Mr. Trump Jr.

Sales & Marketing

Successful Marketing the Luxury Sector in Today’s Environment: The Role of Social Marketing

By Donald Trump Jr., Executive Vice President Development & Acquisition, The Trump Organization

Co-authored by Lisa Tully, Director of Marketing, Trump Hotel Collection

Still in its infancy, social influence marketing is growing up quickly and at Trump Hotel Collection, we jumped in with both feet, adding social networks to the arsenal of marketing tools we employ for our hotels. Within the past year, we have established Twitter and Facebook accounts for Trump Hotel Collection and several of our individual properties highlighting our hotels, restaurants and spas.

Strategically, this makes sense for a number of reasons:

• Marketing via social networks allows us to speak directly to our hotels’ constituents in real time;
  
• Twitter, in particular, keeps our finger on the pulse of travelers’ interests, needs, and, especially, their opinions about our hotels. In many cases, we have uncovered a guest issue via a tweet and have been able to act immediately to deal with it. This has fostered loyalty, and, in many cases, positive tweets and retweets, too;
  
• Social networks are transparent, flexible and, increasingly, trackable. We are able to issue a special offer, for example, to followers or fans and then measure response based on a particular call to action;
  
• This new medium allows us to speak to our guests where, when and how they prefer it. While some people respond best to traditional advertisements, mailers, press coverage or e-blasts, others are seeking the more interactive environment that social networks offer;
  
• By linking traditional with newer methods of marketing and communication, we are able to achieve a fully integrated effort that offers our hotels the greatest chance of reaching, and even exceeding, marketing goals over the course of the year.

The rise of social networking and our ability to use it as a marketing tool dovetailed with the launch of Trump Hotel Collection two-and-a-half years ago. It perfectly fits our brand tenet that positions the company as the “next generation of luxury hospitality.” Ivanka, Eric and I, each of whom is involved, along with our father, in stewarding this luxury hotel brand, are active personally and professionally in the social networking sphere. We use our personal accounts to weave in business messages where appropriate, and we have directed our staff and marketing partners to focus our brand and hotel accounts to reach current and prospective guests, as well as influencers, for our hotels.

Today, you can find multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts associated with Trump Hotel Collection and our properties. That number will grow with each new hotel opening. However, our biggest success story so far has been the Twitter account Ivanka established less than a year ago. At this writing, that account has well over 700,000 followers, and is still growing.

What has been key to the success of that endeavor is Ivanka’s willingness to make the commitment to establishing and maintaining the account. Through her tweets, she allows followers to get to know her, and it’s clear, by the tone of her writing, that she enjoys it. She has found the perfect balance of business and personal messaging in her tweets.

Ivanka was, we believe, the first representative of a luxury brand to reach a quarter of a million followers in less than three months. Because a component of Ivanka's tweets mention our new property, Trump SoHo New York, we built a micro site - www.trumpsohohotelcountdown.com - featuring an automatic feed of her tweets as she counted down to the opening. On the Web site, users could tweet directly to Ivanka and view all the chatter on Twitter about Trump SoHo. In addition to following Ivanka's tweets, visitors to the site could explore the hotel, book rooms and enter to win a VIP Weekend Getaway at Trump SoHo. (Later this year, 12 winners will enjoy a two-night stay at the hotel, dinner for two at its restaurant, Quattro, and a VIP invitation to join Ivanka at a private reception.)

Besides including all the activity leading up to the hotel’s opening, Ivanka's tweets cover a range of personal and professional interests. They give followers a glimpse into her lifestyle and other business endeavors. When she announced her engagement via Twitter last summer, the number of followers grew exponentially from one day to the next.

Interspersed with personal tweets, she has offered nuggets of information about the new Trump International Hotel Waikiki Beach Walk which opened last November. She invited followers to vote for Rebar, Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago’s hot spot in a recent local readers poll. And she mentioned the exciting renovation currently underway at Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York City. Ivanka’s visits to Trump International Hotel Las Vegas elicit real-time tweets, as do planning sessions at our projects under development in Panama City, Toronto and elsewhere. Over the year-end holidays, she tweeted about one of our marketing partners’ “Tweet To Give” initiative that incentivized people to donate to CARE and enter for a chance to win a stay at Trump SoHo.

Granted, Ivanka may be considered a unique success story because she is a well-known personality. However, the strategy and process by which she has conducted herself on Twitter can serve as a case study for anyone wanting to effectively use the medium for marketing purposes. Here are a few simple guidelines:

• Remember that Twitter and Facebook are, first and foremost, social media. High value is placed on being genuine and personal in your approach;
  
• Intersperse business tweets – i.e., special offers – with casual references to your surroundings – such as today’s weather in Waikiki – to keep the interest of followers and fans and to make them feel plugged into your world;
  
• Make the commitment to invest time to your accounts, and be realistic about who within your organization, or among your marketing partners, can realistically do it;
  
• Monitor the dialog and react to comments both positive and negative as quickly as you can;
  
• Look for opportunities to turn fans and followers into customers, providing outlet-only promotions and, where appropriate, offers specific to individuals.
  
• Evaluate the effectiveness of your effort by subscribing to an analytics service that will track activity on your accounts and help determine their value as business tools.
  
• Be nimble enough to change course as the social networks evolve, and new ones surface, so your effort is as relevant and effective as possible.

Stay tuned on this subject. There is much more to follow.

Co-author Lisa Tully is director of marketing for Trump Hotel Collection since its inception October 2007. In this capacity, she is responsible for marketing, brand/product development and guest experience management for Trump Hotel Collection and its portfolio of properties. To contact Lisa, email her directly at ltully@trumphotels.com

Donald J. Trump Jr. is an innovator and leader in today's young business world. As an Executive Vice President at The Trump Organization, he works in tandem with his siblings Ivanka and Eric to expand the company's real estate, retail, commercial, hotel and golf interests nationally and internationally. His extensive real estate development experience, rigorous education and inherent business sense add a level of detail and depth to the management of all current and future Trump projects. Mr. Trump Jr. can be contacted at 212-832-2000. or donjr@trumphotels.com Extended Bio...

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