Donald Trump Gets the Why Behind the Buy
Last night, a beleaguered Ted Cruz suspended his campaign after yet another loss to Donald Trump on the Republican primary campaign trail. After another drubbing in a state that was supposed to reject Trump’s big city conservative populism, Cruz said, “It appears that path has been foreclosed.”
Ted Cruz still doesn’t know what hit him. Neither do most of the Republican party establishment, and large segments of the non-Republican electorate. But Carolyn Goodman has a pretty good idea.
“Trump really understands the why behind the buy,” said Carolyn, president and creative director of Goodman Marketing Partners, during yesterday’s webinar on optimizing lead nurturing.
Pain Point Research > Persona Research
Carolyn’s answer was in response to an audience member’s question during the webinar Q&A: “Do Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders demonstrate that emotion drives more than facts?”
And it tied into something Carolyn said earlier in the webinar: Know the why behind the buy.
What that means is, for anyone asking people to choose their brand — whether it’s at the store, in an email or on the campaign trail — understanding why customers are in the market and why they choose your brand over another is the most important factor to turning a lead into a sale.
In fact, she said doing research on the pain points that lead customers to choose you, and marketing to those pain points, is far more important to successful lead nurturing and long-term sales than marketing to personas.
In effect, what you know about why they buy is more important than what you know about their demographics, niche and theoretical wants. And Donald Trump’s campaign is a perfect example of this, according to Goodman.
Donald Trump’s Marketing Epiphany
While the rest of the Republican field developed messaging around the grooved talking points of GOP politics today, Trump identified the why behind the buy (or vote).
This time, many Republican voters are making the buy based on frustration with what they see as stifling political correctness and a coddling bureaucracy that they don’t think can protect the country from a host of threats. And the only thing they want to vote for is change, to get “bought” career politicians out of office.
That’s the why behind their buy, and Donald Trump gets that.
If Trump hears voters saying the other candidates aren’t willing to tell what they see as a “truth” about immigrants, Muslims, tariffs or any other topic, he embraces that “truth” and speaks it as often as he can. If the other candidates say something might not be achievable, or affordable, Trump tells voters it is and he’ll make sure it’s paid for.
If voters are frustrated about politicians not doing something, Trump promises to do it. If they’re frustrated that something’s not being said, he says it.
Trump’s not over-analyzing the demographics or overthinking the personas of his voters. Instead he’s just listening to his likely voters’ pain points and addressing them.
Trump gets the why behind his customers’ buys.
Do you get the why behind yours?
