Viral advertising is spreading as a popular, efficient marketing tool, as consumers increasingly pick and choose what they want to read or watch.
Viral is today’s electronic equivalent of public relations. It’s a marketing strategy that involves creating an online image that’s engages consumers to pass it on to others — spreading the message across the internet like a virus at no cost to the advertiser. Marketers have caught the bug and are increasingly weaving viral components into their marketing plans. Not only is the approach relatively inexpensive, but also it can sometimes be more believable than standard ads.
The internet was ruled by the search engines because it was the only window in the old days. Well as most of you know, that has completely changed. The internet continues to increase in users and new creative marketing tactics coming out. We with our clients so they can hit every angle and increase every chance to have a more targeted audience.
One mistake that is always seen in viral marketing campaigns is that companies are going for intangible brand awareness rather than an increase in sales. A brand awareness strategies are fundamentally flawed by the belief that people will buy a product just because they are familiar with the brand or product itself. Given the choice between two identical products, one which provided you with a compelling reason to buy, and the other which was a known brand, most people will pick the compelling offer. Salesmanship always produces more sales than branding.
Another weakness of viral marketing strategies is that you don’t have much control over a viral marketing campaign, and its success can be very “hit and miss”. In essence, you’re relying on the public to spread the sales message for you – and if they don’t, the time and effort you put into your campaign may have all been worthless.
The successful punchlist for a viral marketing campaign
- Have a start and finish in mind for your campaign
- Make sure you’ve got it “right” before releasing your content into the market.
- Allow (and Encourage) multiple Viral Internet Marketing “infections strains”
- Offer a compelling reason to “spread the infection”
- Allow personalization of “Refer a Friend” fields
- Albert Einstein described it as “the most powerful force in the universe” – compounding. Make your campaign more powerful by these two factors.
- One is the rate at which it compounds (ie – the number of people referred by each visitor). This is what the previous 4 points have focussed on.
- The second is the sum of people you start with.
- Test and Measure
