Political

Where did Obama’s online fundraising come from?

OK, if you’re going to really insist on thinking that Obama is the Holy Grail of Campaigning To Be Transplanted To The UK Because Our System Is Just Like Theirs, then here’s a useful statistic for you.

The Obama for President campaign raised around $500 million online.

Two-thirds of it came from people clicking a “donate now” link in an email.

The proportion of people giving and the sums people gave on average was low. But with an email list in the millions (10-13 million depending on whose figures you believe) and 1.3 billion email messages being sent out, that added up to lots of money.

Indeed, Blue State Digital (who ran Obama’s online campaign) have said that for a typical 9 month US campaign they would expect to raise (only) an average of $5.00 – $7.50 per opted in email address.

In other words: if you want to raise lots of money online, gather in lots of email address – and use them.

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