President Obama, the Great I Am, needs to return to the great IAAM

It is interesting watching the debate over health care reform. American obviously needs overhaul of our health care system. It’s clearly broken. Any of the families who go bankrupt every year because health care costs will attest to that. President Obama, a man I admire greatly, wants to start down the path of fixing the health care system but has run into tremendous obstacles from partisans who don’t want him to have a win and those who believe the status quo is sufficient.

These problems President Obama faces are of his own making. The country’s resistance to health care reform made quite clear during the Clinton administration. There was little reason to think President Obama wouldn’t face similar push-back, except for his being the Great I Am. Believing he was the Great I Am made him forget the lesson he actually taught during his Presidential campaign about the true great IAAM – It’s Always About Marketing.

I used to be on the Obama mailing list. I unsubscribed a couple of months ago after receiving daily (sometimes twice a day) emails from “Mitch Stewart” and other members of the Obama team. There they were, still campaigning and asking for money to support this issue or that one. It turned me off and, I imagine, it turned off others, too.

Instead, the formidable marketing machine from Obama’s campaign should have been used to begin selling his most fervent followers on health care reform – much in the same way they were sold on his Presidential candidacy. He should have returned to the great IAAM.

Here are some things the President can still do to get his supporters on board:

1. Stop asking for money to support issues – You’re the President now. You have the country’s resources at your disposal. I don’t want to give money to help push health care reform – especially if you haven’t sold me on the idea in the first place
2. Use email and video to tell the story – Obama hasn’t told a convincing story about why reform is necessary. We know anecdotally why it’s needed, but what’s his rationale? Beyond just telling us more of the same in the upcoming speech to Congress, he can tell his story in a series of 20 min videos on YouTube where he uses charts, graphs and images, not just teleprompter text, to explain why we should find this as important as he does
3. Make citizens part of your marketing team – Give your advocates talking points. So many of us want to tell people why health care reform is important but we don’t have any desire to read a 1,000+ page bill. Give us talking points in web, PDF and powerpoint formats that we can use to educate ourselves and share with others. Help us use word-of-mouth marketing to help you
4. Educate and counter with social media – Twitter and Facebook accounts/fan pages, at the least, should be used to disseminate daily truths/facts about Obama’s health care reform. They can also be used to direct people to the assets created in #2 and #3, above

It’s time for President Obama to stop thinking like a politician and to begin thinking like the marketer he was during the campaign. If he does that, then maybe, just maybe, the great IAAM will help the Great I Am achieve his goals.