Ever came across those Facebook viral videos and blogs that spread at lightning speed? Those could be a result of an effective viral marketing campaign. Or could be mere luck or well-curated content placed amongst the right traffic, you never know.
So, what defines viral marketing and how can you produce continuous positive results from viral marketing. Here’s what you must know about Viral Marketing and its advantages before you plunge into it.
What is Viral Marketing?
Viral marketing is a marketing campaign that is able to create interest and increase the sale of a product or brand through content that spreads like a virus – could be a video, an ad, a blog, an email, or a WhatsApp message – from one person to another. The social network is the selected hub for spreading this type of content for its ease and speed.
Viral content should be understandable, exciting, captivating, and easy to share and spread. Interestingly, in this particular marketing strategy, the control totally falls into the hands of the users and not on the content creator. However, it is a double-edged sword – for your message can be misinterpreted and mocked, and worse, can threaten your existence too.
How a Viral Marketing Campaign is implemented
Viral marketing ads are very simple to create – build an engaging and relevant content that people cannot help but share.
Game of Thrones’ Season 8, Episode 4, the Starbuck coffee cup blunder was viral footage. However, it increased the brand name of Starbucks, but nothing happened to the TV series actually.
You have to produce a piece of a marketing campaign, which would urge people to say, ‘Hey, have you watched THIS?’ Viral contents, in some cases, happen by accidents when a private user shares ad content and all of a sudden, gain popularity and begin to move around the internet crazily.
There are two types of viral marketing technique: concealed and shown.
In the concealed technique, the user does not know that they are viewing a viral advertisement until later when the brand identity is revealed. You have to make sure that the user does not feel tricked or cheated with tailored-viral content. In the shown technique, the user is aware of the content being an ad campaign from the very beginning.
Every single viral marketing content usually follows certain principles to produce maximum impact. An effective viral campaign will have:
- A concrete plan
- Involvement of the audience
- Media worthiness
- Audience worthiness
- Humor or entertainment
- A moral or cause
- Low barrier to entry
- Involvement of celebrity
- Exclusiveness
- Urgency and importance
- Good paybacks
- Longevity
No matter what strategy you use, what principles you follow, you should remember not to go overboard, nor spam users with too many contents. Instead of repeating the same message over and over again, you should rather wait for the right time and place to let your viral content take over.
Please contact us to know how NeuroTags technology helps brands to determine the strategy for viral marketing.
