Five Questions About Viral Marketing
Posted by Universal Ad at Tuesday, October 30, 2007 1:05 AM and is filed under Marketing,Campaign,word-of-mouth 
Chief Marketer has an article about viral marketing/word-of-mouth that is based on an interview with Lain McDonald, vice president and creative director at Avenue A | Razorfish.
Viral marketing campaigns have an unprecedented scale and reach but they're also highly volatile and hard to control. It's not enough to just create something cool and hope that everyone passes it along so that you get free advertising. You need to understand what's driving people to forward the campaign so you can initiate it properly and then monitor it and translate it into a solid ROI.
The first step - commit yourself to the fact that "agencies do not create viral campaigns; the consumer creates viral campaigns." Only then can you create content that allows consumers to willingly engage in the process. For example, oftentimes "the sender has an egotistical motive for delivering the content to another person" (i.e., it makes them appear to be “funny” or “knowledgeable.”)
The campaign must be “transparent and honest” (for example, do not create a fake blog) and the content must be user-centric by design - "one that supports a marketing message that doesn’t detract from the consumer’s desire to redistribute the content." Other issues discussed in the article - how to seed and measure the campaign.
Another article about Word-of-Mouth comes from eMarketer, which notes that "more than three-quarters of consumers surveyed worldwide find that consumer opinions are the most effective form of advertising," more than newspapers, brand web sites, TV, magazines, radio, etc.
Two more studies are quoted with similar results - consumers rated word of mouth highest in a survey comparing the trustworthiness of sources used to make purchases, and more than 90% said that a friend's recommendation was the most important influence when it came to buying a product or service.
Takeaway for marketers - "having a word-of-mouth marketing strategy is becoming essential...focus as much attention on what consumers say about (your) brand online as (you) do on creating the brand Web sites themselves... The easiest thing to do is to make consumer feedback an essential part of every brand Web site."
Posted by Universal Ad
Viral marketing campaigns have an unprecedented scale and reach but they're also highly volatile and hard to control. It's not enough to just create something cool and hope that everyone passes it along so that you get free advertising. You need to understand what's driving people to forward the campaign so you can initiate it properly and then monitor it and translate it into a solid ROI.
The first step - commit yourself to the fact that "agencies do not create viral campaigns; the consumer creates viral campaigns." Only then can you create content that allows consumers to willingly engage in the process. For example, oftentimes "the sender has an egotistical motive for delivering the content to another person" (i.e., it makes them appear to be “funny” or “knowledgeable.”)
The campaign must be “transparent and honest” (for example, do not create a fake blog) and the content must be user-centric by design - "one that supports a marketing message that doesn’t detract from the consumer’s desire to redistribute the content." Other issues discussed in the article - how to seed and measure the campaign.
Another article about Word-of-Mouth comes from eMarketer, which notes that "more than three-quarters of consumers surveyed worldwide find that consumer opinions are the most effective form of advertising," more than newspapers, brand web sites, TV, magazines, radio, etc.
Two more studies are quoted with similar results - consumers rated word of mouth highest in a survey comparing the trustworthiness of sources used to make purchases, and more than 90% said that a friend's recommendation was the most important influence when it came to buying a product or service.
Takeaway for marketers - "having a word-of-mouth marketing strategy is becoming essential...focus as much attention on what consumers say about (your) brand online as (you) do on creating the brand Web sites themselves... The easiest thing to do is to make consumer feedback an essential part of every brand Web site."
Posted by Universal Ad
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