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How to Launch a Successful Viral Marketing Campaign
When it comes to online marketing, the buzz phrase of the last several years has been “viral marketing.” Companies of all sizes and from all industries are launching viral campaigns to spread their marketing message cheaply and efficiently.
But launching a viral campaign can be difficult. You have to figure out a unique way to create content users will voluntarily share with their friends that helps promote your brand. See, it’s achieving this fine balance between spreading your marketing message without appearing like a blatant advertisement that is most challenging.
What is Viral Marketing?
Before we can discuss tips for launching a viral campaign, we should first identify what exactly “viral marketing” is. Simply put, viral marketing is any method that influences individuals to pass on a message to others thereby increasing the message’s exposure. This can be anything from a funny YouTube video to a useful tool on your website.
Just think about it. How much money can you save if you let your target audience spread your message for you? There’s a reason it’s called viral marketing, because when done properly, it really does spread like a virus. It takes on a life of its own, and it just keeps going and going.
5 Tips for Viral Marketing
So, how can you launch a viral campaign for your business? Here are a few tips to help you get aimed in the right direction:
- Subtle Messaging is Key- The biggest mistake you can make when creating a viral campaign is to shove your marketing message down the audience’s throat. The whole point is that this isn’t a traditional advertisement. After all, who feels compelled to pass along a typical commercial to their friends? No one. Of course, the exception to this is if you have an amazing offer is so good people simply have to forward it along to their friends, in other words, freebies.
- Play to Their Emotions- To get your target audience to take the action you desire, you need to play to their emotions. Whether you play to their greed by giving them an incentive to spread your message or their sense of humor, the point is your viral marketing campaign should elicit some sort of emotional response. You can even take the opposite approach by creating a viral campaign that gets people pissed off and makes them share it out of anger with their friends. Whatever you do, make them feel!
- Stand Out from the Crowd- Differentiating yourself from the competition is growing more difficult by the day. There are just too many voices shouting at consumers. That’s why you need to do extreme things to get people’s attention. Not that I’m advocating doing something violent but a quote from the movie Se7en comes to mind. In it the serial killer played by Kevin Spacey says “If you want someone’s attention, you can’t just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you’ll notice you’ve got their strict attention.” Take a chance. Do something memorable and unexpected. It just might pay off.
- Don’t Ask for Too Much- Since the point of viral marketing is to get your target audience to distribute your message, don’t you think it makes sense to make sharing it as easy as possible? Don’t place any restrictions on your viral campaign, and don’t complicate the sharing process. The second you start asking for too much out of your audience is the second your viral campaign goes belly up.
- Stick with It- If your viral campaign is successful you need to follow it up with something that holds the audience’s attention. Whether this is a sequel to your initial message or simply extras or behind the scenes peeks at the original content, the point is to ride the wave as long as you can. And don’t wait too long to follow up your message. No matter how great your campaign is, you are forgettable. Don’t lose your momentum.
Have you launched a viral marketing campaign? Share your tips with us in the replies!
Good article! Do you have any idea of the tools you would use to spread your content (other than You Tube)?
Good question. Like you said, the obvious thing people thing of is YouTube. But viral marketing doesn’t always have to be a video. It can be something you spread through social networking profiles (MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, etc), special websites for the campaign, social voting sites like Digg, ReddIt, or even physically out in the streets (like when The Dark Knight was coming out, they held fake campaign rallys in major cities for Harvey Dent, a character in the movie)
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Thanks Eric for the article. And the reminder to hit people on the head, make it obvious why they need this more than anything, playing to their emotions. Love to hear more from you!
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