what is viral marketing >
It's the internet equivalent of "word-of-mouth". Instead of using conventional marketing, you encourage visitors to spread the word for you. There are many forms of "virals" as they're known:
- games (eg quiz, challenge, cartoons)
- videos (eg how-to's, STAR stories or fun video on YouTube)
- editorials (eg submit quality articles to websites or blogs that customers read)
- free tools (eg calculators, pricing tools, screen-savers)
- email (eg greetings cards, tell-friend, or the humble email footer)
- projects (a major idea that works eg 1 red paperclip, million$ homepage)
- offline (eg brilliant customer service!)
viral trends >
A report by Jupiter in August 2007 shows that the first wave of virals is over - larger firms have somewhat burnt their fingers on virals by delivering too little value. The reseach shows viral success comes from quality, impact or value.
Some superb in-depth research from Walter Carl also shows that marketers are trusted when the viral provides quality, impact or value. That's quite rare these days.
What these studies don't show is how to strike the right balance between giving away high value, and harvesting the traffic for business. It's best when you make this one and the same thing. How? Well it's easier than you think - below's our guide to viral marketing, the brighter way.
do's >
To get any viral working properly, you really need to do all of the following:
- audience: define tight audience characteristics, know what turns them on, and what's of value. For example, if you're selling to consumers, try TV or sports themes. If you're selling to businesses, try free advice or tools.
- quality content: create high quality content worthy of customer referral. That usually means high impact or high value, and topical too.
- easy referral: make it easy for viewers of your material to refer to others - sounds obvious, but long web addresses or poor labelling will defeat you. Single click actions work best.
- networks: publish your material on networks such as Youtube, eLance, eCademy, Facebook, where there are large numbers of people who will refer or rate your material.
- selling pathways: create subtle, polite pathways to your site. Research clearly shows that buyers don't mind following marketing paths to commercial websites if the viral material was impressive.
- conversion: don't forget to create the simplest interactivity on your site to convert all your viral visitors into enquiries.
don'ts >
- don't be too cool: or try to be cooler than you are - stick to what you know, and who you are. Customers won't believe your material if it feels wrong. Like this disastrous law firm video (read the audience comments below)
- don't be lazy: the corporate video you shot last year just doesn't count as quality content. Just look at this mistake by the Appalachian State University. Get some serious quality into what you do!
- don't exaggerate: keep your claims modest and believable - and don't stuff blogs with favourable or fake comments. Sony's PSP mistake, had fake bloggers posting exaggerated comments to forums and then getting caught.
- don't be unprepared: when your viral works, you'll need to have adequate response - sales or customer service people on standby, or sufficient product in stock.
