Viral campaigns are great on so many levels. It is essentially, in it's truest form, a word of mouth campaign, and is potentially the cheapest, most effective marketing tool you can have.
Yes, you can hire an agency, or in Ooma's case, Ashton Kutcher, to run your viral campaign, but you can also have a very successful viral campaign for as cheap as around a thousand bucks. So even rogue entrepreneurs can take advantage of this marketing method.
So what are some of the best practices, you can use in your viral marketing campaign? I did a major search on the web to highlight some of the best practices out there.
Putting together a viral campaign, ask yourself the same questions you need to define when generating any other solid marketing plan:
Why
What is the campaign goal or goals you are trying to achieve and at the end of the campaign, how can you measure your success (ROI) If your goal is to increase awareness, then web traffic metrics should suffice, but if your goal is to increase sales make sure your are including some trackable means (surveys, coupons, sales from traffic from a specific micro site or tag). Other goals can include a customer taking a specific action, like playing a game, etc.
Who
Who are your market segment / target audiences? Are your market segments oriented on: Sex? The health of the environment? Video Games? Advice on raising children? Hip Hop? How well you know your market will determine what type of viral campaign to run.
What
What content, promotion, experience, activity or discount would be compelling enough to excite your target audience to make them care about your campaign to make it go wildly viral and forward it onto others? Some examples include: An online game or activity, coupon or exclusive discount, valuable information (ex. ebook), a free product (a song or software program), a donation to a charity, personal empowerment (save a tree)
Where
Are you focusing on a specific region? or country?
How
What strategies, tactics and communication methods should you use based on your target audience?
Your activities should include as many are appropriate to your market segment and budget allows:
1) Send out an optimized press release
2) Blog seeding - strategic placement on blogs (ideally on some highly influential blogger's sites)
and offer a range of to add badges, buttons and graphics which they can add to their blog to link to your site
3) E-mails
4) Texts
5) Post in online forums or social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace
6) Radio stations
7) You Tube videos
etc.
When
Timed with a launch or other event? Expected lifespan of campaign. And if you find your viral campaign has done really well but it's effectiveness is slowing down, one option is to send out a press release announcing it's success to re-kindle the buzz
Some great sites to check out for more info:
Marketing Sherpa
Tips for Optimizing Viral Marketing Campaigns
Viral & Buzz Marketing Association
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