January 30th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
When it comes to tapping into a marketing technique that seems to capture the attention of many, viral video marketing capitalizes off of the power of visual suggestion. This particular method takes advantage of already existing social networks to create a successful boom in brand awareness. While viral marketing had its start passing from one to another through word-of-mouth, today, the most impressive approach is provided through video. Many enjoy utilizing this type of marketing because it can reach a large amount of people in a quick amount of time.
One of the most increasingly popular ways to enter viral video marketing is to establish a blog on a website and continuously add images, words, and videos. Even amateur videos are making headlines on websites across the Internet. This interesting and rather entertaining approach towards advertising has brought attention to a wide range of services and products that might not have enjoyed the focus if viral video marketing was not used. It is the creativity of amusing video clips, interactive Flash games, and moving images that add to the appeal.
Viral video marketing is often chosen as a way to promote a site because it is quite easy to accomplish. When compared to direct mailing, the cost is also lower. Viral marketing helps attract a target audience, and is known for establishing a response rate that is high and fast. Also, a larger number of people become engrossed with little cost to the webmaster.
Examples of Viral Marketing
Using videos and interactive visual games to market products, services and websites has been an effective method of advertising for many years. For instance, the Dancing Bush 2001 interactive game led a campaign to bring an enormous wealth of attention to what would become the largest private entertainment site on the Web. Sunsilk hair care products gained increased consideration when a YouTube video titled “Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out” surfaced. Additional examples of viral video marketing includes companies and products, such as Halo, Blair Witch Project, Xbox 360, The Ring movie, Sony, Playstation, and FX Networks.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Imagine a world without television. Can you do it? Chances are if you were born in the last 40 years or so, you can’t. Everywhere we turn we are bombarded with video images, first on television, but now on everything from desktop computers to cell phones. In fact, videos are so popular online they sometimes are passed around and create a viral marketing effect; that is what makes them interesting to marketers. This article will share a few ways you can jump on the band wagon and use these viral video techniques to bring traffic to your site.
A popular way to get into the world of viral video marketing is to build a blog and frequently add videos. Use amusing video clips, interactive Flash games and moving images since these are most likely to catch your visitor’s attention and be shared with others. The Dancing Bush 2001 interactive game brought massive attention to what eventually became the largest private entertainment site on the internet. Sunsilk hair products gained attention when a YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) video “Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out” went viral. Companies the likes of Halo, Blair Witch Project, Xbox 360, The Ring Movie, Sony, Playstation and FX Networks have all benefited from viral videos.
On effective way to make sure your video draws attention to your web site or brand is to include the site name (and URL) within a video as part of the entertainment. The more integrated the inclusion, the less your video is going to look like an advertising ploy. Of course, you might want to refer to your site or brand more than once, but don’t go overboard. On the other hand some successful viral campaigns, like Burger King’s “Subservient Chicken” didn’t mention a web site or brand anywhere; but people knew where the video came from and it attracted massive attention on the web.
Another way to make sure your viral video drives traffic to your site is to include a link close to the video on YouTube and Google Video. This will allow viewers to easily identify the source of the video and find their way to your site.
So once you have all this traffic on your site, what are you going to do with them? Well first off, be sure to encourage visitors to pass your video to friends. Then if at all possible add some means for the video to be emailed or added to a social bookmarking site. If you have built your site on a blog like WordPress, there are plugins to add that functionality to your site for you.
So get out there and start spreading a virus, a video virus that is.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Viral marketing is a technique that uses social networking to spread the word about their brand. There are several ways viral marketing works, often times companies send out an interactive game, text messages or video clips and hope that these are passed along.
How many times have you gotten a forwarded email with a long chain of recipients with a funny video in it? I’m sure you get several a day. With online social networks it’s becoming easier for the newcomer, myspace.com, youtube.com are just a couple of networks that get millions of hits each day and there’s no shortage of users.
I recall a phone call I got a couple of months ago, it was coming from a friend, but when I picked up, it was a marketing message for a book, it was entertaining informed me of where to go online if I also (like my friend) wanted to surprise other friends with the same phone call. I of course wanted all my friends to hear it, so I’m sure word spread fast about the book that is now released.
One of the most interesting viral marketing campaigns was for a Portuguese Football club. While at their website a user was required to put provide their name and phone number, which then took you to a video of the coach in the locker room, he makes a call (to you) while on video and lets you know that they can’t start the season until you bought a season ticket. The synchronization of this campaign had roughly 200,000 phone calls going out in a 24 hour period.
Even in the age of the internet, people will always talk and tell others about something, so don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth advertising.
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