The election is over, Barack Obama has become the nation’s first African-American president, and the political pundits are transitioning from their post-election armchair quarterbacking to predicting what kind of First Lady Michelle will be.

This was the longest and most expensive presidential race in history. So, while we’re quarterbacking, let’s look at what marketing lessons we can learn from it.

Big Cost, Big Delivery
First of all, there was Obama’s closely watched roadblock of half-hour political infomercials on seven broadcast and cable networks the Wednesday before the election. (A roadblock, by the way, is when you buy multiple stations at the same time, so that no matter where you switch the channel, you’re getting snagged with the same message.)

The buy was an expensive venture with a total price tag of some $3.3 million. But, according to Nielsen Media Research, it pulled in 33.5 million viewers among NBC, CBS, Fox, Univision, MSNBC, BET and TVOne. Break that down, and you’re looking at a cost of about 10 cents per viewer. Media and marketing costs should be evaluated by their potential reach, not by dollar figure alone.

Big Money
We can’t talk about money without noting that Obama raised more than $600 million during his 18-month bid, shattering the previous record of George W. Bush’s $357 million in 2004. Obama was able to advertise aggressively and create extensive campaign operations nationwide. John McCain, on the other hand, chose to accept public financing for the general election, limiting his spending to $84 million.

A Little PR Went A Long Way
Who had heard of Sarah Palin before McCain made her his choice for veep? Maybe not a lot of people knew who she was, but the right people did.
A fresh face in Republican politics, Palin was discovered by the national news media thanks to an outside public relations expert hired to pitch her as a crusader against Big Oil. While many factors played a role in Palin's rise, including her background in broadcast journalism and the appeal of her life story, she also benefited from expert counsel on how to take her message to a national audience.

As events unfolded, the PR rep pitched stories promoting Palin, casting her as the force behind creating the Alaska pipeline plan and convincing the legislature to go along. At the state Capitol, Palin agreed to be "shadowed" by national reporters from The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, 60 Minutes, People and The Washington Post. But her high-visibility campaign paid off, helping Palin win notice from political pundits, who began including her on lists of long-shot choices for the vice presidential spot.

Don’t Forget to be Social
It started with Obama Girl, the shapely young woman who sang and danced on YouTube about how she loved Obama. In reality, she didn’t know yet who she supported but was hired by an independent to make the video, which scored some 10 million views.

The Obama campaign harnessed the power of the Internet by building a strong online presence. By mid-October, he attracted about 3 million supporters on the social media sites Facebook and MySpace, compared to about 750,000 supporters for McCain.

Supporters could create a personalized page on Obama's official site, where they could make friends with one other and organize events. Videos on Obama's YouTube channel attracted more than 18 million views, compared to about 2 million views for McCain's YouTube channel.

Internet organizing and advertising helped Obama amass some staggering statistics. The campaign attracted more than 5 million volunteers and more than 3 million individual donors.

Media Stock Soars With Election
There’s nothing like an election for media stocks, which soared. The biggest gainers included Viacom, which rebounded from some poor third-quarter earning results the day before to gain 9% to $21.86. Time Warner also took off, up 8.3% to $10.83.