The 2016 Presidential Marketing Funnel: Trump vs. Clinton. Who Wins?
Itâs AutoGrow here with your 2016 Presidential Election Breakdown! Tonight we have two competitors going head-to-head in the race for the White House.
For the best insights and analysis of each presidential candidateâs sales funnel, stay tuned for up-to-the-minute coverage.
Ah, the 2016 presidential election.
Regardless of your opinion or for whom youâre voting, letâs agreeâthis yearâs cycle has been something.
Weâre a month away from what may be the most contentious presidential election in US history.
Yet, controversy, publicity stunts, and gimmicks aside, Iâm writing this article for a significant reason.
What the Super Bowl is to football fans, this presidential election has been to me.
Political news is nothing but the study of peopleâand this election cycle has been a case study in positioning, the psychology of persuasion, and marketing strategy.
So What Does the Presidential Election Have to Do with Sales Funnels?
As Iâve said many times before, you can learn a lot about sales funnels from watching the news.
In fact, we are surrounded by sales funnels on a daily basis.
We see them. We hear them. Weâre in them.
The presidential election is really just a tale of two giant, competing sales funnels.
Every month each one converts millions of dollars in contributions from American citizens.
Each candidateâs sales funnel is composed of stages.
All of these stages work together to hit the âconversion goals.â
But this funnel is not just selling an eBook. Itâs selling ideas about the person who will sit in the Oval Office.
So itâs a little more complex, but nothing you canât digest over a cup of coffee.
The Presidential Sales Funnel and the âClassicâ Sales Funnel
Since youâre reading this, youâre already familiar with sales funnels. So, you may already know that the stages to any sales funnel can be boiled down to 3 components:
- The top layerâwhere cold prospects are turned into leads.
- The middle layerâwhere leads are turned into âconversionsâ or become hotter leads.
- The bottom layerâwhere conversions happen, and leads are turned into customers or buyers.
Marketing assetsâlike emails, ads, or landing pagesâare layered within every stage. Each stage organizes these assets to funnel someone to the next.
The classic sales funnel usually looks something like this:
The presidential funnel looks similar, but each stageâs components are different than for a business.
At the top of the funnel, you have media coverage for each candidateâs speeches or interviews.
People might move to support one candidate or another based on what the issue or news story is and how they interpret it.
Then people might go on social media to discuss, on Google to do research, and some end up on the candidate’s website. They may also end up on another site that supports the same candidate with a similar conversion goal.
In the example below from the website GOP.com, you can see there are multiple conversion goals including donating and registering to vote.
Ultimately, the âbuyersâ in this presidential marketing campaign are voters.
You could break it down further, but thatâs the big picture.
What are the Conversion Goals of the Presidential Funnel? (And Who is Winning?)
The first conversion goal is to gather donations.
For the past few months, this has been the conversion goal for each candidateâs funnel.
Gathering donations can translate into more than campaign revenueâit can mean votes.
For instance, a growing number of donations month to month is good social proof.
If a campaign has a particularly good month, it can attract more attention and donations: âHey, look! All of these people support us.â
The candidates have been successful at hitting their donation goals thus far. Hereâs a look at the exact numbers of how much was raised in donations for each campaign month-to-month:
*Note that the above numbers include itemized and unitemized funds, loans, and transfers.
Once candidates receive a donationâbe it $1, $5, $1,000âa cold prospect is now grouped in as a âlead.â
Being a lead in the presidential funnel means being a potential voter.
So the first conversion goal is to secure donations and leads.
The second and ultimate conversion goal goes without saying: to become president.
But thereâs another thing standing in their way.
A candidate can only achieve this goal if they get more votes than the other candidate.
So itâs not just a funnel made to convert, but rather out-convert.
And thatâs where things get even more interesting.
Letâs dive into the tactics each candidate are utilizing in their marketing campaigns to out-convert the other one.
The Top of the Funnel
Hillary vs. Trump: Ads, Press, and Media
The top of the funnel is how the candidates attract prospects through marketing.
Letâs examine how their prime pieces of marketing differ.
For example, examine the following ads:
The political difference is clear: Hillaryâs ad focuses on being part of a team and the historical significance of electing the first woman presidentââIâm With Her.â
Trumpâs focuses on being part of a larger, all-inclusive teamâAmericans. âAmerican Prideâ and the hand-over-heart placement play off the feeling of patriotism.
Side note: this idea has a psychological effect. We wrote about it in another recent article that analyzed the ISIS marketing funnel.
Trump and Clintonâs Calls To Action also differ in their approaches.
Hillaryâs is from the prospectâs point of view (âAdd my nameâ), while Trumpâs (âAdd Your Nameâ) is directed at the voter.
In the case of CrazyEgg, one of the most optimized sales funnels on the web, using the prospectâs point of view can be more effective (e.g. âShow Me My Heatmap).
Here are a few more:
In the above ad, Clinton uses social proof from an authority and has a better, more specific Call To Action, (âRead her jobs planâ).
Trump is tugging at an emotional trigger in his approach. The image he uses is interesting: the âworkerâ resembles someone everyone knowsâtheir hardworking father or grandfather. His adâs copy makes declarative statements that inspire a feeling of American pride and the idea of âwinning.â
Hmm.
These two ads look similar.
Except for two things:
- Thereâs a close-up of Hillary vs. a shot of Trumpâs crowdâHillary is clearly the focus of her ad, while Trump pins the focus on the large crowd, channeling a visual example of social proof.
- Their Calls To ActionâTrumpâs is very direct (âDonateâ), while Hillaryâs is allusive (âAdd my nameâ).
The juryâs out on this one, because both have strong pros and cons.
If I had to bet though, Iâd bet on Hillaryâs ad in this case. Itâs clear that itâs for her campaign, but in Trumpâs ad, you canât see his faceâonly his name at the bottom.
Plus, âadding your nameâ is a lower bar to get over compared to âdonating.â
Then, thereâs the ads that bash the other candidate:
The most eye-catching thing about Trumpâs ad is how he has chosen to show an image of Hillary looking down and appearing somber.
She may even be reading something on her phone, which brings to mind the recent email scandal.
This ad could also be effective, because her eyes are pointed down toward the headline.
A case study from ConversionXL Institute suggested that conversions increased on a landing page when a person was staring at the Call To Action.
The headlineââHillary Clintonâs Ten Inconvenient Truthsââis like a listicle seeking to educate. This incites natural curiosity.
As for Hillaryâs ad, she pins Trumpâs own words against him with an image of him smirking.
The word choiceââcluelessââplays off Trumpâs smirk and tweet.
However, display advertising isnât the only way candidates are attracting prospects.
Theyâre also using social media (like Twitter):
This tweet is almost like a ârecruitment effortââheâs not just trying to convert leads; heâs trying to grow his market of potential voters.
Now that we know what the top of the funnel looks like for each candidate, letâs see how theyâre converting the prospects that flood their funnel.
The Middle of the Funnel
Hillary vs. Trump: Landing Pages and Opt-Ins
Trumpâs landing page is pretty clear: heâs standing up for those viewing his site. His message is focused on inclusionââI am your voiceââand national pride.
His Call To Action is pretty obvious, too.
The Call To Action copy further acts on this feeling of inclusionââContribute.â
âContribute,â as opposed to âDonate,â emphasizes a group effort toward a common goal.
Youâre contributing, not just donating.
Contrast that with Hillaryâs landing page:
Hillaryâs landing page is benefit driven.
She uses it to gather leads by making everything about you, the voter: âFind out how much Hillaryâs college plan will save you.â
Note the difference in the word choice as well: âchip inâ versus âcontribute.â The latter is more effective on an emotional level, in my professional opinion.
Her site also doubles as a platform where she publishes blogs on everything from her plans for America to Trumpâs mistakes.
The Bottom of the Funnel
Hillary vs. Trump: List Building and Email Follow-Ups
Neither Hillary nor Trump skimp on the importance of following up.
In this game, itâs paramount because of the ongoing conversion goal to convert an email subscriber to a donation and a donation to a vote.
Once you opt-in to their email lists or make a donation, youâll start getting a string of emails like these:
Emails like this are sent regularly to continually convert leadsâor collect donationsâagain and again.
So Who Out-Converts Whom?
Each candidate already used these tactics to out-convert their partyâs other candidates.
But between Hillary and Trump, the race is still too early to call.
The main takeawayâthe presidential funnel is structured to convert prospects to leads and leads to voters.
Each candidate has different conversion strategies, and whichever strategy converts more leads will claim the glory.
As we get closer to November, both candidates will optimize their funnels.
Keep an eye out for those optimizing âcomponentsâ each candidate addsâlike a paid dinner with the presidential nominee.
And watch how well those add-ins convert. You can follow along from a marketerâs perspective by subscribing to both candidateâs mailing lists.
Stay tuned. Itâs bound to get more exciting!
This has been your first presidential sales funnel coverage of the 2016 election season!
Iâm Matt, and weâll see you next week.
Stay Focused, Keep Hustlinâ,
âMatt
P.S. Have you ever dreamed of optimizing your sales funnel like the presidential candidates are? We have some ideas. Click here to see a demo of what you can âadd onâ to your funnel to convert better.
For some reason, I am getting plenty of email messages from the Trump campaign. It is pretty interesting to read and annoying at the same time. I have heard several Facebook friends who have been trying to unsubcribe from these mailings, without success.
Personally, I think you should add another presidential candidate (Gary Johnson) to the the marketing funnel, and do a follow-up post.