27 Apr 2020
Regardless of where your political allegiances lie, there’s one thing we can all admit about Donald Trump. The man is an incredible marketer and his business acumen was a key reason for his campaign success. While Presidential campaigns are...
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Regardless of where your political allegiances lie, there’s one thing we can all admit about Donald Trump. The man is an incredible marketer and his business acumen was a key reason for his campaign success. While Presidential campaigns are probably a far cry from what’s going on in your business, there’s plenty to be learned from the man who became perhaps the most unlikely US president in history.
Here’s just a few of the ways you can market your business like Donald Trump.
We only need to look as far as Trump’s campaign slogan. We hardly even need to type it here, because you’re bound to remember it. ‘Make America Great Again’. The reason you remember this is because of its simplicity and its suggestion that he can give everybody what they want.
Rather than using different catchphrases for different policy platforms, he found one thing that everyone wanted. And more importantly, consistently stuck to that message. Deviating too far from his core message would have risked confusing voters.
The same applies in any business. Know exactly what you’re offering, and what the major selling point is to your products or service. Find the common theme, and consistently keep this in your messaging. Simple content is also far more shareable, memorable, and helps to build brand recognition.
Throughout his campaign, and to this day, Donald Trump took the social media rule book and threw it out the window. While his tweeting often has the power to divide opinion, you can always bank on it being picked up by news outlets and shared wildly throughout the populous. Trump believes that even bad attention is good publicity – because even if half the people don’t like it, the other half are in his corner.
Now, he only achieves this because of his high profile. If you started sending out mildly offensive tweets and Facebook posts from your business account, you’re not going to get the same results as Trump. In fact, it would probably be damaging. But the lesson is that in today’s digital age, becoming a master of using social media is crucial to your success. It may be your best way of connecting with your target audience. You just need to work out how and when they want information delivered, and provide it.
It’s also important to note that a lot of Trump’s tweets are obviously written by him – it isn’t a social media team or automated messaging. This provides a timely reminder to always make your social media posts as ‘real’ as possible. Often, the voice of your business is your own – so let your customers hear it.
In any form of marketing, it’s important to appeal to people’s emotions. Trump arguably won the 2016 US election by marketing on people’s fears. Highlighting the perceived threats to the American way of life, and promising to do something about it. To ‘Make America Great Again’. He appealed to what the general public wanted to hear.
We don’t suggest running a fear campaign to trick buyers into buying your products, however in many ways, a lot of products are marketed on fear – insurance, for example is sold on the premise that something bad is going to happen. Concert tickets are sold in a way that preys on people’s fear of missing out (FOMO).
But the key takeaway is to understand your products/services, and your customers. If you’re a cleaning company – everyone wants clean homes and they don’t like doing it themselves – so you market on the benefits of getting a clean home without doing all the hard work. Every business and target audience is different, so find out what they want, and give it to them.
While Donald Trump divides opinions, there’s no doubting his prowess in the field of marketing – it’s what put him in the White House. While your business wouldn’t draw directly from his playbook, the principles behind his Presidential campaign carry plenty of weight from a modern marketing perspective.
If you need help getting your message across, contact us to find out how we can help or contact Cemoh if you'd like to see how outsourced marketing can transform your business!
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