Viral Marketing Tips - 7 tricks of the trade, fasten your seatbelt part one
January 18, 2008
Viral marketing stands for word-of-mouth marketing. It like ZEN philosophy put into practice… Grass grow by itself… or even more like AIKIDO philosophy – based on using your partner’s energy to control him and get him where YOU WANT. Now, what it mean in terms of web marketing? Just give it a thought… instead of spending big bucks on TV commercials, newspaper and banner ads, you end up spending nothing – while your fans do all the dirty work for you. Almost too good to be true. Except for the fact that it does work.
Introduce a viral marketing strategy and your campaigns will suddenly get a life of its own – starting spreading with a geometrical progression, like a virus. Everyone wants to see it, yummy yummy, and then they cannot help their desperate need to share it. You can bet it is immensely powerful, having 500-1000 times greater impact than regular advertisements.
So, What’s the Trick?
Consider yourself privileged, for a magician rarely gives away the secrets this easily. But not this magician. And not just one trick, but SEVEN!
Prepare for takeoff:
1: EMOTIONAL INDUCTION - goes after evoking a feeling
The crucial trick of the trade is to try to create an intensive emotional response. You must have an opinion as a starting point, and then build upon it to express the idea with loads of commitment and dedication. You goal is to have people:
- be filled with strong favourable or disfavourable emotions.
- be angry and motivated to do something about it
- pass by the rational filter and go for the powerful GUT RESPONSE
- get into empathy with people, put yourself in their shoes and STEP FORWARD
Set the FIRE in the Belly. If you approach is passionate enough, the fire will spread. If done properly, The Fires of Hell will be an aqua park in comparison to the Blazing Viral Campaign of Yours.
Remember being neutral equals being invisible. In words of Dylan Thomas – Rage rage against the dying of the Light, no time for trying to please everyone – no point either. Supporting several target groups
Viral marketing is about emotions, and nothing but the EMOTIONS.
2: Pull a rabbit out of your hat – do something surprising
Self-explanatory. Want people to notice you campaign? Then, you gonna have to do something absolutely different – and I am not talking about sex change interventions. Drawling about your products being great, actually being the best on the market? Hopefully it is not your best shot, for everybody else is doing just that. On today’s market –second best is category which does not exist. And the consumers are very well aware of this inbuilt lack of objectivity. DEJA VU approach is something that is almost direct and immediate disqualification in terms of public ever hungry for new and original content. NEVER fall so low to become a copycat. Consider suicide as a more honorable alternative.
3: Trying to make an advertisement – COUNTERPRODUCTIVE is the word for you
Try it and you will have fallen prey to the Law of the Opposite Effect. It is one of the biggest and unfortunately most usual mistakes companies make when they think viral marketing is about the community of shared advertisements - it is certainly not. Traditional marketing may be about promoting your product, indicating how good and useful it is in answering your needs, putting it on the centre stage. Viral marketing is everything but that.
What is on the centre stage is a good story. When BMW started with series of BMW Films, the focal point was not the cars -but the story. You could easily introduce any other car brand in the story; it would still be a great a great story. Viral marketing is targeted at the common spots. Within this framework you need to be skilful enough to discretely and indirectly implement the object focus of your viral campaign.
4: Sequels-Follow up You Cannot Afford to Miss
You have just introduced you campaign. Everybody thinks it was original content-wise, unexpected and their emotions have reached a peak level - you are the Master of Complete Attention.
So…What’s NEXT?
You can stick to the most favorite do-nothing strategy most companies nowadays stick to, and secure yourself a fast train ticket to the
For instance, a sequel may include extra movies similar in concept to the initial one - as was the case with BMW.
- It may include «behind the scenes » look
- Bloopers
- A blog on the process
- Additional materials, goodies and related…
Always keep your presence and let it be your credo.
5: Sharing, downloading and embedding – Everybody’s invited
Viral marketing is all about sharing. The greater capacity for sharing, the more effective your campaign. That implies that you need to allow people to:
- Download content in most common formats such as MPG and JPG
- Allow users to easily embed content on their own sites
- Forward it to their friends, either using a link or by sending the content directly
- Publishing it on numerous social networks such as Digg, YouTube etc.
- Allow users to add it the bookmarking sites
Note: Make sure not to overdo it. You certainly need to avoid cluttering up your page with millions of share me, dig this etc. icons.
6: Connect through Comments
Another vital element is connecting with your audience. Remember that you already have their attention, that they are excited and now they want to talk. Comments are one of the more effective ways for this…
However, bear in mind that the best viral marketing campaign is one that generates intense emotion. This means that some people will like it very much - while others might get very angry as well. You must include both groups in your comments, and you have to welcome both opinions. This is a bit tricky, since you absolutely must, at the same time, prevent individuals to wage war against each other.
And remember, it is considered a cardinal web sin to delete comments from people who just have a negative opinion.
7: Say NO to Access Restriction!
We have already pointed out that viral marketing is all about your campaign getting a life on its own – spreading with geometrical progression, like a virus does. In order to do that and become “viral”, it needs to be free.
NEVER RESTRICT ACCESS
Do NOT bother people:
- to register to become members
- to download software
- to enter special codes
to do anything so that they will be able to get the right link.
Viral marketing has nothing to do with exclusivity. It is about getting it out there for everybody to have and share and comment.
Viral marketing is a tool used to pass on a marketing message to others, while generating a potentially exponential growth in the message’s visibility.
Spread the Word
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