If there’s one thing that totally freaks out regular folks, it’s the idea of big data. Here are companies that you regularly go to for, say, yogurt, or diapers, or beard trimmers, and they’re collecting personal information on you and your spending habits. Then, they take that information and use it to sell you more products. That’s right, everybody. Big brother is actually watching, and he’s trying to get you to buy more soda.
From a marketing standpoint, however, big data serves as a valuable resource for effectively communicating to consumers. While it’s not always with the best intentions, it can often highlight valuable information that is useful to a company’s audience and as a result, lead to sales, brand loyalty, and overall business growth.
How Does Gathering That Data Work?
Big data is now informing a number of political campaigns in order to find different, more strategic ways to engage the electorate. By gathering that data, it helps political parties, lobbyists and other political entities predict how to attract voters.
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For example, if you receive emails from President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and members of their staff, you might see subject lines like:
- “[Your Name], I need you”
- “This is in your hands”
- “This is actually really fun (and I’ll totes do it with you).” This one was sent by White House staffer and sometimes actor Kal Penn. Way to stay hip, Kal!
These emails are especially prevalent during election seasons on both sides of the aisle. After the 2012 election, Obama campaign email director Toby Fallsgraff revealed that a great deal of A/B testing went into finding which email subject lines garnered the Dems the most campaign donations. Between 20 writers and a powerful analytics system, they tested and re-tested several email drafts and subject lines along with numerous variations of those drafts, gathering data on their performance. The ones that tested the strongest were sent to subscribers, and then awaited those sweet, sweet donation checks.
Here’s what they found: The subject line that garnered Obama’s team the most contributions was “I will be outspent.” How much? $2,673,278 out of the $690 million raised came from that email. Their testing also found that while one subject line might work at first, it eventually lost traction and they had to test something new.
