Welcome back, if you missed our first post on viral marketing you can view it here. In this post I will be talking about the benefits of viral marketing vs. other forms of marketing like PPC. I will also be explaining some important key factors that can determine whether a viral marketing campaign is successful or not, so grab some coffee and enjoy.

Know Your Audience

When launching a viral marketing campaign it is very important to know what your audience’s interest are and what they like and do not like. It would be very disadvantageous to design and release a viral marketing campaign that has no real connection to your product or business as the people that view your campaign will not necessarily be interested in what your business has to offer.

If this does happen your preset goals for your viral marketing campaign might be negatively affected, such as not converting viewers to clients at the rate you planned for or in the worst case situation your company’s image might be negatively affected by an unconnected viral marketing campaign.

Another important factor is what the social credibility of your target market is. In other words, what is going to make people forward your viral marketing idea on to friends or other people to achieve a wider audience? If people do not share or want to share it then your viral marketing campaign will suffer drastically because the main idea is to make a viral marketing campaign that people want to share with their friends and family.

So as you might realize now it is very important to know your audience as it can make or break your viral marketing campaign. If you have an opt-in list for your clients (Which you should) send an email to each of them and ask if they would be willing to complete a survey that you have designed to see what your their interests are.  This can be a very useful method to do market research and in turn develop a successful viral marketing campaign.

Trust Your Creative Side

Going with your creative side when brainstorming ideas can be hard, time consuming and frustrating all at the same time. There can be a lot of doubt and uncertainty with viral marketing as it is not an exact science and you never know how your audience will react to what you produce.

Saying that, you must trust your instincts and creative side when planning a viral marketing campaign. A good rule of thumb is, if you like what has been produced then there is a very high possibility others will like it too. If you are unsure about the effectiveness of what you have produced then just send it to a few friends or family members and see what they think. If they like it then other people will to.

Viral Vs Conventional

Now the big question, is viral marketing more effective than conventional marketing methods such as PPC, SEO and SEM? Personally, I would have to say no because as i said before viral marketing is not an exact science and the amount of viral marketing campaigns that are created are high and the amount that are successful are low.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t bother with viral marketing, actually the exact opposite as viral marketing can bring in tens of thousands of unique traffic for a fraction of the cost. Achieving the same volume with conventional marketing would cost an arm and a leg but with conventional marketing you will receive more targeted traffic and higher conversions.

The ideal would be to have both implemented in your company’s marketing strategy, do not place all your faith in one and not the other rather see what method is more effective for your business and go from there.

Well that’s it or now, thank you for reading and please feel free to subscribe any way you see fit below.

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Welcome to our first post on viral marketing, this is just an introductory post explaining the basics for what viral marketing is and how it can be a huge asset to any company, let’s begin. Viral marketing can be a huge asset to any company if implemented correctly.

Viral marketing is defined as the power of word of mouth leveraged by the speed and reach of the Internet. Every company should have some form of viral marketing campaign set up however small it may be. So what are the factors that influence whether a viral campaign is successful or not?

The Factors

All successful viral marketing campaigns are built around a set of key factors, they may even be built around more than one to appeal to a wider audience and achieve greater exposure. These key factors being:

• Funny/Humorous
• Remarkable
• Unique
• Controversial
• Shocking
• Related to product/service

The Most Important!

One very important factor that many people forget is that your viral marketing campaign should be related to your company or product, if its not you might find most of the traffic and exposure you are receiving from your campaign will not be converting highly.

This is because your campaign is targeting the wrong audience and they might not find your product/service useful. So a good measure to take would be to make sure your viral marketing campaign is somehow related to your product or service.

Creative viral marketing campaigns can take on its own life and might be a turning point in your company’s goals or future. An important thing to remember about viral marketing is that, if perfected and implemented correctly it can be the most important and effective marketing tool in your inventory, so get it right.

That’s it for now, there will be more posts on viral marketing shortly so keep updated. Thanks for reading.

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