With the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, we’re all reminded that the 2010 US election cycle is barely around the corner (if not already started). As such, candidates need to start planning their (marketing) campaigns, and as with other marketing (of products, services), political marketing today needs to have a strong internet component – SEO, SEM, social media, rich media ads, etc.

Even with the strong growth of social media sites, the centralized web site (for a brand, for a company, for a politician, for a political group, etc.) is still a critical marketing component. These exist for people at the final stages of their decision process, for people who are searching for information to make up their mind. Therefore, it’s essential for the site owners that these sites are prominent when people search.

As we all know, there are a number of techniques to ensure that your information is prominent, including SEO, SEM, and banner advertising. Of these, only SEO involves no point-of-click costs, but we also know that SEO takes the longest to be effective. It can take months to move a site from a relatively obscure position to the top of page one of the search engines’ results pages.

Well, we are now “months” away from the 2010 November elections. Therefore, those of us marketers who are involved or who want to be involved promoting campaigns or causes should be starting our SEO campaigns now (as well as building our social media connections). And those campaigns that don’t see this happening should quickly start looking for search engine and social media marketing partners to help them. SEM, banner ads, and other paid components can be initiated later, but organic components must be grown properly, and that means starting now.

Domus is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.