By Katie Kaye, ClickZ
With the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s last new media director off to a new job in Facebook’s Washington, D.C. office, Alex Skatell has filled the role. The just-hired new media director recently held a similar position at the Republican Governors Association, and aims to ensure the NRSC has the resources to produce quality websites, ads, and video.
“I want to build out a more robust media operation,” said Skatell, who started his gig February 1. “I’m glad that they put such an emphasis on [digital media] here. The key is going to be finding the right people to help produce the content and not necessarily just form the ideas.”
A goal for Skatell (pictured above) is to be able to produce content supporting Republican Senatorial candidates and campaigns in-house, in part because it’s more cost-efficient. “If we can, [we should] do more media in house,” he said.
According to Skatell, the NRSC’s former digital strategist, Katie Harbath – who recently joined Facebook – helped establish a legacy of data and analytics measurement that he plans to carry on. In its work building Web content to generate donations and communicate messages, the organization does splash page and donation page testing, tracks traffic sources to determine which sites drive the most e-mail signups, and measures “what was the final thing that got them to donate,” he explained.
Educating Senate campaigns about the use of data and digital tools promises to be an important aspect of Skatell’s position. Indeed, Harbath also demonstrated the significance of evangelizing digital tools in a message she sent to GOP Senate campaigns about a week before election day in 2010. “Wanted to let you know that over the weekend the [Republican National Committee] shared with AOL some voter data so now you can target Republicans by precinct, gender, age and voting habits (Hard-R to Soft-R) on the AOL network,” she wrote in the e-mail.
To read more, visit: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2027493/republican-senate-media-director-stresses-digital-content
