The marketing strategy behind the Trump campaign

Social Media Presence

Creating a social media strategy is heralded as an important step for any business. Generally, to uphold a positive reputation it’s “important to have a plan that protects your reputation and prevents any mishaps.”

The law on social media for businesses usually goes something a little like:

“Don’t say negative things about the competition
Keep your professional and personal life separate
Respond to any negativity right away and clear up the issue.”

However, due to the nature of Trump’s supporters, in particular, his online ones, controversy was thrived upon rather than rejected. Never before has a presidential candidate been so controversial, and so openly so. The usual laws of online presence and marketing were thrown out the window, and replaced with something never before seen in a Presidential election, a complete rejection of the current establishment, blaming it for the suffering of America’s people. This was projected all over his social media, with frequent attacks on the other candidates and even on President Obama. The reason why this clear u-turn on classic social media marketing rules was so successful was because it gave people an excuse to blame someone else for their misfortunes, rather than shouldering the blame themselves. Furthermore, because it fuelled the popular defeatist conspiracy that traditional politicians like Obama, Clinton and even Sanders are corrupt and seek power for personal gain. Pretty ironic really.

On top of this, never before has a Presidential candidate been so relatable to. All of his tweets appeared to come from the man himself rather than from an aide or representative. He was marketed so well that he successfully coerced millions of people into overlooking the fact that he was a multi-billionaire, and connected with them against a common foe. In business, connecting with your market is key to success, and Trump remained connected consistently throughout his campaign, tweeting “at least 10 times every day”.

All in all, Trump’s social media marketing strategy was a resounding success and has had some pretty scary consequences (not least that he is now the President Elect). At the time of writing this, Trump has almost 17 million followers (16.7M to be precise), which is more than any politician in history, including Obama and Pope Francis. There is now a growing fear that his “loyal and engaged audience” has “transformed his page into a powerful echo chamber” which is being used to “propagate unsubstantiated and/or untrue claims”. The most recent example of this is when Trump tweeted out in response to the recent Ohio State University Stabbing claiming that the culprit was a Somali refugee “who should not have been in our country”. Abdul Razak Ali Artan was actually a “lawful permanent resident of the US and a student at Ohio University”. Perhaps it is not the immigration laws that were at fault here, but instead that the divisiveness that now exists in America due to Trump’s excellently marketed campaign.


Easily accessible campaign content

Human Nature dictates that people are more likely to be attracted to something that they understand, and they are even more likely to be attracted to something if they believe there is an opportunity for personal gain. To this end, Trump’s campaign slogan was perfect and can be considered a stroke of marketing genius.

“Make America Great Again”

Think of all of the most successfully marketed companies in the world, and their slogans are short, snappy and simple – easy to relate to: ‘Just Do It’, ‘I’m Lovin’ It’, ‘Taste the Feeling’. The unfortunate truth is that, in America, a huge number of people cannot relate to politics, because they do not understand it. They do however understand the concept of greatness and the concept of making their country great again. The likelihood is that a vast number of people who were suffering do not tend to associate their problems with any one political issue. Thus for many voters policy arguments are not important. The hope that is given to them by the promise of achieving greatness just by voting for someone is more than enough.

This simplicity and easily relatable content extend far beyond his slogan. Indeed it resonated in everything he did, in his tweets and at his rallies. Chant’s of “build a wall” often broke out amongst frenzied supporters at his rallies, most of whom I’m sure were completely oblivious to both the political implications of such an idea or indeed the economic and logistical roadblocks that would stand in the way of achieving it. However, the promise to build a wall was all part of a grander plan to take back jobs from the ‘undeserving’ immigrants and restore control in the hands of the ‘worthy, hardworking American people’ who for so long have been shafted by such blatant ‘injustice’, and who will surely now “Make America Great Again”.


Inbound, and focused

Trump's competitors “followed the old rules of marketing” following an outbound marketing strategy. They relied heavily on “advertising, acting like a large company”, in order to send out messages to a perceived target audience that they believed to be the right buyers. Outbound marketing is the more traditional form of marketing, but in this digital age has perhaps become out-dated.

Trump's campaign relied on inbound marketing. Instead of following traditional marketing methods of “buying ads, buying email lists, and praying for leads”, his inbound marketing campaign focussed on creating quality content that drew people towards his company and product. He kept his followers focused on the one goal that needed to be achieved that would reap benefits not for him, but for the customers. Trump's campaign succeeded through a reliance on “the proven methodology for the digital age.


Summary

It could thus be argued that part of the success of this campaign lay within its willingness to break the rules of marketing. It was this that took Donald Trump from celebrity-television-personality-businessman to the President-Elect of the United States, perhaps one of the most astonishing underdog stories politics has ever seen Whilst the rest of the world ridiculed his every action, what actually was happening behind the scenes was the execution of a perfectly planned marketing strategy that fed on a modern generation of voter’s disenchantment with and detachment from politics and its real issues. It gave these voters a real and legitimised platform from which to blame somebody else, and presented them with the hope that positive change was only a Trump vote away.


Sources

https://www.scripted.com/content-marketing-2/donald-trump-marketing-strategy

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/donald-trump-is-deceiving-everyone-with-his-latest-tweet-about-isis-a7447106.html?cmpid=facebook-post

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2016/11/11/6-trump-marketing-lessons/#2f33c7c76fdb