Residual Victory Blog

The Ten (10) High Impact Viral Marketing Strategies that you implement into your marketing campaign must first and foremost engage the audience.  High Impact Marketing Strategies succeed because they are active, and not passive.  In order for them to continue succeeding, they must retain their integrity.  The 2006 Viral Marketing Industry Report sponsored by Kontraband, a parent company of the viral marketers, The Seventh Chamber, that advertises for Sony, Coca-Cola and Hewlett-Packard (http://viral-marketing.kontraband.com/index.htm), reported that 73% of consumers are aware of viral emails, and only 38% forward those emails.  64% of the 3500 consumers surveyed said they would not forward a viral with an explicit branding or product message.  This report is available at http://viral-marketing.kontraband.com/pdf/VIRAL%20REPORT.pdf and includes other viral marketing statistics.  People are aware of viral marketing.  If viral marketing is going to thrive, it must not only engage the audience, it must be implemented intelligently and creatively.

Online Viral Marketing has branched into thousands of strategies.  Since the popular humorous email content started flourishing, it has grown into videos, reprint permissions, movie clips, freebies, bonuses, free web pages, graphics, or discussion boards, forum relationships, sales-filled ebook giveaways, “advergaming,” and the mobile phone realm.  The one factor that affects every single one of these strategies is content.  The reader will not engage in the viral marketing proposition if there is not content meaningful to him.  As the cliché goes, Content is King.

Your marketing strategy must engage the audience with meaningful content.  The 2006 Viral Marketing Report states people are aware of commercial viral marketing, however they will still forward the marketing vehicle “as long as the primary objective - that of being good content - is fulfilled.” Since the majority of people will not forward explicit branding or product messages, your marketing strategy should whisper your message to prospective forwarders.  Advergaming is a prime example of successful viral marketing.  The logo may be in the game but it’s quiet.  The game itself is the content king and the attention-getter, the receiver is engaged in the activity, and if he doesn’t fear “spamming” his friends, he will most likely forward it on.

Trust must be implemented in a viral marketing strategy to ensure forwarding in the highest degrees.  After all, if someone sends spam it effects their reputation as well as yours.  The explosion of social networking, bookmarking, and community websites, which hold user-generated content, has great potential to garner trust in a viral marketing campaign.  In user-generated content filled communities, peers and friends can brand you as trusted, and thereby facilitate your growth. What has proved successful is the “humor and edginess of viral” marketing; and trust, built with emotions that the consumers want to be tied to, is going to be a necessary strategy for anyone developing a reputable viral campaign.

There is also potential for trust-building strategies in the aggressive blogging worlds, however another high-impact strategy that should be considered is “Don’t Forget the Obvious,” or perhaps “Don’t Forget the Links.”  Prominent links and brand presence should be included everywhere they can, but in a subtle manner (whisper).

Trust also comes into play with data collection.  New methodology for Data Capture should be included in the top ten strategies.  The 2006 Viral Marketing Report stated 73% of consumers are very concerned about giving away information online.  Marketers need to look at new, unobtrusive methods for data collection if their brand name is going to keep the trust of consumers.

Along with your strategy of collecting data, you must also have a “seeding and placing” strategy.  Viral marketing should be targeted towards people-to-people and website-to-website.  Finding the perfect “point-of-origin” with high traffic rates for your campaign should be included in your top ten strategies for High Impact Viral Marketing.  

The Viral Marketing Research is significant to your High Impact Viral Marketing Campaign.  From these results, we can gather the Top Ten High Impact Viral Marketing Strategies:
 
1)  Engage the Audience.
2)  Be Active, Not Passive.
3)  Content is King.
4)  Be Creative.
5)  Use Intelligent Marketing, the Consumers are Sophisticated.
6)  When it comes to brand and product names, whisper, don’t shout.
7)  Trust, built with emotions consumers want to be tied to.
8)  Don’t forget the obvious - The Links!
9)  Create new methodology for Data Collection.
10) Develop a “Seed and Place” strategy.

Start strategizing your High Impact Viral Marketing Campaign for top results.  By following these top ten High Impact Viral Marketing Strategies, your viral campaign will spread with a smile.  And it’s hard not to smile when someone else is smiling.  Nobody has to know that you’re smiling at the campaign’s success!