you can get the site up and running without too much effort or investment, that is not always going to be the case. Finding ways to transition the site into a long term money maker can be equally important.
Consider building a list that you can continue to market to in the future. This can make it easier to start a new site for the next election cycle. You can also transition the site into a general political page that can bring in a lot of traffic. There are many options, but the important thing is to be thinking about what you will do from the beginning and factor it into all your decisions.
With good planning and some hard work, you can really capitalize on the massive money that is going to be spent on the presidential election, and all the related elections over the course of the next 18 months.
