How does viral marketing work?

Viral campaign are based on the premise that you can create something of enough interest to people that they want to tell other people about it or pass it on - rather like a chain letter.

There are three parts to a viral campaign: 

1. Create a Viral Concept

The first step is to create some interesting content that people are going to want to talk about, use or show to friends – and ideally all three! We recommend a game, joke or quiz of some sort but really anything can form a viral concept. The important thing about a viral campaign is that you identify some sort of goal or target that you want to acheive, such as lead generatin, data capture, brand awareness or revenue. 

The most important thing to remebr about viral campaigns, is that you have no guarentee that they will 'go viral' and be spread around. Sometimes they take off and become global phenomena, some times they just about break even. A good idea, great distribution and excellent timing and a bit of luck can make all the difference. 

2. Drive traffic / Generate Awareness

The second stage is to drive traffic and start the viral campaign. There are a variety of ways to do that, but the most effective tend to be:

Email distribution

Distributing a viral campaign to an owned or purchased list is an excellent way of starting a viral campaign, because emails an be forwarded onto friend and colleagues.
A banner advertising campaign

Banner campaigns using MPU and Skyscraper size adverts with an element of flash media are a good way of generating traffic. The banners would be able to be shown throughout various types of portals.

Social network link building

Manual posting on Social networking, gaming sites, competition pages and social bookmarking sites will generate a buzz about the product on forums, websites and blogs with related content, encouraging people to check out the campaign and product.

Online PR

Viral campaigns are still exciting enough to be news in their own right. Creation of a viral game might be covered by a magazine or website and therefore press releasing your new campaign can generate traffic and data capture.  

3. Create Quantifiable Actions

The viral website must include quantifiable calls to action that allow users to do meaningful things that potentially generate revenue. Examples are as follows:

• Register now!: ‘Register now’ Will allow users to register and possible pay for membership to your new site in advance of launch.
• Forward to a Friend: The user will have the option to forward this game onto people, and encourage them to distribute it around the office and to their friends.
• Add to Favourites: This call to action will allow the client to bookmark the site and come back to it later.
• Bookmark This:This will allow users to create social bookmarks on sites like Facebook, add this and Digg.

 With these three elements in plac, you have backbone of a potentially sucessful viral camapign. To discuss viral campaigns, or for more information, call James at  Organic Development on 0845 869 7654.