From USA Today: WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz, the first major Republican candidate to declare his White House candidacy, raised $2 million during the first three days of his presidential campaign — as his team deployed a mix of complex social-media strategy and behavioral analytics to reach and sway potential donors.
Hours before his announcement speech Monday in Lynchburg, Va., Cruz tweeted the news that he was running for president. That day, he had 5.7 million interactions on Facebook. So far, nearly two-thirds of his fundraising haul has flowed in through the Internet, aided behind the scenes by a team of data scientists who closely monitor social media and digital traffic to determine who’s reading their messages, who’s sharing them and who’s clicking through to his website and taking action.
The communication is two-way. Relying on marketing techniques common in the world of commerce, Cruz’s team has tailored its web advertising to reach seven different “psychographic” clusters — groups of people with similar attitudes, personalities and interests. It has crafted 17 different advertising messages to reach those potential donors.
For instance, pro-gun “traditionalists” saw online banner ads with a grandfather and grandson heading out to hunt, while another targeted people concerned about personal safety with an image of a home break-in. Another talked about “bringing … faith in God back to America” to attract religious conservatives. They all directed people to visit www.tedcruz.org.
“Our entire culture here is to build engagement,” said Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe. If a potential supporter first visited the Cruz website via her tablet Tuesday evening during the Texas senator’s interview with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, the campaign will direct future online ads to that voter’s device during the evening hours.
In all, Cruz hopes to raise $40 million to $50 million by March 2016.
