Creating viral marketing content that users will send themselves in messages is the dream of every marketer. After all, with a small own effort, we gain a huge range, and everyone talks and writes about our advertisement. Viral marketing, however, is largely a matter of chance and the whims of Internet users. However, it is worth knowing the basic information about this marketing method.
- What is viral marketing?
- Viral Marketing - Advantages
- No matter what they say, as long as they keep talking?
- Can viral marketing be planned?
- Viral Marketing - Examples
Viral Marketingor viral marketing is one of the faces online marketing. It works just like an infection. Here, however, instead of multiplying pathogens, the marketing message is spread. And it does it as a Chain Reaction. Importantly, this message is not always spread instantly, but finally reaches a huge audience.
What is viral marketing?
In viral marketing, the consumers themselves become the carriers ads sharing information about it with friends and acquaintances. At the same time, neither the recipient nor the sender perceive it as advertising. Though viral marketing is associated rather with the Internet, but the viral transmission of information about advertising can also take place offline, i.e. simply word of mouth. However, the easiest way to get the viral effect is through video marketing. This is because YouTube videos are the most viral content.
Viral Marketing - Advantages
- Building huge ranges among various groups of recipients.
- Low cost of distribution, as users themselves "pass" the ad onto themselves.
- Increasing brand awareness in a large group of recipients.
- Increase in sales and increase in traffic to the website.
No matter what they say, as long as they keep talking?
As PR agency we cannot agree with this statement. Nevertheless, an integral part of this marketing method is hype (buzz) that arises around the campaign. There is even a separate branch, i.e. buzz marketing. Theoretically, it is best for this noise to be positive, but many real-life examples have shown that the principle of "no matter what I say, as long as they speak" is still strong.
Building up noise is important because thanks to this, the consumer is not only a passive recipient of the message, but also willing to talk about it. To start effective viral marketing you need a good idea. An idea that will create a stir and stick in people's minds. Nowadays it is easier on the Internet, in which there are millions of videos that are eagerly shared among themselves, especially by young people.
A viral video is one that has been found to be so shocking, funny, or touching that it creates an insurmountable temptation to share it. Send the link by e-mail, via messenger, in SMS, etc. Often viral content is noticed by editorial offices of technological portals, which ask for another "hit of the Internet". In this way, the hype can help increase the visibility and interest of your brand or service.
Can viral marketing be planned?
No, viral marketing cannot be planned. No competent marketing agency promises as part of your actions B2B marketingthat he would go viral. It is not the cause but the effect of the campaign. Plus an unforeseeable effect. There are, of course, some rules that increase the viral potential of an ad. People are happy to retweet content that is funny, touching, or controversial. In addition, the use of guerilla marketing tools, i.e. guerrilla marketing in Polish, can help in delaying the viral effects. The campaign is then supposed to surprise, even shock, and thus become a topic that everyone talks about.
Controversies do in fact often gather large ranges in a short time, but it is easy to overdo it here. As a consequence, the brand can lose a lot in the eyes of the recipients, as there are many examples. Therefore, in order not to lose control over your own advertising, it is necessary to closely monitor the reactions of recipients in various channels on the network. The tools that are normally used by the so-called referral marketing. So these are all review websites, review sections on Google My Business and on the brand's official social channels.
Viral Marketing - Examples
Viral videos on YouTube are an uncharted ocean of content. However, for the purposes of this post, I will narrow down the examples to strictly marketing content that has gained enormous publicity, confirmed by the number of views.
For example, last year's (2019) Allegro Christmas ad gained 18 million views. In this case, there was an emotional effect, because the script of the advertisement really touched the heart. An elderly gentleman orders a beginner's English textbook. We follow his progress in the next minutes, and finally find out that he did it so that he could talk to his granddaughter who lives abroad. Hands up who cried then. Allegro ads generally keep the level and are often viral. Here, however, it is difficult to talk about a low budget allocated to the campaign, which turned into the best one viral marketing.
Another example of a viral marketing campaign is a fresh advertising video of the Apart jewelry brand. At the beginning of November 2020, the company released a long, almost 4-minute advertising film on the Internet. The problem is that before the ad was able to reach potential customers, its parody, made hastily by the TV Comedy Club channel, became a viral. Within a few days, the parody gained 1.4 million views, and yes, everyone says about the ad. So far, rather negatively, but about such ranges in such a short time, the creators of the Apart advertisement certainly could not even dream of.