In our technologically expanding world, where the Internet is the most available form of media, Viral Marketing is an extremely effective form of advertising. Before the Web explosion, this form of advertising would have been referred to simply as “word of mouth” or getting your message out by having your customer base spread the word.
Why Use Viral Marketing?
There are several studies that state that if someone has a good experience, chances are they will tell a few close friends. However, with a bad experience people will repeat it to anyone who will listen. Since the pace of the Internet is so much faster than that of word of mouth, you will want to be careful with the messages you put out there. The message you put forth can spread, and spread quickly, whether that message is good or bad.
Viral Marketing is exactly what it sounds like – advertising that works like a virus does. It can be as simple as a message that is attached at the bottom of an email. Like a virus, as the email is sent from one person to another, so goes the attached message. It is like an electronic version of that famous television commercial that said “you’ll tell two friends, and they will tell two friends, and so on and so on…”, only with the World Wide Web, one well placed message can have the ability to reach millions with one click of the mouse.
Remember when Hotmail was starting? You could only get an account if a friend sent you an email with the link. Everyone wanted one, and emails spread like wildfire. And BMW had that great campaign with very famous directors, a very new Clive Owen and very short movies – all on the Internet, which was becoming a brand new venue for movies. You may not have enough money in your advertising budget to hire Clive Owen, but there are still things you can do to attempt some viral marketing.
Essential Features
To tap into the potential power of a viral campaign you will need a few essential elements – free products or services that are easily transferred to others using existing communications networks. These products or services should be something that will exploit people’s natural behaviors and emotions. Some examples beyond commercials would be how-to guides, surveys, best-of guides, educational guides, tools, widgets, quizzes and badges.
Sometimes nothing grabs peoples attention faster than the word FREE. Free trials, free email accounts, free anything can put you in a potential customer’s head. Free can get your name out there and introduce people to the goods or services that will generate future revenues for your business.
There are rewards you can offer as well. Rewarding loyal customers with anything from percentage rebates and coupons for future purchases to free gifts for their continued patronage is another outstanding way to make sure that your ‘virus’ continues to spread.
Know Your Customers
Knowing and understanding your customer base will make your viral marketing more successful; tracking and analyzing what motivates them to want to pass along your message. You need to know what makes them tick. What is going to make the working mother of three take the time out of an already incredibly busy day to not only be drawn to your message, but also be interested enough to pass that message along to the other extremely busy moms in her address book?
As an example, say you have an errand-running service. You could offer a day of running errands to the lucky winner of a contest. All you have to do to enter to win the free day of errands is to register by clicking the link to your website. Strategies such as these can be a bit more effective as the people that register tend to have an interest in the services you offer.
If you can zero in on who your customer is, this type of marketing can be quite inexpensive and highly effective. Online surveys and questionnaires can also be quite useful in getting inside your customer’s head. They can and should be your most valuable resource when it comes to figuring out what they want. Careful consideration of your customer’s needs and the commitment to meet those needs is what will ultimately make you successful in business.
Viral Marketing is a useful tool and it’s something to think about along with your other online marketing strategies. However, you still need to create something unusual and useful that people will naturally want to share and tell others about.
With the Internet there are opportunities to reach a much larger number of people much faster than in decades past. However, the basic marketing rules still apply if you want your viral marketing campaigns to be successful. Know your products or services. Know what demographics you are targeting. Get in their head and figure out what they need to feel compelled to not only spend their hard earned money with you, but what will make them want to keep coming back, and more importantly, bringing their friends with them.
Author’s Note: This article also published here.
…
Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/
Read more articles written by Enzo F. Cesario
Related posts:
- Brand Management – Retweets and Viral Marketing
Twitter’s strengths as a messaging service come from the fact that the messages are short, and the service is easy to use. If someone can type within the character limit and handle a few basic concepts, Twitter is actually easier to use than many instant-messaging clients, and doesn’t even require... - List Building – 5 Steps To Generate Viral Traffic To Your Website
If you can create viral traffic then you’ve won the battle for traffic generation. Driving traffic is a continuous task, so viral traffic which grows on its own is a dream for all online business owners. But not many online business owners know or even try to implement it. Here... - Online Brand Management – 5 Benefits of Viral Videos
Viral video is simultaneously the most entertaining and the most infuriating element of online marketing. Let’s clear the air quickly: No one can promise you a viral video success. Ever. Viral videos succeed because the audience likes them and spreads them on to other people. If the audience doesn’t get... - Take Advantage of Federal Contracts for Your Business Startup
The American government, at all levels, spends billions of dollars per year on everything from spy planes to pencils. Just about every purchase requires a government contract, and most government agencies require that a portion of these contracts be set aside for small businesses. Getting on board with federal, state,... - Taking Advantage of the Stock Market
Is the market rebounding? The Dow, leveling out each week because it gets a rise in the market one day and a pullback the next day, comes from investors’ taking their profits. This will probably continue for a year or so until the really large investors such as Hedge Fund... - The Advantage of Renewable Energy, and the Challenges
As fossil fuels diminish, the advantage of renewable energy is quickly becoming more understood. The population of the earth is growing and with that growth additional pressure is placed on the already depleting energy sources commonly used like fossil fuels. While there are plenty of advantages to Mother Earth that... - Beware the Rise of Marketing Immunity
As the owner of a small business, you are, in many ways living in what Charles Dickens called, in his book, A Tale of Two Cities, “the best of times” and “the worst of times.” It’s the best of times because information technology, and the Internet in particular, has in... - The Six Degrees of Internet Marketing
The theory behind the Six Degrees of Separation is that all people on earth can be connected together in as little as six steps. The concept was made fun in the 1990′s, with the creation of The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (oracleofbacon.org) – which is a website that documents... - Launching Your Online Marketing Strategies
If you have a business, there are lots of different ways to promote it and make sure you get customers. Having a website is of utmost importance, and by using some of the many online marketing methods available, like blog marketing and article marketing, you can be sure to get... - Blog Posts Versus Email – Which is Better for Marketing?
There’s been an interesting discussion going on in a class I’m co-facilitating about the best way to reach customers and prospective customers: Should you post your articles on a blog? Should you email those articles to people who have subscribed to your list? Or something else? ======================================== The Death of... - Growing Your Business with Online Marketing
As a business owner, you know that one of the keys to a successful year is promoting your business. No matter what size your business is, marketing and promotion need to be addressed. Marketing has become a daunting task with the increasing number of online start-up businesses. And now, along... - Don’t Destroy Your Online Marketing Results with Bad Website Design
So, you’ve embarked on a search engine advertising program, maybe even SEO. Whether you’re doing this on your own or using an online marketing consulting firm, there are key points to become aware of. If you miss these, you won’t increase conversions. What good is a Number 1 organic search... - The End Of Dumb Affiliate Marketing
One of the saddest things that I witness day after day is affiliate marketers who really struggle to make sales. They send out email after email, promotion after promotion, yet often make very few sales. This is not only sad, it’s also needless “practice bleeding.” Making affiliate sales is easy... - How Online Marketing Consultants Can Supercharge Your Sales
Starting out it can all be so overwhelming. But it doesn’t need to be. We have to get our products or services exactly right. Then we have to figure out how to explain them to others through our website. We understand the reasons people should buy what we are selling.... - Dealing with Uncertainty in Marketing
So often a business owner will say to me that they “hate” marketing. If you are a small business owner who “hates” marketing or even feels a sense of uneasiness when you contemplate marketing for your business, this article is dedicated to you. ====================================== Why Business Owners H8 Marketing ======================================...