From a scientific standpoint, viruses double every second and spread in every cell of the body. What would happen if we employed this idea in the marketing field? Just try to think about the results you will get.
Interesting, isn’t it?
By the start of 2020, 85% of companies are using videos as a marketing tool, according to “Wyzowl”, users love videos, and 54% of them want to watch more! With the presence of so many brands that publish videos daily, it becomes a matter of time to deliver their marketing message through it, but what if the spread of these messages was done by users and at their full will. How this could happen?
What is viral marketing?
Viral marketing is what generates interest and potential sale of a brand or product through messages that spread like a virus, in other words, this happens in no time and from person to person. The idea is that the users themselves are the ones who willingly share the content.
Viral Marketing Example:
In Ramadan 2020, “Orange” the well-known telecom company surprised us with an advertisement in a response to Corona. What is interesting in the advertisement is the song “Sunnah Al Hayat”, by Hussein Al Jasmi. The advertisement garnered huge popularity and wide sharing overnight. Social networking sites were filled with millions of posts made by users about this song. (I personally shared it on my personal page).
Viral Marketing Types:
-
Emotional:
In this field, a virus that produces an emotional reaction such as anger, laughing, or tears is known as an emotional virus. This is the case with the emotional content you share. No one can ignore it because emotions will force everyone to share it with others.
Amusement, humor, and excitement are some positive emotions that have a direct effect on the mindset of individuals. It is clear that negative emotions such as anger and sadness also contribute to viral marketing, but care must be taken in choosing the topic you will discuss.
-
Lucky:
Viral marketing relies on a lot of luck. Sometimes, the way you present the topic plays a major role in its spread, creating more awareness will be beneficial to everyone who participates with it.
-
Common:
In this type of marketing, it is necessary to create a buzz to attract the attention of the audience, as advertisements or controversial messages are re-shared, so that they can become a hot potato for everyone.
Amazing, right?
-
Motivational:
In everyday life, we all need a positive dose to get up every morning, go to work and strive to be better every day. Hence, one of the most popular pieces of content you’ll find on YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, and other social networking sites are motivational posts, including quotes from celebrities, proverbs, etc. That will evoke a sense of positivity among consumers.
-
“How to” content:
Articles and videos that answer this question are popular because they provide practically useful information that quenches your followers’ hunger for knowledge. Everyone loves finding appropriate solutions to their problems. Thus, this content will become more sharable if you talk about the problems that every person faces in his/her daily life.
In fact, if you take a look at the search keywords used by people while browsing the internet, you will notice that most of them start with “how”
Hence, such content has better chances of appearing in Google search results. This helps you achieve higher organic search traffic.
Viral Marketing Techniques:
-
Offering a valuable product or service for free:
Who does not like getting valuable things for free?
For this reason, the word “free” is the strongest word in a marketer’s vocabulary. According to a 2019 study, 62% of successful viral marketing was related to offering a free product. Most viral marketing programs offer a valuable product or service for free to attract attention.
Remember Wilson’s Second Law of Internet Marketing “The Law of Giving and Selling”. This means that once you give something, you are selling something. In other words, by offering something valuable to your audience, you will be able to capture people’s interest and generate some profit.
How can this be done?
The word “free” in general is the first thing that attracts the public eye. Think about what happens next: a website visit + purchase + content sharing + revenue.
Think for a moment and you will find it very simple:
If you want to gain something, first you must pay for it. “ -
Emotional attraction:
Viral marketing cannot have much impact when it has emotional appeal. Viral marketing is 100% about emotions. This is the reason why it is considered as the most effective method among all digital marketing techniques. Now the question is how do you create such a powerful emotion?
Here is the most important point that you must focus on to create feelings. Create something full of love or hate, create something that makes people happy or madly angry and wait for results. Just sit back… Relax… and watch! -
Surprise (do something unexpected):
The title is self-explanatory…
If you want your marketing campaign to catch people attention, then you have to post something completely unexpected and different from what competitors are offering. Because people don’t even bother to take a look if they know someone has done it before. People always want to see or learn new things.
Wait a moment!
Don’t even think about making it look cool, everyone else just did!
And don’t try to promote your product or service as just being a cool thing, they did too!
Let me give you an example of an ad scene that nobody can think of:
Well, :a bear is being attacked by a man”. Was it expected?
Yes, as you can see, there is nothing wrong with this example, the victim this time is the bear, not the man! -
Capturing attention:
Consumers feel “stuffed” when browsing social media platforms as a result of large amounts of content they meet on the web. If you want to captivate their attention instead of ignoring your campaign content, you should have an immediate attention grabbing factor that compels them to pause at your ad and interact with it.
Having a visual element can help a lot in your digital marketing content. You need to engage your target audience with a message that can be translated as bold, funny, amazing, or a distinct mixt of them all.
Viral Marketing via Social Media:
Viral content is a magic video, image, or tweet. In short, it is content that can spread instantly on social media and shared by everyone.
This method relies heavily on people who “willingly” share content that really deserves to be shared.
Moreover, it can build a positive image that ultimately will give you increased engagement and sales.
Press coverage also contributes in this process. Every day, we watch TV programs that share what is being published on social media.
Successful Viral Marketing Campaigns:
Gillette campaign:
In 2019, the world’s most popular men’s razor company, Gillette launched the “The Best Man Can Be” campaign in an effort to challenge stereotypes and expectations of what it means “to be a man”. Gillette’s short video was released on Twitter and garnered 15,000 likes, 2,300 retweets, 3,500 comments, and within 72 hours this ad garnered 24 million views on Youtube. The brand’s campaign, the hashtag bearing the same name as the campaign, and the new slogan were all critiqued and praised at the same time. Gillette decided to send a social message that men should adopt positive behaviors with women in order to eliminate “toxic masculinity,” especially that “the boys who watch today will be the men of tomorrow”. Gillette did not interact with any tweet about it and let the video messages speak instead. However, Gillette stated that sales have increased since the campaign was launched and described the campaign as a great success.
If we analyze this ad you will find that it has focused on:
- Emotional attraction.
- Discuss a hot potato topic in a different way.
- Capturing attention.
In the end, despite the divergent opinions about the ad, it has gained remarkable success and an unexpected spread due to this focus on the previous factors.
So, it is a matter of following specific techniques that guarantee the success you aspire to via viral marketing campaigns. Do not bother yourself with planning and preparing, and leave this task to us at Shibly Marketing. We are waiting for you to contact us!
How does viral marketing work?
The principle of viral marketing is very different from classic advertising.
Television advertisements and radio programs depend on sender and addressee, while with viral marketing, the actual recipient and consumer are the same. In other words, the potential user or customer becomes the advertising medium. A user will recommend a video, text or tweet to his/her friends by sharing it on Facebook. Now, one or more of their friends may then share the same content with their contacts and the reach will increase.
Let me give you another example… A small snowball on the head of a plain, how big will it be reaching the bottom of the plain? The same as with viral marketing, the idea of snowball is the posts shared by users, then their friends and so on. The snowball will get bigger and bigger.
Here, the user moves from being the recipient to become the promoter of the message. Viral marketing channels are basically all the online channels that have a social component: blogs, social media platforms, forums, communities, news sites, or email.
Read More:
-
The key to make search engines love your website! (SEO)
-
Content marketing and the power of the word!
-
Emails… The well-proven marketing trend!
-
With affiliate marketing, how to make a big fortune while you sleep!
-
Paid Ads and Search Engine Marketing!
-
Pay per click ads: The top five PPC companies!
-
Why are entrepreneurs interested in mobile marketing?
*Resources: