October 21st, 2009 at 11:29 am
Among the multiple innovations the internet introduced to the field of marketing, there is no doubt that the most entertaining one is the viral video. Video sharing, which started as what seemed to be a teen fad, exploded into the primary content trend offered online today. And where the creative juices are flowing, it doesn’t take long for advertisers to jump in and join the current.
A huge part of the popular viral videos of the past were amateur stuff featuring home videos that range from funny to shocking. Everybody’s pet became a video star. But along with professionally produced material such as tv sketches and music videos, banned tv ads that started popping online were the first seed for commercial videos made straight for the internet. At first, when the videos or their links used to be spread in emails, spam guards and size limits slowed down the process, but video sharing giants like YouTube made the world a stage – the most accessible stage we ever had.
Most people flip tv channels when the commercial break is on, so what makes them tune in voluntarily? Internet videos are usually bolder, edgier, and more creative, and the people who make them are internet users themselves who take active part in video sharing communities; internet marketing companies who create viral videos understand the medium intimately and the truth in its core – that author and audience had never been closer, and in fact interchangeable. The fact that the person watching your video now is the author of the video you’ll be watching in a few minutes is the basis of genuine respect for the viewer. Internet ads don’t pound their commercial message with a hammer, or spoon feed us. They have to be more sophisticated and entertaining, because switching off is much easier.
Commercial viral videos are the best marketing strategy out there today to create brand awareness. What could be better than having people recommending your commercial to their friends? And with a wide range of video upload websites, you can publish your vision for free. That’s right, who needs to pay for air time when you’ve got web time?
To make it work in media sharing communities, your video needs to be interesting and surprising, and keep a high quality standard of image. People will tolerate the most grained and disrupted streaming from amateurs, but the pros have to deliver great graphics and processional work as seen in this funny and provocative internet commercial, The Interrogation The Interrogation . But it doesn’t stop there, before the video runs on its own you need to give it a hand, by networking with other members on your video sharing community to reach more exposure. Internet marketing companies usually devote considerable resources for this purpose, and rightly so.
The archives of sharing sites are already packed with millions of videos stored, but as long as there are people out there looking for laughs, interest and some entertainment, your audience is waiting for you.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:07 am
No doubt it is a super feeling to see money coming in from your internet business. That is, as long as the income is greater than your expenses. With PPC advertising campaigns having become in many cases quite expensive, as the cost of keywords are bid up, using low cost viral marketing techniques is an excellent way to efficiently market products. That is if you know how.
You may ask what is viral marketing anyhow? And why can it be so effective?
The term “Viral” is used to describe the use of marketing methods that once underway tend to multiply and spread themselves very quickly; like an infectious virus of the unwanted kind, say the flu.
The most common technique used by viral marketers is to create a product that has great perceived value and then give it away for free or at very low cost. Those who receive the product are only too happy to recommend it to their friends and Internet associates, who in turn recommend it to their friends, who pass it along to their friends. On the Internet this process can repeat itself extremely quickly with an ever more powerful effect as the number of folks making recommendations increases rapidity.
Thus the creator of the product only has to make the initial marketing effort and with the right product the product becomes self promoting. The key is that the product value has to be great enough, and the benefit to the referrer great enough, so that folks want to use and pass along information about the product right away.
The referrers recommendation may well be only the use of the product. Nothing else need be said. A good viral product has built in features for promotion.
If you want to really kick up the rate of “infection” with a viral advertising campaign make the product promote itself by the act of the users of the product only going about their normal daily Internet routines, like sending email.
One of the great viral marketing products of all time was Hotmail. The days of Hotmails explosive growth was back in the late 1990s when email was just taking off as a killer application for Internet use. Hotmail promoted itself only by automaticially inserting a link to Hotmail at the end of each email send out by its clients. All the client had to do to promote was to use the product.
As the number of clients grew so did the number of emails sent, each containing a little ad at the end promoting the free Hotmail email service. Hotmail went viral almost immediately and went from zero to a membership in excess of 30,000,000 within two years.
Another viral marketing technique often used to good effect is the use of “refer a friend” forms on website pages. Generally there will be room to refer from five to ten friends on one form. As friends are referred and they in turn refer their friends, and so on, the number of visitors to the website content that is being refered will grow exponentially.
Of course, this technique will fail unless the majority of the referred friends feel that there is value in whatever it is that they are recommending.
Which brings us the the key point about viral marketing. Unless the product is good enought to sell itself the promotion will likely fail.
What type of products meet that test today? Judging from the way video is taking off (Youtube for example) a funny or interesting video has amazing viral marketing qualities. A smart marketer using video can add a link at the end of the presentation and drive high amounts of traffic to his/her website.
Video seems to be the biggest “killer” application to hit the net since email.
