An exploration into the uses, engagement and future trends of political marketing involvement with the 18 – 25 UK student demographic. Whilst developing existing academic ideas from political marketing and mainstream marketing, the research aims to also provide prescription for political actors to take note and adhere to recommendations to maximise potential gains from the increased use of e-marketing.

Excerpt

Abstract

Executive Summary

Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Research background - the rationale for undertaking it
1.3 Initial literature search
1.4 Aims
1.5 Objectives:
1.6 Scope of the study
1.7 Anticipated benefits
1.8 Abstract Executive Summary

Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Introduction to Political Marketing
2.3 Political consumer or citizen
2.4 Participation and engagement; use of the internet
2.5 The Obama Campaign
2.6 The 2010 British General Election e-expectations
2.7 Appropriate marketing theories
2.8 Putting the small ‘p’ back into politics? Citizen participation in the e-campaign
2.9 Summary

Chapter 3: Research Methodology
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Research Overview
3.3 Discussion of alternative methods
3.4 Discussion of question content and data required
3.5 Discussion of questionnaire format
3.6 Polling language
3.7 Demographic pivot and ‘opinion’ questions
3.7.1 Did you vote in the 2010 UK General Election?
3.7.2 What is your sex?
3.7.3 What is your age?
3.7.4 What is your current level of study?
3.7.5 Which, if any, of the following activities did you do online during the British 2010 general election campaign?
3.8 Data collection method
3.9 Discussion on sample
3.10 Discussion on data analysis
3.11 Review of the methodology used

Chapter 4: Research Findings
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Research

Chapter 5: Data Analysis and Interpretation
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Analysis and Interpretation

Chapter 6: Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations
6.1 Conclusions with regard to the aims and objectives

References

Bibliography

Appendices

Abstract

An exploration into the uses, engagement and future trends of political marketing involvement with the 18 - 25 UK student demographic. Whilst developing existing academic ideas from political marketing and mainstream marketing, the research aims to also provide prescription for political actors to take note and adhere to recommendations to maximise potential gains from the increased use of e-marketing.

Executive Summary

This report develops the idea that political marketing is a useful academic subject in the scope of marketing and political science development towards voter participation, marketing engagement as well as market orientation relating to the 18 - 25 age range concerning the UK General Elections.

The examination of key trends shows both the incidence of political marketing engagement and the analysis of forward looking predictions in anticipation for the next election campaign. Limited research has been conducted into political e-marketing usage with concurrently limited data sets regarding participation rates; this study focuses on developing the knowledge of the target segment and looks at how political marketers may exploit future social media trends and use market intelligence garnered through social media can be utilised for brand and product positioning.

The demonstrable use of marketing models to accurately describe political e-marketing is established using Kotler’s ladder for customer relationship management as a base as well as Furthermore, recommendations regarding potential e-marketing directions are discussed drawing on the comparison and correlations discovered from the primary research.

The results show that there is both an increased likelihood for future marketing involvement by the target demographic above that of the general population, indicating that the upward trend in social networking mobility will ascend with the current ‘young and educated’ generation of the electorate.

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

In a liberal democracy John Locke argued that those that govern have credibility only when they have the consent of those who are governed (Tuckness, 2010). It is in this vein that democratic politics takes its roots in developing a bi-lateral and multi-lateral approach to communicate with its ‘stakeholders’. The ‘first-past-the-post’ system that is used by the United Kingdom to elect its government, i.e. the political party with at least 50 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. Alternatively, the party with the highest minority and highest chance of succeeding in forming a government with a minority or forming a coalition is asked by the monarch to form the next government and cabinet. Anomalous results owing to this system can cause a party with a fewer number of individual votes than its competitors but conversely more seats in parliament taking office.

This electoral system creates a quasi-unique problem when we consider campaign dynamics; employing a first-past-the-post system, political parties will often consider campaigning based on placating its political base as well as competing seriously in constituencies where there is a reasonable likelihood of a swing vote. This pattem, when scaled up nationwide can potentially lead to large demographics of voters and interest groups being overlooked in campaign strategy and manifesto formation. This has been seen as recently as 2010/11 where the higher education student vote was courted at the last election where the Liberal Democrats pledged to scrap tuition fees over a six-year period gamering a 50% approval rating, a subsequent reversal in policy after forming the government saw a huge downswing in support and protests in London. Using this as an example, early indicators for the Liberal Democrats saw an opportunity to develop policy based on market demand and position themselves as a ‘market-orientated party (MOP)’ (Lees-Marshant, 2009) who are both engaged with the voter, responsive to their needs and demands and develop a strategy that is ‘marketable’ in order to gratify those needs.

The science of political strategy has, since the 1980s (Lees-Marshant, 2009: 5) adopted notions and concepts from marketing theory and practice such as the (political) consumer, the (political) marketplace and the dynamics used to formulate and distribute ‘the message’. British politics has long been dominated by the utilisation of media to communicate with the electorate and it is this paradigm that has been subject to an increasing academic focus especially as new media has permeated the communication methods between the electorate and political entities.

The 2010 General Election in the United Kingdom received much attention from academics and the public media alike. The election followed a twelve year Labour administration (Rees-Mogg, 2009), the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan which led to increasing accusations of mendacity and a decline in the polls. An uncompetitive and perceptively divided opposition, a private sector housing and banking crisis, an international sovereign debt crisis, an expenses scandal and increasing inflation and forced public spending cuts immediately prior to the election. (Jones and Norton, 2010: 670)

Another aspect of this election was the final capitulation of the main three (Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat) political parties to engage in public debates, similar in style to the televised debates that have been part of the American election campaign since 1960 between John L. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. (Mc Phee, 2008)

1.2 Research background - the rationale for undertaking it

As the field of political marketing is a relatively new discipline, all works and studies are highly scrutinised as part of its development from both the political scientists and marketers alike. The challenge is providing studies of sufficient quality to reconcile differences, combine the similarities in the two disciplines, and provide possible theories for further exploration and critique by academics in the field. How far this integration goes depends on the development of new models that are able to sufficiently describe trends and possible causalities between voter participation and a political parties’ subsequent election campaign reaction.

Looking at the recent occurrences in the United States of America regarding the application of the internet, new media and social networking to develop new channels of communication to the political consumer allows a further dimension to be integrated into the fold. Much research has been conducted into the participation rates of American citizens in recent US elections campaigns, (Carty, 2011) (Smith and Rainie, 2009) (Rasiej and Sifry, 2009) (AUN, 2007) (Levinson, 2009), however very little has been done to develop theories about participation levels amongst certain demographics or even those of a predictive nature.

Providing additional models, which can be critiqued and developed in the field, will allow the subject to grow in both reputability and application by political campaigners and new political marketers.

1.3 Initial literature search

In order to provide a successful basis to formulate appropriate questions a preliminary literature search was conducted to discover exactly what recent research had been undertaken by academics as well as potential field research conducted by political entities. The exploration of how far the field had been developed gave a basis to investigate which marketing theories could be sufficiently analogised to enable their usage in a political context. Difficulties arose, as few academic papers exist close enough to my focus topic as well as a distinct lack of unified definitions within political marketing.

After emailing Professor Rachel Gibson who gave guidance on initial literature, the formulation of the topic began to take shape towards the development of theories on political e-marketing within the UK.

1.4 Aims

The aim of this research is to utilise and evaluate current academic theory regarding attitudes towards the uses of social networking websites and new media by British undergraduate and postgraduate students in electoral marketing campaigns.

Using the research published by Rachel K. Gibson, Marta Cantijoch and Stephen Ward in ‘Citizen Participation in the e-campaign’ as a grounding for data regarding participation and engagement this paper will attempt to build on that in the context of student opinion. The proposition of a framework to anticipate future online engagement of a young and educated demographic is one such aim. (N.B. In 2009/10 there were 2,493,415 students at higher education establishments in the UK of which 2,087,615 were ‘home’ students) (HESA, 2010).

The levels and methods of engagement in the relationship between the electorate and the political actors are hypothesised to draw on fundamental practices from marketing such as customer relationship management, e-marketing, advertising. It is from this perspective that this research will show positive linkages between marketing theories and models and political marketing and campaigning.

1.5 Objectives:

This exploratory research seeks to address four specific points or questions:

- To examine how the 18-25 student demographic engaged with politics during the 2010 UK General Election and identify likely future trends in the usage of social networking sites and new media by the current 18-25 student demographic.
- With social media and the application of the political marketing SOP-MOP model, what did the 18-25 demographic perceive of the market positioning of the political parties? - Product, Sales, Market - To develop existing marketing models suitable for the political marketing arena.
- Drawing on the aforementioned models, to suggest possible areas for focus in the scope political e-marketing for the three main political parties.

1.6 Scope of the study

This research will identify and poll UK under- and post-graduate students between the ages of 18 - 25 to look into what engagement levels they had towards political marketing conducted through new and social media in the lead up to and during the 2010 UK General Election, it will also establish forward looking responses regarding future actions to gauge potential increases in marketing contact.

1.7 Anticipated benefits

When the research draws conclusions and recommendations are made as to which areas of political e-marketing have a high propensity for bilateral and multi-lateral communication between the political entities and political consumers. There should be guidance for political marketers and strategists when thinking about developing customer relationship management-style contact with the ‘young, educated demographic’. As well as establishing long term, relationships idealised in the customer lifetime value models offered by marketing theory.

1.8 Abstract Executive Summary

Chapter Two: Literature Review

The literature review undertakes a cross-sectional analysis of the current political thinking behind political marketing and aims to reconcile opposing arguments over the consumerist nature of the political participation. The foundation is also formed as a basis for the research.

Chapter Three: Research Methodology

The research methodology sets out how the secondary data researched led to the formation for the questionnaire and methodology for the survey. The understanding of sampling techniques and alternative methodologies is also discussed.

Chapter Four: Research Findings

A presentation of the research findings tabulated, provide the initial overview of what the responses were and how the in particular results may prove to be relevant to further the research area.

Chapter Five: Data Analysis and Interpretations

Data analysis develops the themes identified in Chapter 4 and builds on them correlating between useful pivot points in the information; the application of statistical analysis also produces further results.

Chapter Six: Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations

The finalisation of the themes discovered allows for the summation of the data analysis while providing the recommendations outlined in the original aims and objectives.

Chapter 2 ะ Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

This chapter aims to provide groundwork for the research by looking at contemporary issues in the field of political marketing, political science and marketing. The underlying debates over whether voters should be treated as citizens or as consumers will be explored, as well as historical information regarding participation levels in e-marketing as well as the discussing the merits of the Obama’ campaign as the most written about source of information regarding e-marketing and internet contact between political actors and the electorate.

The identification of marketing models that can be translated into political marketing will be demonstrated with the view that the primary research will corroborate the translation to the political marketplace. This chapter will also discuss the relevancy of a particular paper from which this research has its roots, namely ‘The internet and the 2010 election putting the small ׳P׳ back in politics?’ and its source data the BMRB National face to face survey of 1,960 UK adults.

2.2 Introduction to Political Marketing

Political Marketing as an academic discipline is the portmanteau of two already established and explored areas of research and practice, namely marketing and political science. Marketing within the context of political science uses the existing marketing frameworks of consumer behaviour, market segmentation, branding and new approaches on market research and repositions them in an attempt to provide an adequate agenda to further current theories in political science regarding political campaigning. Advertising, marketing and public relations in a political marketing environment enable the transmission and distribution of electoral communications, ‘the message’.

2.3 Political consumer or citizen

The development of the modern consumerist society has permeated the relationships that engage political organisations with the electorate, to such an extent that electoral strategy is perhaps becoming antiquated. Increases in the pace with which information is distributed, new channels for public commentary such as twitter, Facebook and other social e-media allows almost instantaneous feedback, praise and criticism to the message maker. It is this increased interaction which sets up a bi-lateral relationship between the electorate and the political actors rather than the traditional top-down tactics used in the past; ‘this is what we stand for, this is what we will do if elected’ approach. The shaping of the electoral message and subsequent marketing of the message is much more open for public debate and criticism than ever before; one of the aims of this research will be to identify how much the 18-25 age group engage in e- political activities by looking at the 2010 election and current opinion.

Two authors, Scullion and Savigny, have actively promoted the agenda to promote and disparage respectively the notions of treating the voter as a political consumer.

Scullion (2008) identifies seven areas where treating the voter as a consumer of politics rather than a citizen creates the propensity for increased participation in the political processes, without destroying the notion that citizenship is necessarily a mutual impossibility:

Scullion acknowledges that citizenship can co-exist within the bounds of a consumerist society and postulates that by considering voters as consumers they can potentially gain power beyond that of a citizen. This power dynamic aligns his argument stating that the fundamentals of democracy are in fact re-enforced by this act.

Contrary to what Scullion argues Savigny (2008) states that treating the voter as a consumer detracts from the ideologies of politics and oversimplifies the relationship between the voter and the political entities

stating that the dynamics between the two are complex and should not be simplified in order to create a simpler relationship where there is not one. He argues that by denoting voters as consumers the voters are pushed away from the processes of politics towards a marginalised position.

If it is considered that both positions have merit it needs to be established exactly how the points can be reconciled in order to provide a position to look at how marketing actions can play a role in serving the voters and providing satisfaction.

The supposition that a citizen can also be treated as a consumer and as a reaction to their actions is explored by Lees-Marshant (2009) and describes how differences can be overcome by making the link between cause and effect in the mind of the political consumer. The use of additional marketing functions such as marketing research and analysis of consumer demand through consultation can develop aggregation models, which adequately prescribe policy for the collective good.

Linking the notion that all actions and decisions may have consequences in a consumerist outlook underscores the potential for political parties to develop marketing techniques to address consumerist patterns. The application of social networking and modem media as a tool to engage voters and form bilateral relationships can occur under two precepts. To form a functioning relationship; firstly it [the relationship] needs to be understood to exist by both parties and secondly contact between the parties is more than incidental, there exists a special status borne of more than just irregular contact. (Barnes and Howlett, 1998)

When the position is supposed that the voter is also a political consumer, there is a need to identify the ‘product’ they are consuming. With politics being both an outcome and also a process that are intangible for the consumer to literally pick up and use, the closest area of marketing that is drawn on is service sector marketing. (Lloyd, 2005)

Political marketing not only aims to sell and promote policy but it includes all actions and behavioural aspects as well. Marketing a political party to the voter does not preclude the notion that marketing acts as a signal to its members, prospective partners and rivals regarding changes to its product and dialogue regarding stakeholder demands.

The need for increased levels of political marketing are developed from the unpredictable nature of the voter as well as increasing levels of apathy towards politics and a reduction in perceived trust towards the political actors (Stoker, 2006) (Levine 2004) (Mair 2005) Huckfeldt (1995) engaged in a study in Indiana to determine whether the exercitation of citizenship is a collective function through certain social interactions or an independent occurrence whilst demonstrating “the importance of communication networks for citizen decision making” in the pursuit for information sources.

Consumerism within the bounds of political campaigning and governance is difficult to measure and accurately predict. Notwithstanding works by ** academic studies exploring the nature of the electorate as political consumers is limited; however this report will explore application of marketing, specifically the area of social media in the political communication paradigm and potential for paradigm shift in the UK when we consider how the United States of America has adapted to modem media in political marketing.

2.4 Participation and engagement; use of the internet

Whilst marketing is an essentially business orientated discipline focussed on corporate behaviour, profit maximisation and the management of the relationship between the consumer and the business; there are underpinning concepts that can translate into the political landscape such as the concepts of value, ethical considerations and relationship management. Democratic politics has manifested itself in many forms with one of the first published descriptions offered by Herodotus (a fifth century BC historian) as Hsonomia’ (equal -law) and ‘isegoria’ (equal- public address). Isegoria is described by (Ober, 2008) as, “equal access to deliberative fora: equal right to speak out on public matters and to attend to the speech of others” it is this fundamental democratic right to open public fora that can potentially be the basis to describe why the electorate use social media to interact with politicians on public policy and electoral campaigning.

Participatory marketing such as those adopted in the corporate arena which advocates the co-opted approach of co-developing marketing and advertising strategy develops an integrated approach to developing increased customer relationship levels. (Waters et al., 2009) The online phenomena known as viral marketing where the advertising picture, phrase, slogan or video is transmitted on an almost exponential scale is an often-reported side effect of consumer created and co-created e-marketing campaigns. This participatory marketing style is currently uncommon in political marketing owing to the potential loss or distortion of the message as well as a reduction in control.

The growth of new forms of media have somewhat levelled the information gulf between state and citizen, therefore reducing the asymmetry in the relationship (Akerlof, 1970). The reduction in information asymmetry provides the electorate with increased integration, as it is able to both find and comment on policy more readily than historically possible. The information levelling occurs in both directions with the increased possibility of conducting market research from the point of political parties.

The ‘rise and rise’ of the internet has been a major catalyst, through which political actors can communicate at an ever increased pace and frequency as well as the provision for independent commentary on political actions is accessible within mere moments. With the growth and bitrate of internet access predicted to continue ** and develop through new access portals such as mobile device, tablet form factors and even gaming consoles, the ability for citizens to participate in political debate increases considerably. Blogging, personal websites and social networking websites such as Facebook and twitter afford an instant platform which new-age political activists can engage in critical discourse on public policy and government actions almost immediately after they have occurred.

Former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said in a Reuters interview at the end of his tenure “When I fought the 1997 election - just ten years ago - we could take an issue a day. At the last election in 2005, we had to have one for the morning, another for the afternoon and by the evening the agenda had already moved on entirely.” (BBC, 2007) This shows that the pace of communication is developing at a much faster rate, he goes on to suggest that media is changing and that the conduct of public life needs to adapt to new media to survive.

In a poll of 1,960 adults BMRB, 2010 showed that by a considerable margin online participants were predominantly male, young and educated with males being just over 35% more likely to engage in online election activities and respondents with a tertiary education over 150% more likely to participate in online election activity than those with no formal qualifications.

By comparing the exit poll figures, overall turnout, online participation and UK demographics of young, educated males, we can see the overall correlation between e-activities and democratic participation:

Table 2: A Comparison between overall turnout and online participation

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Source: (IPSOS MORI, 2010)

2.5 The Obama Campaign

Arguably, the Obama campaign has set a benchmark for online political marketing. The ‘e-campaign’ demonstrated considerable successes that were in-part crafted by a collection of technology and new media giants (Lutz, 2009) including; Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook who was subsequently credited by Fast Company magazine under the strapline “The Kid Who Made Obama President; How Facebook Cofounder Chris Hughes Unleashed Barack's Base - and Changed Politics and Marketing Forever”, (bandwidthblog.com, 2009); Kevin Malover, Julius Genachowski as well as current Google CEO, Eric Schmidt and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark were brought on board as advisors to the campaign.

This distinguished list of appointees underlines the importance given to online marketing by the Obama campaign and as such show the need for continued research into the area of political marketing.

(Qualman, 2009) Takes the view that reducing the perceived distance between product and consumer will lead to an increased level of engagement as one of his interviewees responded to a question regarding the use of Facebook by the Obama Campaign:

“I have been an Obama friend since his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. In social media, he actually virtually “pokes” me and sends memos and stuff. I do not know if it is really him, but it makes you feel more in touch with the process. His team is smart in utilizing social networks to reach people like me so that I feel connected personally.”

Including all fan pages and groups, the Obama campaign would have over 5.1 million supporters, which were overseen by ten times the amount of online staff when compared to his Republican rival John Mc Cain. “This is in stark contrast to John Mc Cain who had 614,000 supporters for his fan page the day of the election and whose next largest fan page was for his wife Cindy with only 1,700 fans.” (Qualman, 2009)

(AUN, 2007) Outlines the view that voters aged less than 25 preferred Obama in a 4-to-l margin, it is from this point that we can see the importance of correctly applying marketing theory to politics to achieve particular political aims.

2.6 The 2010 British General Election e-expectations

The application of marketing in the political theatre through social networking and new media has been the subject of analysis in Britain at its greatest extent in the 2005 and subsequent 2010 general elections. Following the successes seen in the United States’ presidential election, political commentators were quick to espouse the use of the internet back in the United Kingdom as a new and powerful avenue which could change the landscape of political marketing forever (Reuters, 2010).

2.7 Appropriate marketing theories

The application of marketing theory in this essay will draw on how the internet can be used to increase customer loyalty within the scope of customer relationship management, where there have been shifts from transactional drivers of marketing relations towards relational ones, which develop on-going and forward-looking relationships. (Kotier, 1997) Describes the stages of a relationship to develop along the following framework, as seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Kotier’s ladder of customer relationship management

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Source: adapted from (Kotier, 1997)

When we consider that, the aim of relationship marketing is to increase the likelihood of repeat custom, followed by positive advocating of the product by users and subsequently the creation of partnerships between buyer and seller. Due to theories on ‘lifetime value’ of the customer to the firm. It can be hypothesised that the use of customer relationship management techniques within the scope of politics could provide the bedrock for greater initial engagement, increased repeat voting intentions as well as increased word-of-mouth promotion and development of strategic partnerships. The uses of social media to direct these aims will be discussed in Chapter 5 section this research.

2.8 Putting the small ‘p’ back into politics? Citizen participation in the e-campaign.

The work completed by (Gibson, Cantijoch and Ward, 2010) develops a good understanding of voter participation using online media, however does not address future trends owing to the research methodology conducted by BMRB. The discussion regarding the usage of social networking explores the ‘What happened’ question by deconstruction the data provided by the BMRB questionnaire into demographic information whilst identifying party differences in participation levels. As a commentary on how the United Kingdom reacted to the opportunity for online engagement the findings go into the specific facets of what but does not drive into the causalities of online participation. The offering in the conclusion that there is potentially a partial trade-off between online and offline activism is worthy of note, however as conceded there is additional research that needs to be conducted.

2.9 Summary

The literature review provides an overview of the subject area and addresses the key topics discussed by current academics. The discussion of whether it should be considered better to treat voters as citizens or as consumers, provides a basis for understanding that marketing is used to interact with consumers. Accepting the premise that both are not mutually exclusive it is then discussed that voter participation, and online engagement is fundamental to political e-marketing and that it needs to be explored further. Providing an additional literary underwriting is the discussion on the Obama’ election campaign that successfully utilised e- marketing to its fullest ability when mnning against John Mc Cain. Discussing the successes of the current President Obama means we have a starting point from which to analyse the British campaigns and also create a direction from which to look at future trends. Adopting Kotler’s views on customer relationship management allow the fundamental framework to be constructed from which to translate the model towards that of building relationships between the electorate and political parties. The final discussion addresses the BMRB data and the report entitled ‘citizen participation in the e-campaign’, this is the final underlying foundation that will be used to develop this research, both in questionnaire language and direction.

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

This section will provide an overview of the research methodology used and in particular the justification of the methodology and language used in the primary research, it will also identify how the primary research was developed using industry recognised methods and takes root in both secondary research undertaken and how these relate to meeting the aims and objectives of this research.

3.2 Research Overview

Once it had been decided, which information would be needed to explore the research subject the quantity and quality of the data was considered a high priority. Critically, as the data is being used as an extension of existing research to develop e-marketing theories based on a subset of the electorate, therefore the integrity of the data needed to be resilient to academic scrutiny as well as reasonably in line with existing findings.

The collection of data would be two fold in order to develop adequate framework to answer the research questions. Firstly, the collection and tabulation of relevant information collected from the BMRB face-to-face interview of 1,960 UK adults conducted between 20th - 26th May 2010 (Gibson, Cantijoch and Ward, 2010).Secondly the development of primary research methods to bring forward information regarding the specific demographic targetted and also search for forward looking information.

As the secondary data collected from the BNRB face-to-face interview was readily available and published in peer-reviewed literature, this would provide the benchmark and pivot point for the primary research, the next logical step was to develop a data collection method that both allowed direct comparison of its results to that of this research. It also needed to build on this to gather behavioural and opinion-based information to provide prescription and recommendation for where future e-marketing could be successful in the scope of political e-marketing.

The research consisted of 100 surveys, completed online using the online survey tool kwiksurveys.com; the respondents were asked four filtering questions to provide the pivot points and demographic information to define the characteristics of the respondents and allow segmentation of the sample to allow segmented comparisons (Thomas, 1999). This section was followed by ten questions to investigate both behavioural and opinions amongst respondents, these took a fixed-response format using the following types of scoring plans: Behaviour checklist, ranking format, Likert-Type Rating Scale and semantic differential scales. See Appendix 1 for the questionnaire.

Quantitative data was sought after owing to the methodology of comparing results of this survey with that of a previous study put into the field by BRNB in their national face-to-face survey of 1,960 UK adults between May 20th - 26th 2010 and published by Gibson et al entitled ‘Citizen participation in the e-campaign’. It was from this survey and results that a strategy was developed to reproduce some of the questions in the survey and gearing them towards the student 18-25 demographic and adapting them to gauge popular opinion. This is in the hope of providing a forecasting model for political parties in the UK to adapt their e-marketing techniques for the young, educated and internet aware demographic. This research was also arranged to provide specific marketing channel analysis to identify which social networking and new media channels provided more engagement and a higher likelihood of increased voting.

The data also needed to relate to the theories in marketing to allow them to be expanded upon. To do this, two assumptions were made about developing the research methodology. The first is that the voter can be treated like a consumer and as such marketing methods can be used to disseminate information and also develop communications channels that can be utilised to both sell the political product and also create horizontal integration between voters to provide feedback regarding policy agenda. The second was that both parties acknowledged the forum of social networking websites and new media provided a working platform to send and receive marketing messages or at least the potential existed if utilised properly. It is also assumed in this research that all questions are understood to the fullest extent by the respondents and interpretation existed only in the respondents understanding of the question rather than the language being used.

3.3 Discussion of alternative methods

When identifying potential avenues for investigation and considering alternative methodologies to the one chosen there is a need focus attention on exactly what kind of data we are looking for to enable the exploration of the aims and objectives of this research. Whilst doing how well the data collected will be interpreted to achieve the aims laid out.

Quantitative data afforded easy comparison between the BMRB data as the questions were pre-determined however, the methodology behind the expansion needed careful deliberation as it was opinion-centric and sought to offer attitudinal responses rather than correct/ incorrect data.

Qualitative data was considered as an extension of this opinion and further focus groups were dropped before the questionnaire was finalised owing to the restrictions on time and access to an appropriate crosssectional sample of student demographics.

Focus groups discussing the merits of social networking websites and their utilisation for marketing by political parties would have also given the opportunity to participate in a semi-stmctured environment where subject areas and opinions could flow with a greater emphasis on actual response language and conversational dynamics.

3.4 Discussion of question content and data required

The data required needed to be commensurate in style to that offered by the BMRB data, however also in line with the data required to address the aims and objectives outlined for this research.

The argument that the voter should be addressed by the voter can be directly related to the questions on whether or not the target sample understood and accepted the notion of whether they thought engagement would rise through the increased use of e-marketing and social networking websites. As well as the codification of the MOP-SOP model previously identified to provide a scale with which market identity can be discovered.

3.5 Discussion of questionnaire format

The questionnaire format was designed to be as readily accessible and understandable as possible for the target sample. Designing a questionnaire that is not overly complex and act as a disincentive for completion whilst looking to gain the appropriate depth of data required especially in the absence of financial incentive is imperative.

It was decided early on that the questionnaire should take no longer than five minutes for the average person to complete (average being defined by the mean time taken to complete the questionnaire for a five person convenience sample or test subjects whose responses were not recorded as the questions were not finalised at that point).

Kwiksurveys.com were selected to provide the infrastmcture for my polling after disregarding the choice of using onepoll.com that were selected in the research proposal owing to a trade of between aesthetics, access and financial cost.

Kwiksurveys provide administrators with the options of multiple choice (single answer), multiple choice (multiple answer), star rating, single text box, matrix of choices (single answer), matrix of choices (multiple answer), multiple text boxes, pictures and text/ presentation and order list of items/ ranking. This allowed the research to take the desired format and simulate the question format used by BMRB and also allow formatting of opinion based questions for analysis.

The ability to export the results in an xls, CSV or xml format also allowed forward planning for data analysis to be conducted following the completion of the allocated questionnaire limit.

3.6 Polling language

The language used in the questionnaire was considerably dependent on the language used by BMRB however the existing language was scrutinised using guidelines provided by (Thomas, 1999) (Wisker, 2008) (Potter, 2002).

3.7 Demographic pivot and ‘opinion’ questions

The demographic questions were developed to provide an understanding of the respondents and allow the categorisation and comparison between them, the language used needed to be simple and also concise, allowing the respondents to ease into the questionnaire whilst understanding the underlying reasons for the questions. The ‘opinion’ questions were the variables which were being monitored and required careful wording to reduce the chance of misunderstanding whilst leaving the question open enough to interpret for each respondent.

3.7.1 Did you vote in the 2010 UK General Election?

Voting in the 2010 general election would provide the initial basis for comparison, between those that did vote and those that did not. It is expected that there will be a higher participation rate in online political marketing by those that voted, however, the extent at which this is true is the value that will be measured.

3.7.2 What is your sex?

Asking the respondents their sex, identifies gender differences in marketing participation and further categorises the voters and non-voters into specific demographic sub-categories. The differences between male and female respondents was chosen as an area of exploration as results may indicate that different genders use different media in different ways when it comes to political engagement.

3.7.3 What is your age?

Questioning the ages of respondents provides a filtering to the aforementioned criteria, this study focuses on full time students between the ages of 18 - 25 meaning that any respondent over this range could be disregarded as null data. Specific age could also provide an indication within this age range whether there are micro-level variances.

3.7.4 What is your current level of study?

Asking the current level of study affords the research to again filter between those that are in higher education and those that are not, so nonstudents can be eliminated from the sample. There is also the propensity for those who have reached higher levels of study in the framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (QAA, 2008) to interact with social media in a different way and also approach political marketing using different methods.

3.7.5 Which, if any, of the following activities did you do online during the British 2010 general election campaign?

This question required the use of a tick box identifying each of the possible options with the caption ‘tick as many as apply’. The options were: ‘Read/ accessed official websites’, ‘Signed up as supporter/ to receive e-news’, ‘Used online tools to campaign/ promote parties’, ‘Read/ accessed mainstream news websites’, ‘Viewed/ accessed non-official online videos’, ‘Joined/ started political on a social networking website’, ‘Posted political comments to own/ other blog or social networking website’, ‘Forwarded non-official content (jokes, cartoons, images, news items)’, ‘Embedded/ reposted non-official content’ and ‘None of the above’.

This question was lifted directly from the BMRB research in order to fashion a direct comparison between both sets of respondents, the filtering questions will allow an in-depth analysis of the differences between the 18 - 25 student demographic and the general population to see if increased levels of online participation exist amongst this specific sample. The question itself was still assessed as part of the initial five- person trial to test if the question was understood. The first three responses related to activities that involved the official marketing campaigns run by the central party offices, the following six responses related to unofficial or quasi-official marketing campaigns.

3.7.6 During the next British general election, how much more or less likely will you be to do the following:

This question is designed to assess the propensity of the activities described in question six to increase, decrease or stay the same. The response language was changed from past-tense to future-tense in order to remain aligned with the nature of the question. The responses were ‘more likely’, ‘about the same’ and ‘less likely’. It was contemplated whether a Likert-type scale could assess to what degree this information is true however it was decided that a question with complex responses this early in the questionnaire could increase the likelihood of discarded questionnaires, it was also not viable to move the question due to the link between it and the preceding question. It is the relationship between this question and question six that will provide possible linkages between past and future participation.

3.7.7 Which one of the following statements do you identify most with the Labour party during the 2010 British General Election?

3.7.8 Which one of the following statements do you identify most with the Conservative party during the 2010 British General Election?

3.7.9 Which one of the following statements do you identify most with the Liberal Democrat party during the 2010 British General Election?

These three questions were developed in response to the search as to whether student 18-25 opinion developed a clear indication of whether the respondents identified the three main political parties in the UK in accordance with the ‘MOP-SOP’ model discussed in the literature review, this allows an analysis of the perceived market positioning and branding of the parties

3.7.10 In general, do you think of yourself as a little closer to one of the parties than the others? If yes, can you please tell me which party?

This question is a standardised question among political polling to gauge levels of voter support, the question provides party identification and is an accepted measure of voting intention or general party orientation. The question language is standardised and due to this was not changed for the purposes of this research. Results should indicate, when combined with data regarding future marketing involvement, whether party orientation is a variable when it comes to engagement in political marketing. The responses include all major parties Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, UKIP, The Green Party and the BNP. The options were mutually exclusive and were randomised upon web page generation so no bias could be placed to the top candidates. This did not affect the coding as the back office software completed this. (Blais et al., 2001) (Sobolewska, 2005) (Nat Cen, 2006).

3.7.11 In the course of the 2010 UK General Election did anyone from a political party, campaign or political organisation contact you to ask about how you were planning to vote through any of the following methods? (Online or internet based contact, i.e. through email or any internet/ web-related technology)

The identification of the levels of direct marketing through new media should give an identification of how broad the marketing message is penetrating the selected demographic and should give a rounder picture beyond that of social networking sites or pro-active engagement. The question included a ‘none’ option but there was not the functionality present to remove the ability to select any other and creating a void entry. This was thought to be an acceptable trade-off.

3.7.12 If you watched any of the live televised debates between the David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg, which ones did you watch?

As much literature and commentary had occurred regarding the live televised debates between the three party leaders, a correlation was sought to see if those that watched the debates also had access to and used either word-of-mouth marketing tools or became engaged by the political campaigns through social networking websites. The options were not mutually exclusive and contained a summary of the topics discussed in each debate as well as the host. The order was also aligned with the order that they were broadcast in. This decision was to make the options more likely to be identified by the respondents.

3.7.13 How much do you agree with the following statements?

The use of social media allows voters to become more engaged with political debate

Internet based campaigning by political parties will form an increasing role in electoral campaigning in the future.

The future of British politics will move towards Obama style 'e- campaigning' in the future.

I will be more likely to participate in politics if social networking makes it easier for me to voice my opinion.

I would be more likely to vote for a political party that engaged me using social media than one that did not.

The aforementioned statements were decided upon to develop a greater understanding beyond that of future voter behaviour but opinion on how respondents thought political marketing would develop. The responses allowed the respondent to choose from 5-point symmetrical Likert scale (Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree). The statements were considered carefully as the question requires greater understanding and has the potential for a wider interpretation. The responses, once coded, should provide an average score which can then be segmented for cross-demographic analysis.

3.7.14 In the course of the 2010 UK General Election campaign did you...?

The analysis of offline activity will be used to compare with online activity, this question is taken from the BMRB questionnaire and will be used to show the difference in likelihood of the target sample to use social media and online activities and offline ones. It will demonstrate the potential for voters that did participate in offline activity to transfer to online activity.

3.8 Data collection method

The questionnaires were distributed using two methods, firstly the questionnaire website was made available to the general public and email was used to distribute the email to two university distribution lists, namely BPP and the University of Nottingham with the permission of the cohort leaders. An i Pad™ was also utilised as a way of conducting the surveys on the University of Hertfordshire grounds as a way for respondents to easily and quickly complete the questionnaire. This was considered on the basis that “Some people might not want to speak to a stranger walking about with a clipboard. If this is the case, the data will be heavily biased.” (Pride, Hughes and Kapoor, 2009) whereas the opportunity to use an i Pad™ may illicit a higher response rate.

Responses were collected in the back office database and were readily available to view and export whilst not affecting the front end. Once exported to excel the tabulation of the results using a simple coding method allowed straightforward analysis.

3.9 Discussion on sample

Sampling can be simplified into the question ‘who shall we ask?’ however the development of a sampling methodology relies heavily on practicality and resources rather than on finding the perfect demographic in an ideological world with perfect information in the population. Having discovered that the population of my study is 2,087,615 it would be illogical to assume that without perfect knowledge of said population, I would not be able to allocate the exact proportion of questionnaires for response. However, in the course of creating a sampling technique for this research all options need to be considered for their viability.

The sampling frame is defined by (Sämdal, Swensson and Wretman, 2003) as the device used to develop the actual target for the sample. The considered options are: convenience/opportunity sampling, simple random, systematic and stratified random (Morris, 2003).

Convenience sampling follows the precept that one uses available resources to survey a sample that is contained within the sampling frame and target population no specific methods are used to accurately segment the population and scale the demographics down to a fully representative sample.

Simple random sampling means that all members of the population should have an exact equal chance of participating in the survey. Though a sample large enough and geographically varied would tend towards perfect representation, for small-scale research this poses a logistical problem.

Stratification is a method to reduce the possibility for simple random sampling and convenience sampling to adhere a bias by segmenting the frame into sections, such that a once a maximum number of respondents from a particular demographic are received then all other potential respondents from the same demographic are discarded. This can be achieved by the use of filtering questions at the beginning of the questionnaire combined with an up to date tally of respondents replies.

A quota system develops the idea that when high accuracy is required true demographic representation must occur, through age, race, occupation etc. If, hypothetically, the population comprises of 5.4% black, students then the corresponding proportion of respondents is required. The difficulty of quota sampling follows that how far does the quota go to identify each particular segment as well as the likelihood of some target demographics being hard to find and poll.

Systematic sampling uses the simple system of identifying the sample frame and polling a potential respondent every X number of people. If five-per cent of the sample frame is required to complete the research then statistically every twentieth person shall be surveyed.

The sampling method identified as the most viable for this research was part convenience sampling and part stratified; the need to direct the research beyond that of the University of Hertfordshire was immediately apparent and therefore contacts at the University of Nottingham and BPP were utilised to distribute links to the online website. Once the stratification levels were completed an IP block precluded the possibility of over sampling a particular strata.

3.10 Discussion on data analysis

Data analysis will consist of comparing data sets using the pivot points such as age, sex, whether the respondent voted in the 2010 election as well as identifying key correlations between responses.

This will initially be performed using a tabulated format for easy comparison and strong indicated correlation will be elaborated upon using appropriate statistical correlation methods such as the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient Calculation which measures the strength of correlation (positive or negative) by returning a value between -1 and 1.

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The application of which should provide an indicator as to how forward looking opinions regarding political marketing relate to previous voting habits or previous engagement levels.

3.11 Review of the methodology used

The methodology employed contains two factors that are subject to critique in this study and that could be improved upon, in future studies.

Firstly, the sampling frame could afford a greater degree of accuracy whereby a sample of 380 (plus one) would be more likely to be fully representative of a population of over two-million. (Krejcie and Morgan, 1970). There is also the propensity for a misrepresentative section of the population owing to the nature of the convenience sampling used. Three institutions may not fully represent satisfactory variations in response. This is a common diminishing factor associated with convenience sampling; however, this research is aiming to be indicative rather than definitive.

Chapter 4: Research Findings

4.1 Introduction

The aim of this research is to investigate the application and engagement of political marketing used in the 2010 UK General Election as well as generate answers to forward looking and opinion based questions regarding likely future activity. By comparing some of these results to those conducted by BMRB we aim to demonstrate fundamental differences between the general population and the 18 - 25 student demographic in the UK.

4.2 Research

Table 3: Which, if any, of the following activities did you do online during the British 2010 general election campaign?

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As demonstrated by figure 4.1, and 4.2 we can see that both total official engagement and non-official engagement in online political marketing is higher for both student males and females aged 18-25 who voted and those that did not vote when compared to the general population.

Table 4: During the next British general election, how much more or less likely will you be to do the following?

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Figure 4.3: Male voters

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Figure 4.6: Female non-voters

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As seen in figure 4.3, 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6 there is a very low likelihood of respondents of actually reducing the engagement levels and a much higher chance of increasing engagement levels if the respondents voted in the last general election or not.

Table 5: The MOP-SOP analysis averages for each party

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The responses generated by the MOP-SOP question explained in Chapter 3 shows a much closer alignment by the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrat party to be perceived as market oriented rather than the Conservatives whose perception has a tendency towards sales orientated position.

Table 6: The percentages of particular demographics who tended to feel closer to one particular party

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Whether or not a respondent has a greater tendency towards one particular party relies heavily on whether or not the respondent voted in the last general election, and the overall view closely resembled tracking polls for both male and female respondents.

Table 7: Those respondents that received e-contact

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According to Table 6, the quantity of those respondents that received e- contact is just 13%, which identifies low levels of direct e-marketing utilised by the political parties.

Table 8: Percentages of respondents that watched the live televised Debates

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Table 7 identifies that 26% of respondents watched at least one televised debate, of those 88.4% watched the first debate. This is in line with broadcast viewing figures and does not show an increased tendency for the target demographic.

Table 9 Responses to Agree/ disagree questions (Full questions can be found in Appendix 1

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Figure 4.7 Likert-scale averaged responses to agree or disagree questions

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Table 8 and Figure 4.7 shows that five of the six responses elicited a positive result arguing that the use of social networking in political marketing is expected to increase, internet campaigning is expected to increase, the perception that social media can engage is positive, as well as the televised debates are perceived to increase in their role in political marketing in the future.

The response to whether there is expected to be an Obama’ style shift in political campaigning was the only result to receive a negative response.

There is also a difference between males and females in the sample, showing a slight tendency for males to be more slightly more cynical towards the importance placed in new media.

Table 10 The percentage of respondents who engaged in offline activity

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Table 9 shows that offline engagement is concentrated to discussing politics with friends and contemporaries, whereas pro-active engagement is limited.

Chapter 5 ะ Data Analysis and Interpretation

5.1 Introduction

This section shall develop the results and provide an analysis of the date will subsequently be developed further towards creating a forward looking interpretation of how

5.2 Analysis and Interpretation

According to the initial findings of this research we can summarise that participation rates of online electoral related activities ranges from two to three times that of the general population when we consider official campaign marketing and between two to six times as likely considering only non-official campaign marketing.

Table 11: The comparison between official engagement and nonofficial engagement between the target demographic and the general population

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Table 11 shows that the 18-25 student population is 50% more likely to engage in official online marketing activity and 59.2% more likely to engage in non-official online marketing activity.

This increased usage among the target demographic initially shows a positive correlation identifying a larger target market for political marketing activity, in future years it should be expected that as new generations emerge they will exhibit the same trends increasing the percentage of the overall electorate that will utilise social networking sites and social media to engage in political activity. Increased marketing using this media will increase contact between the political entities and the potential voters. The power of the internet creates opportunities to ‘augment and enhance’ the awareness and delivery of products. (Hanson, 2000) Bilateral engagement using social media also develops the opportunities for market feedback, market orientation and market research. If used correctly the aforementioned marketing functions can serve to identify the demand for political products and policy prescriptions.

When it was chosen to include the question looking at how less or more likely the respondents would engage in the following for future elections it was expected that owing to the increased penetration of web 2.0 services the figures would show that there were to be expected anticipated growth.

When responses are coded into 1 (more likely), 2 (about the same) and 3 (less likely) the average of all 900 responses indicated a score of 1.82 or 1.77 when limited to those who had voted before (414 responses).

When these results are explored further it can be seen that the highest area of increased marketing participation are males that vote with a score of 1.70 for non-official activities.

These values are indicative of a considerable increase between the 2010 General Election and the subsequent election, ceteris paribus these results show that the target demographic is expecting greater participation using online methods. Identified by (Chaffey et ak, 2006), internet strategy is a channel marketing strategy which requires integration into the marketing mix as a tool for increased brand loyalty. When this is translated across to political marketing, it can be seen that development of customer relationship strategies to increase the demographics likely to engage should in turn increase the number of votes during an election.

The two areas that stand out as a channel for exploitation is the engagement on non-official mainstream websites and increased participation levels that identify that posting political comments to a blog or other social networking website which ranged from 19% to 36% for previous voters who were female and male respectively. Strategies that have been found to work involve increases interactivity when forming and developing relationships with stakeholders, and whilst dissemination of information may be informative (Waters et al., 2009) identify that involving publics on social networking websites serves to increases participation and fosters growth in the relationship.

The development of the MOP-SOP model offered by (Lees-Marshant, 2009) to be able to quantify the information using an adaptation of a three point scale. The average score of which positions the political parties towards three categories, Market Orientated, Sales Orientated or Product Orientated.

Figure 5.1: The average rating for the market positions of the three major political parties

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The perception regarding market positioning shows US the apparent success of each political party at addressing the electorate in the context of engagement. Market orientated parties are more likely to be received as engaging, and adept at listening to voter needs. Moreover, a market orientated party is likely to adjust according to the demands of the political consumer and align its policies accordingly. The product adjustment stage follows in-depth market analysis through consumer feedback mechanisms which online marketing can be particularly useful. Carefully organised political e-marketing can allow the Labour party and the Liberal Democrat party to conduct market research and hypothesistesting to adjust their product in line with the target demographic expectations to do so. Meanwhile such activity conducted by the Conservative party could be construed as cynical if done too quickly.

When we correlate the responses between political party affiliation and expected future online engagement we can see clear differences between the parties.

Table 12: Party affiliation correlated with online engagement

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It is clear from Table 12 that the Liberal Democrat student base regards future activity as more likely than any of the other parties it is therefore a greater opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to engage in the development of a social media strategy over that of its rivals.

As the range of scores are all <2 there is scope for marketing to engage all of the target demographic, however the Liberal Democrats have the greatest chance to increase by the greatest percentage.

Interestingly there is a very low correlation between the responses that indicated whether there would be an increase or decrease in participation levels in the future and whether the respondent would be influenced by the use of social networking in their voting choice (0.12 using the PMCC method of correlation) which indicates that increased activity does not mean increased voter levels. However there is a much stronger correlation between those that plan to increase their participation and those that believe that increased uses of social media for marketing allows for greater integration with political debate.

This would indicate that whilst opinion on the application of e-marketing is both engaging and allows fuller participation it may not necessarily change public voter intention.

The difference between previous voters and non-voters becomes apparent when an average score of 1.98 (close to the coded score representing ‘agree’) and 3.03 respectively of whether social media involvement would increase the likelihood of voting for a particular party. From the sample we can see that 44% of the target demographic voted making them particularly attractive to political parties. Targeting existing voters using social media to change voting habits rather than targeting all of the demographic represents an easier target to increase votes.

Chapter 6: Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations

6.1 Introduction

This section will summarise the results and formulate recommendations based on the outcome of data analysis and interpretation. The formulation of a hypothesis for further testing will also be presented in this section identifying political market strategy when increasing online engagement, this will be commensurate with existing data and the understanding of the 18 - 25 student demographic.

6.2 Conclusions with regard to the aims and objectives

The 18-25 demographic has a higher likelihood to participate in online e-marketing campaigns when compared to the general population, the expectation is that online activity will increase for both sexes and for both voters and non-voters at the UK 2010 General Election.

The examination of exactly how the target demographic engaged using online marketing during the 2010 UK General Election has been demonstrated by developing, it is the exact areas which voters are likely to increase is the interesting development in the field of political marketing. Given that no study exists to this effect, the results are encouraging for political parties and political actors to increase their e- marketing budgets targeting specific fora online. The focus placed on social networking websites should be understood to play an increasing role and importance in online marketing strategy.

The growth of this media both allows for increased engagement for market positioning as well as to develop relationships beyond that of top- down policy prescriptions. The shift outlined by (Holzner, 2009) between unilateral marketing and social networking marketing develops a proactive approach to product engagement and allow the potential consumers to take control of some aspects of the marketing function. Multilateral discussions will occur regarding the product and should be encouraged for the increased participation and ‘adoption’ rates described.

Partially, one of the reasons that the United Kingdom has been slower to adapt to online political marketing is due to the lesser emphasis put on it by the political parties than the Obama campaign which developed a highly effective strategy for both online engagement and also fundraising for election campaigning. Whilst the combined US election budget of all candidates surpassed $1 billion (Erbe, 2008) whereas the 2005 British Election budget cost just $65 million (BBC, 2005). This monetary factor can be seen as a slight disincentive to invest in social media marketing strategy, however owing to the research contained in this report the significance of this marketing channel is certainly likely to continue.

The understanding of the MOP-SOP model (Lees-Marshant, 2009) is developed further to quantify the hypothesis by using a sliding scale to measure perceived market orientation by the main political parties. Identifying the Liberal Democrats as the party perceived to orientate itself according to market demands affords a head start when developing public policy. The main advantage of orientating towards the market is the final product is adapted to fit the majority whilst allowing ideology from the party base to guide it. Interestingly, (Coleman, 2007) criticises this claim likening the effectiveness of integrated market positioning in the realms of politics to ‘plebiscitary democracy’ which whilst increases democratic participation, reduces the oversight and guidance relied upon in politicians.

When taking Kotler’s hierarchy or ladder of customer relationship levels, we can start to formulate an alternative model within the scope of political marketing.

Figure 6.1: An adaptation of Kotler’s customer relationship ladder for use in political marketing

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The political marketing strategy needs to be focused as both potential social networkers and interested parties to firstly increase engagement. As has been demonstrated the likelihood of increased voter participation is reasonably high for this demographic. There is also a need to target competitor’s voters. As it has been demonstrated there, is an increased chance of developing relationships with the electorate by utilising online social networking for better market positioning and aligning the demands of the consumer and the offerings of the political party.

A corollary of this research displays the need for an in depth analysis of additional voter groups with regard to e-marketing by which should the possibility of gaining some valuable qualitative information to add to thegrowing data collected. The huge possibility of future research in this field makes this an exciting subject to explore.

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