Viral Marketing Strategies

Viral Marketing is one way to ensure that not only do you generate leads from the initial people you target, but that those leads become conduits for your campaign and begin to rapidly funnel it out to others by word of mouth, forwards, social media sharing, etc.  It’s hard to say what will go viral and what won’t.  People by nature are fickle and what works today won’t work a week from now.

It is possible to increase the likelihood of success with your viral marketing by including one or more of the following proven “viral” elements.

• Give away valuable products and services
• Provide effortless transfer to others
• Exploit common motivation and behaviors
• Utilize existing communication networks
• Take advantage of the resources of others

Give Away Valuable Products Or Services

Valuable is the keyword in that heading.  There is no question that people like a free product, but when that free product has value, you begin unlocking the use of some of the most powerful words in marketing.  Most viral marketing campaigns include some method of giving away freebies to draw customers in.  With a proper hook set in a viral marketing campaign, you can expect attention to turn on your products and services.

Part of the reason behind this is Wilson’s “Law of Giving and Selling” which stipulates that while words like inexpensive or cheap generate fantastic interest, they simply aren’t as strong as the word “free” in any campaign.  This is used best when marketers practice delayed gratification.  If profit can be put off and focus is placed on generating a groundswell of interest first due to a giveaway, there is a good possibility that long term interest begins from the customer and the profit will increase over time with repeat business.

Investing up front with free goods and services to the customer brings the customer in the door, where you can also direct them toward other products and services.

Provides Effortless Transfer To Others

Just as a flu virus spreads easily through contact with people, viral marketing relies on person-to-person contact.  This works well on the internet because of the ease of data transfer.  Thanks to instantaneous sharing across social media, people love to share now more than ever when they find something they enjoy – whether they see or hear it.

Viral marketing can rely on numerous media formats, as long as they transfer well from person to person: email, websites, graphics, software downloads, etc.  From a marketing standpoint, the goal of your campaign is to make your message simple and to the point so that it can be easily shared without fear of degradation or loss of continuity.

Exploit Common Motivations and Behaviors

A clever marketer will construct a master marketing plan that takes advantage of the motivations people typically “suffer” from.  Consider factors that drive people, like the desire to “strike it rich”.  Greed, hunger for popularity, a desire to be loved, to be understood.  These are the types of driving human factors that populate major marketing campaigns.  When you design a strategy based around the instincts every modern human possesses, you build a foundation for winning.

Utilize Existing Communication Networks

People by nature are social creatures.  It’s a phrases we’ve heard many times before and have come to accept as gospel.  Research into the social lives of people (including basement computer geeks) tells us that every person on average has roughly eight to twelve close friends, family and associates – at a minimum.  When you look at the broader network for people, you can begin to see friend and associate counts totaling in the hundreds if not more.

Your campaign should target the existing networks of the average Joe.  Consider the customers that waiters talk to, the massive reader base of a news blogger, gamer forums and clan message boards – marketers have known for a long time the power behind these human-chain networks.  If you can infiltrate these mass networks and integrate your message into existing communications between people then you will rapidly increase its dissemination.

Take Advantage of the Resources of Others

In a traditional marketing campaign, marketers must identify a niche in society then carefully design a campaign that appeals to the target audience within that niche.  A viral campaign generates its own spread and is mostly self-targeting.  Viral marketing is a way to make your campaign adapt to nearly every individual. People who are interested in or use your campaign will tend to be communicating with other people like themselves.

Your audience does the work for you by reaching out and spreading the message without you having to identify and locate a group on your own.

In addition to a viral spread of your message through numerous networks, you’re not out the cost associated with demographic research.  Even if only some of the eyes that see your marketing campaign take interest, you’re still operating the entire campaign at a reduced cost – It’s a remarkably inexpensive way to tackle marketing.

Related posts:

1. Link-Building Strategies for Online Marketing
2. Marketing Predictions for 2010
3. The Top 7 Overlooked SEO Strategies (Part 2)
4. The Popularity of Email Marketing