VIRAL MARKETING allows you to be creative and have fun, with the potential to attract incredible exposure.
If an Internet site is growing quickly by users recommending the site to friends, it is benefiting from viral marketing . For example, when you find a great new Web site and you share it with your best friend, and she shares it with five friends, and her five friends share it with five friends, and their friends share it with five friends, you begin to understand how a Web site can grow swiftly.
One person can, through their recommendations, drive hundreds of people to your Web site in just one day. Viral marketing is a powerful technique, one you should not only be aware of but should be thinking of including in every Internet strategy or concept you develop.
Your customers, like most people, love to share things that make them mad or laugh. With the Web, it's easy for kindred spirits to pass along jokes, recipes, news, or items that interest them. If I see something that makes me laugh and I have some friends that share the same humor, I don't have to pick up a phone, lick an envelope, and walk to the post office. If I want to share something, I simply click and send. You need to develop marketing programs that will take advantage of that kind of behavior!
A successful viral technique or campaign offers:
- Humor – It's got to be funny, provocative, irreverent, subversive, or deranged to get attention.
- Originality – It must be fresh; something the user hasn't seen before.
- Simplicity – The "pay-off" must come quickly; time is at a premium. Most good viral campaigns aren't overly immersive. If they are immersive, the interface is very simple.
- Timeliness – Pop-culture references must be timely; pop culture has a short life span.
- Subtlety – Great viral campaigns aren't overt product pitches. The association is subtle. If a reader feels they're shilling, they won't send it on.
Additional ways you could develop viral campaigns include:
- Create a fantastic eCard or YouTube video and encourage members to share it with others. Learn how to make a great video
- Post a funny photograph of the president in a Halloween costume and set the stage for customers to share it. Also, give members the ability to add comments and rate the photograph.
- Let your customers "kidnap" your company mascot and photograph themselves with the mascot as it travels around the world from customer to customer.
- Post an opinion poll about a controversial issue in your industry.
With a little planning and the right technology, viral marketing can provide ROIs that are out of this world.
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