How to Make Your Viral Videos Contagious
As media fragmentation continues, marketers are turning to viral marketing as a viable option in their marketing mix. With respect to word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing, viral videos are becoming an extremely effective tactic to drive brand awareness.
If you are starting a viral video campaign, here are a few tips on how to make them catch like wild fire.
According to a study by Competitrack, more than 60% of viral ads initiated by advertisers are video. Viral videos give you great potential for “bonus” impressions. Whenever your brand generates buzz WOM, it’s a bonus. While many marketers believe they still have control over the consumers, the New Marketing Economy tells us that they don’t. Enter in taking a chance. Producing a successful viral campaign is not something you can choose. The consumers are in control of whether they feel it should be shared. You have to be smart and do your best to get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
With viral videos, you must quickly engage users, have them share, and then release them back into what they were doing before. Other viral marketing tactics require interaction time by the consumer. You can have a viral video viewed in less than 15 seconds. In this case, brand awareness must be the goal. A 2006 study by JupiterResearch, asked marketers their goals for viral marketing campaigns. 71% answered that their goals were to increase brand awareness. Over 50% wanted to drive online sales. Sales would be great, but you can’t get greedy. If you can get your brand in front of more consumers, then you are already getting a return on your investment.
Here are a few tips to consider before starting.
Viral Video Tips:
1. Know Your Audience – This is an obvious one, but if you’re marketing to IT folks you better have a video that has a clever message hidden in binary code. You have to know how your audience thinks. What will they decide to share? You also have to be relevant. For example, Bud.TV recently launched a viral video called “Swear Jar” (which was a leftover from the Superbowl). This video takes place in an office, which is why there is no surprise that it's been so successful. Make a note, people in offices will pass along videos about people in offices - especially if it's as good as this one.
2. Innovate or Die! – In order to deliver a successful viral campaign, you have to create something with good reason to be passed along. The reward fully outweighs the risk. You don't have to spend tens of thousands on a viral video campaign. Use old commercials, or shoot low budget. Just make sure it's creative. In television, there are four general types of commercials:
a. Informative – presents facts and benefits of a product or service
b. Sales – used to attract new customers through highly persuasive messaging
c. Innovative – uses cool graphics or has a great concept that makes the brand memorable
d. Humorous – these ads use humor in the message to make the brand memorable
The same applies for viral video except take away informative and sales. You’ll have to be creative and most likely humorous. The “Swear Jar” by Bud is a great example. We recently launched a campaign for La Salle University’s Graduate and Adult programs where we used dry humor as our tie into the You’ll Get to Know Me campaign. The campaign is about how you will get to know La Salle’s faculty when you attend their university, because the faculty are accessible, they offer small class sizes, etc. Below are a couple examples of what we launched.
3. Create a Launch Strategy – You will need to leverage everyone you know to get it off the ground. Taking a page out of Field of Dreams will not be good enough. You will need to post it on every video site, write a press release, hit the blogosphere, and send it to your current costumers, your employees, colleagues, and your friends/peers. If it’s worthy, then they will come. The trick though, is trying not to be overly obvious in what you’re doing. But, if it’s good enough then it really doesn’t matter what you do. People will share it anyway.
Often enough, consumers learn about videos from their friends, colleagues, and family. According to a 2007 survey by the Online Publishers Association, 43% of US online video viewers receive videos by clicking links in e-mail messages from people they know. This is a major driver to how YouTube became so popular. Remember when you had to download the video or view it from an attachment. The systems are now in place to make viral videos easier and more powerful than before.
