By now you’ll probably know that Donald Trump has been elected as the 45th President of the United States. Whether you’re a Trump supporter or a Hillary Clinton supporter its interesting to see how each candidate used promotional videos to communicate their messages and the style of the videos they used through the Trump YouTube channel and the Clinton YouTube channel.
Its fair to say that the Donald Trump team used their marketing video strategy to talk to their very clear target audiences with key messages that resonated with those audiences. Many of the themes and messages were of a downbeat nature, addressing the state of the United States at the moment, tapping into the mood of the nation. They spoke to the ‘silent majority’ who felt that America, and the world, had forgotten them and addressed the key issues that that audience felt passionate about. This video just before the country went to the polls addressed this perfectly.
Regardless of politics, the video hit the right message with the desired target audience. Similarly with these promotional video the messages are clear and hit the points that appeal to the target audience.
At the same time Donald Trump also used his video marketing strategy to point out the failures of Hillary Clinton and perpetuate the media representation of his election rival. While many thought that he crossed the line, he again knew what his audience wanted to hear and addressed them via a distribution channel that his audience were familiar with.
In contrast to the Donald Trump video marketing strategy, Hillary Clinton’s promotional videos started off with a bright, message of hope style that her team felt would appeal to the masses. This is one of the early videos from 12 months ago which followed this theme.
However by the end of it the video campaign was dragged down to the level of Trump’s videos which looked at the existing issues and problems that people in America face rather than predicting a bright and hopeful future. This video was one of a series that looked everything from racial injustice, gun violence and immigration to voting rights and income inequality.
She even resorted to direct references to her election rival and some of the things that Donald Trump had said like with this video
The key element to this is that Donald Trump didn’t deviate from his key messages and his target audience and simply steamrollered his way through while never deviating from that tactic while Hillary Clinton changed her approach and style to try and adapt to the changing conditions of the electoral campaign. Regardless of the actual politics and content, Donald Trump must be acknowledged for maintaining his campaign marketing strategy that ultimately proved successful. Its also interesting to see that the majority of Trump’s videos where very short and to the point giving the viewer a quick and easy insight into what each video was about. It was easy to watch his video marketing campaign while Hillary Clinton’s videos were often longer and more detailed. Video length is increasingly becoming a key factor for audiences to select and watch videos and the shorter the video, generally the better. Especially if you know that your target audience’s viewing habits are configured this way.
Even Clinton’s last plea for votes was twice as long as Donald Trump’s final pre-election video release.
Understanding your audience is key to any marketing campaign and the Donald Trump team clearly knew who they were talking to and how to speak to them. Whether its a product launch, promoting a business or running an election campaign, the principles are the same. While Trump’s policies may not be to everyone’s liking, clearly getting this part of the campaign strategy right has helped Trump communicate his key messages to his audience – some food for thought for anyone looking to engage in a video marketing strategy.
