From 2015-2016, presidential candidates have spent over $551,508,888.
That’s half a billion dollars! And we aren’t even out of the primaries yet.
That’s a ton of money.
Here’s the thing…
If you think about it, that money is basically all for marketing. It funds digital marketing, event marketing, email marketing, tv marketing, radio marketing, etc. But why am I writing about this? Isn’t everyone sick of hearing about these candidates?
I’m writing about these 4 presidential candidates because this is an AWESOME marketing case study.
We get to examine exactly what happens when you have huge budgets to create a lead generating website.
And I mean YUGE!
I’m going to break down these 4 presidential candidate’s websites. (Sorry Gary Johnson & the green party…maybe you’ll make the cut in 2020.)
We’ll look at these websites from a lead generation perspective. And I’ll present some clear takeaways for real estate websites.
Just in case you’ve been living under a rock (and for our international audience), here are the websites of these political candidates:
Lead Capture
How are these 4 sites setup to capture supporters information? Do they target social, email or donations?
This may shock some of you. But every single one of these websites is focused on one thing.
Goal: Get Emails & Full Contact Information
Sanders & Lead Capture
The first thing you see when hitting Bernie’s website is a landing page. This page tries to get you to donate. The key thing to remember with your home page is to keep it focused. In real estate, you need to segment your traffic immediately when they hit your website.
After you click past his landing page, you notice that his site features this:
And nearly every single link you click leads to a long-form lead capture element like this:
Meanwhile, social media links on Bernie’s website are relegated to the bottom of his website.
Why is this?
Well, email and full contact information are still the most profitable methods of digital marketing. The cool thing about studying Bernie’s website is that he has multiple lead capture forms on every single page.
Look at this blog post…he has a button at the top of his site to contribute:
…And on the bottom of that same blog post:
As you can see…
Lead capture is a huge part of Bernie Sander’s website. And he focuses on emails with full contact information.
Trump & Lead Capture
At first glance, Trump’s website seems to have a lot less lead capture than Bernie’s. Here it is:
..but let’s look deeper!
If you click around Trump’s website you’ll notice it’s exactly the same as Bernie’s.
His links almost all go to either email or full lead contact forms.
Look at this form, it’s almost exactly the same as Bernie’s!
Trump’s website is equally focused on getting email and contact information from his supporters.
While the language and promises might be different, their methods for online lead capture are relatively the same.
Hillary & Lead Capture
Hillary’s website might be the most different in terms of lead capture.
Her homepage includes a lead capture form like Bernie’s & Trump’s. But, her menu and home page present many options for the visitor to explore.
I’d argue that there are simply too many distractions on her website from the lead capture.
To make my point, I’ve blurred out all of the words on her home page. Look at this:
Do you know what you’re supposed to do?
Compare this with Bernie’s Home Page
Bernie Sander’s has everyone 100% focused on giving him their email. Why? He knows that majority of his traffic will never come back.
But if he gets their email address he has a much higher chance of converting them into a voter.
All of this being said, Hillary uses an AWESOME popup. Here’s what it looks like:
LeadSite’s come with Smart Popup that operates much like Hillary’s. One of the cool things about this type of lead capture is using “polarizing language” in the call to action. Popups that use language like: “I Agree” “I Like Freebies” convert much better.
Hillary also uses a great multiple sidebar call to action on her blog posts. Here’s what it looks like:
Overall, Hillary probably has the least focused lead capture website of all the candidates. But she does still focus 100% on emails and full contact information over social media. And uses a great popup!
Cruz & Lead Capture
Finally, Ted Cruz, like Bernie Sanders (has THAT ever been said before?), uses a focused welcome gate on the front of his website:
When you click “continue to the site,” you immediately see another Bernie-like lead capture form:
Ted Cruz also uses great lead capture on his blog posts. He includes a red call to action button in the menu. And then puts this email subscription box at the footer of each page:
Ranking The Candidates On Lead Capture
There are so many elements to lead capture on a website. But if I had to rank these particular candidates on their website, I’d sort them like this:
- Bernie Sanders
- Ted Cruz
- Donald Trump
- Hillary Clinton
PS: This ranking is solely based on their websites lead capture design.
Why this ranking?
Bernie Sander’s website just does an amazing job at focusing on his supporters. He is always phrasing everything as a “You” statement. And it’s hard to find a single thing on his website where he talks about what he wants.
He also implements smart focused lead capture on almost every element of his page.
Likewise, Ted Cruz’s website is neatly focused and uses a solid welcome gate. I think Cruz’s website is slightly less focused than Bernie’s.
Donald Trump’s website is missing some key features of lead capture like email forms and obvious calls to action. But he does incorporate links to forms on almost every page. I also think he could do a lot better of a job with his blog/media section. His content could be formatted better for social media and/or Google results. Currently he is just embedding YouTube videos or posting dry press releases.
Finally, Hillary’s website is great from a content angle. But ends up being too distracted to be an effective lead generator.
::: Key Take-Aways For Agents :::
- Make sure your homepage segments traffic: Your homepage needs to point traffic to the correct destination on your website. This ensures that they find the right lead capture forms.
- Use smart popups or active lead capture: The use of popups, slide ins and more simply boost the percentage of your traffic that will convert into leads.
- Include Shareable Content: Your website needs blog posts that engage readers and solve their problems. Every candidate had a blog and issues section on their website, but you’ll also notice that every candidate also included multiple calls to action on these pages. You need to do the same! Every real estate website needs content and needs lead capture on that content.
- Focus on leads: Social media is a powerful tool. But your website needs to focus on lead capture. Leads are more valuable than followers on Twitter. Make sure your website is designed with this in mind.
::: Funny Side Note :::
I actually found several errors on Ted Cruz’s site while doing this case study. Here’s the tweet I sent him about it…
@tedcruz hey your 3 call to action boxes on your website aren’t linked up correctly. pic.twitter.com/eiKRvYGubK
— Tyler Zey (@TylerZey) April 14, 2016
IMPORTANT: Please keep comments focused on websites, real estate, and/or lead capture learned from candidates. Do not spread your political views in the blog comment section. They made Twitter for that. Thanks! 🙂