Giving your viral marketing campaign that initial spark which helps it rapidly build into that raging inferno is one of the hardest aspects of this type of marketing.
Being too over the top paints you out as a marketer and people fight against you, but not being too pushy means you never get to that critical ‘tipping point’ needed to make it a success. Finding that balance can be tricky, and there are many avenues to take, and in this and future articles I will be showing you some methods that you can use in your viral campaign to start that fire, no matter what your niche is.
Now speaking of niches, I know that most of you reading this will be interested in Viral Marketing in an online world, but I am going to show you some examples (like in the last article) where viral marketing has been used in the offline world. By looking at these and seeing how you can apply the same ideas using Web 2.0, you will already be well ahead of 99% of the highest paid ad execs and marketing guru’s out there.
So let’s get started.
Although there are differences between these terms in the way that the message is delivered, throughout these articles I will be using these terms interchangeably. I think that Web 2.0 and the way we are going to be marketing in this space will blur these so much that it will be hard to define a boundary between them.
For instance, if I get a group of people to talk about a product who then go on to tell their friends about it, that would be word of mouth, if I provided an easy way for them to share this information that would be viral, If they then blogged about it and that created interest that would be buzz marketing. There is such a fine line between the three that for all intents and purposes I will stick to using the term ‘viral marketing’ in this and other articles.
I think it was Seth Godin who introduced the term Sneezers into the marketing space with his book ideavirus. Sneezers are people who are influential in your marketing space, they are people who other people look up to, they are the pack leaders, the gossips, the influential blogs, they are your well connected friends.
Seth divides sneezers into two groups, the promiscuous and the powerful. Promiscuous sneezers are group of people who can be depended on to pass your message on if it appeals to them, you can influence them, and even pay them to do so. Promiscuous sneezers are hardly ever authorities in your niche but they can spread your message.
Powerful sneezers on the other hand cannot be bought, they are above reproach. Their reputation and inherit authority depends upon this. For example, If you were a new Web 2.0 company, then TechCrunch would be a powerful sneezer. Getting reviewed by them is the holy grail.
So how do you get in-front of a powerful sneezer? Well the answer is simple, you use promiscuous sneezers to create enough buzz that powerful sneezers become interested, and if powerful sneezers promote you, the viral effect hits. Thousands of new promiscuous sneezers are born.
Now I am going to blur the line a little between the two here, because in the Web 2.0 space, powerful sneezers may not be able to be bought, but they can be manipulated... introducing...
Large companies such as Proctor and Gamble have really started to get this concept in recent years. When launching new products they enlist the help of opinion leaders to start spreading the word, but they do this in a particularly clever way.
You see, people don’t like being manipulated, if Gillette for example created a new razor and sent 1,000 of them out to people asking them to tell their friends about it, the result would probably be a negative reaction and possibly bad press. But if Gillette contacted 1,000 people and asked them to be involved in a ‘research program’ to help them develop a better razor, then that is a whole different ball game, and that is exactly what they do.
By asking for ‘help’ in return for free products and samples, they get around the problem of being seen to be manipulative. In the industry this is know as a seeding trial and it works big time. You see, when asking for advice, you are engaging the person on a one-to-one level, you are giving their ideas value, you are making them a part of the product cycle. In-turn, these people become great brand advocates who tell their friends all about your product or service, and because they are seen as opinion leaders, the viral marketing begins...
So, let’s take a look at an example of this on the Internet...
I think that we can all agree that previous to Gmail, anything that was said to be in beta made you instantly think ‘unstable’ (especially if it was a Microsoft product)... Google turned ‘beta’ into ‘cutting edge’ and made the term sexy.
When launching Gmail in 2004, Google invited 1,000 people to test out their new service to help them research usability and find bugs in the software. These people were not just randomly selected people, they were highly targeted opinion leaders; tech columnists, high profile bloggers, huge traffic site owners, and prolific forum posters.
By letting these 1,000 people invite a small number of friends into the beta program, and letting their friends invite some more, Google created a very successful viral campaign, and one which was based on the time honored marketing principle - scarcity.
In fact demand for a Gmail account got so high that for a few months, Gmail invites were selling on eBay for as much $200.
This viral explosion generated over three million signups in just over three months, and put Gmail firmly on the map, positioning the term beta in a way which it had never been used before. Since then hundreds of companies have gone on to use this method in the Web 2.0 space, and although we are all getting a little cynical about it, it still works pretty well. But it does depend on one thing...
This year alone I have counted over sixty new startups employing the ‘beta’ technique, the thing is, a lot of these companies just stick up their sites, blast out some press releases, add an invite system, and hope for the best.
This as you might have gathered, is not the way to go, and that’s the trouble when you get a bunch of geeks together with no marketing experience, all you have is a great tool with no users. You see, most people think that if their product is good enough it will go viral naturally, and apart from the rare few, this just doesn’t happened. Viral marketing happens by design, and it all starts with laser targeting your promiscuous and powerful sneezers.
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