Why Trump Is a Marketing Genius

“He didn’t spend nearly as much on advertising as typical presidential candidates.” — The Street

If you are reading this, then I suppose the head title worked. There is a reason why I did that, and I’ll discuss it later.

So, many people may not be happy with Trump, but we have to admit that he’s a great marketeer. He won the election even when the media were against him, and he didn’t even spend a lot of money for his campaign. Rather, the media covers it for him for free. That’s why in this article, I want to show you his strategies on how he uses the media as his advantage to brand himself (Aside from his persuasive skills). The best example was during his presidential campaign, and I’m certain that he is going to do the same thing in the next election.

Side note: This is going to be a marketing case study, not telling you to vote for him.

1. Get Attention

Remember the time when he said that he is going to banish all the Muslims? Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it? “Bomb the shit out of Isis”? That was such a hot topic that it was even picked up in my country, and it basically shocked everyone since it’s a rare occasion for someone to be upfront like Trump.

His words appeared in the news, late night shows, and even social media. Eventually, he appeared pretty much everywhere. In a way, he baited the media to keep talking about him, and as a result, his competitors were drowned.

In the media world, they must do their best to grab the attention of readers, just like us writers and readers. We want something eye-catching and different to read that we’d share with others. That’s why, sometimes, some news would be taken out of context on purpose in order to grab attention.

Trump understands this, probably because he owns a media company as well, that’s why when he is doing his campaign he went right for the throat. He didn’t build-up too many details because he made it simple, which also made it hard for media to take it out of context, leading to my next point…

2. Simple & Specific Messages

I admit that I am not strong in my vocabulary, which is why sometimes I have to read what politicians say several times after they delivered something. However, Trump’s words were simple and straight to the point for everyone to understand. There is a saying from Albert Einstein, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

In addition, Harvard Business Review wrote that, in order to keep the customers coming, consumer engagements must be simple. Not everyone understands the department we are specialized in, which is why the content of what we are delivering to the public must be simple and specific.

The same with politics, not many of us understand how the tax system works or the languages of the laws passed down. If you don’t explain it simply, sometimes people will just drift away.

The best example of simplicity is Nike, with its slogan, “Just do it.” It’s simple, memorable, and it is repeated in many of their advertisements. That’s why whenever we hear those words, we know that it’s Nike.

Trump understands this. After he gave out the details, he came up with simple slogans to remember, which is why his words “Make America Great Again” works perfectly because it is repeated and simple to remember. That way, the public is aware of the presence of Trump.

So as great as your content is, you won’t get people to remember who you are if you don’t have simple branding. Make it like Twitter, simple and memorable, leading to my next point…

3. Emotion

The reason why people were having certain emotions towards Trump, making is so memorable is also because of the adjectives he used. He was able to trigger anger or hypes in his words.

If you recall, he loves to use the words “fantastic,” “sensational,” and other strong adjectives or nouns. Even to his competitors, “crooked Hillary,” “Lyin’ Ted.” And yes, there were enraging words that he said that shook the entire world. Though eventually, he apologized about his past mistake of offending a woman. (Small fun fact, even his message at the end of the apology is simple and specific with regretful emotion: “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize”).

This is common in the marketing world, it helps connect with the audience with their brands in order to differentiate themselves with competitors. That is why emotional marketing is very powerful. Mark Gungor said when you combine an event and an emotion, it’ll burn in our memory to the point it’ll stick in our head for a long time.

Here’s a company example. McDonald's uses this very well for their slogan “I’m lovin’ it.” It creates a happy emotion to get people to want to eat there all the time, particularly children. Plus, this phrase has been used repeatedly for years that at this point, everyone knows where the tone and phrase come from. Thus, differentiating themselves from competitors.

Trump uses this strategy as well. He created emotion in nearly everything he said and tweeted, making us remember about him. Thanks to the words that he used that shook the internet, simple words that create emotion, the media will pick these up no matter what. You see this a lot in his Twitter account where he tweeted a lot of things, leading to my last point…

4. Active Online Engagement

He has always been active on his twitter that even the news covered what he tweets as well. What he said ended up being shared by a lot of people, including celebrities. Additionally, he reacts to whatever is trending, getting more awareness about him again. This is the power of online influence and one of his biggest assets during the election. The power of Twitter is keeping things short, which Trump frequently does, such as Fake News.

No other presidents have ever done this the way Trump has, being extremely active on his social media account, let alone a man in his 70s. Thus, how he was able to attract so much attention to get himself some more votes.

So There You Have It

Back to what I said in the first paragraph, I wrote the title like that in order to gain readers to click here (guilty as charged) to prove my point.

Trump has been on the rise in the media ever since the news of him saying that he’ll buy 75 million barrels of oil after the market crash and announcing that he’ll cut the funding of the WHO.

I’m certain that he is doing the same thing he did before. Because I don’t see his competitors like Andrew Yang appearing in media as much as Trump does, which will be troubling for him. In Medium, the tag “Trump” has about 40k. This is how viral he has been, reliving how he markets himself at the 2016 presidential election:

1. Get attention
2. Simple & specific messages
3. Emotion
4. Active online engagement

All of this led the audience to go “Hmm, is this true?” and lookup about him. And after following him for a while, suddenly, he didn’t sound as absurd as the media made him out to be.

You may not like him, I get it, there are things he said that are just plain mean. But we must admit that he is a genius marketeer who spent far less money on campaigning than Hillary did.

I hope you learn something here.

If you like this article, be sure to follow me for more and go ahead subscribe to my newsletter to be the first to see the articles.