Viral Marketing: How To Master It

 Table of Contents

• Introduction 

• Concept of Viral Marketing

• Types of Viral Marketing 

• Significant examples of Viral Marketing 

• Where to start with Viral Marketing

• Viral Marketing in 2020-21

• Conclusion

In April of 2013, Unilever and its ad agency Ogilvy & Mather Brazil released the "Dove Real Beauty Sketches" campaign to empower women about how they look depicting an FBI-trained sketch artist Gil Zamora sketching two illustrations of women based on the explanation given by them and then another on how they were observed by strangers. When the portraits were placed side-by-side, many notable distinctions could be seen between them. The stranger’s description was more attractive than that of the self-description, conveying that, “You are more beautiful than you think.” 

How do you think they were able to create awe in the customers? Viral Marketing is the answer. Let us read more about this type of marketing strategy. 

Concept of Viral Marketing 

Viral Marketing is a marketing strategy that attempts to spread a product or service from person to person by word-of-mouth or sharing via the internet or social media in the form of memes, shares, likes, forwards etc. As the name itself clarifies how consumers circulate information about a product with other people, much in the same way that a virus mutates from one person to another. 

Viral Marketing is to inspire individuals to share a marketing message to friends, family & other individuals to create exponential growth in the number of its recipients. It generates interest in a brand or product through messages that spread quickly from person to person. The basic theory is that users choose to share the content. 

The concept is often misused or misunderstood as people apply it to any successful enough story without taking into account the word 'viral'.

Advantages of Viral Marketing

Here are some of the advantages of viral marketing: 

1) Lower Cost: Viral Marketing doesn't require much cost and can be developed with minimal cost but there must be easy ideas & proper planning.

2) Reach: It gives a wider reach as people willingly share the content themselves, spreading it at an increasing rate. 

3) Credibility: By sharing a brand on social media ensures an untouched audience regarding the credibility of your product, generating interest among the consumers. 

Disadvantages of Viral Marketing 

Following are the disadvantages of viral marketing that a marketer must keep in mind:

1) Nuisance: Receiving similar messages every day exposes the audience to E-Traffic further creating unnecessary internet noise and the messages are likely to be deleted or remain unread. 

2) Hard To Measure: It is very difficult to measure the worthwhile proposition, so it became quite hectic for managers to analyze the effectiveness of internet marketing campaigns. 

3) Negative Word of Mouth: Sometimes a negative review is enough to hide 100 positive ones, spreading negative buzz.

Types of viral marketing

Source (in the picture) 

There are various types of viral marketing that, if applied correctly, yield results greater than expected.

1) Teaser: A teaser campaign, also known as a pre-launch campaign, is an advertising gimmick involving a few snippets and cryptic messages for anticipation of a larger campaign. These advertisements are called "teasers" or "teaser ads".

2) Word of mouth - Word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM, WOM marketing, also called word of mouth advertising) is actively influenced or encouraged by organizations (e.g. 'seeding' a message in networks rewarding regular consumers to engage in WOM, employing WOM 'agents').

3) Emotional: Emotional marketing is the intentional use of persuasive emotional messages to form a deep connection with the audience toward achieving the desired result. Often, it appeals to a single emotion only.

4) Humour: To make the campaign more impactful and memorable for the audience, humour is used as a tried and tested strategy in marketing the brands.

5) Incentivized: Incentivized advertising is a new ad format that is gaining popularity in digital mobile advertising where the publisher rewards users for watching an ad. An endemic issue here is adverse selection, where reward-seeking users select into incentivized ad placements to obtain rewards.

Significant Examples of Viral Marketing 

Just like Dove, many companies have been able to gain attention through viral marketing by creating unique videos on YouTube, which are then sharing them on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter etc.

Here are significant examples of Viral Marketing:- 

1) HotMail: In 1996, HotMail was one of the first businesses to become extremely successful by utilising viral marketing techniques by inserting the tagline "Get your free email at HotMail," at the bottom of every email sent out by its users. Hotmail was able to sign up 12 M users in 18 months. At that time, this was the fastest growth by a user based media company. The company now establishes 270,000 new accounts each day. 

2) ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: In 2014, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was among the most viral marketing challenges in the social networks for creating the awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's Disease. The challenge was to pour a bucket of ice water over their heads & nominate other friends. Over 2.4 million on Facebook & about 3.7 million on Instagram, huge celebrities & entrepreneurs like Justin Bieber, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates etc. participated in this challenge.

3) Zoom Virtual Background Challenge: Zoom had introduced a monthly competition for remote workers who could share videos or pictures using zoom’s virtual background feature. A monthly competition with three prizes per month was promoted and this increased its popularity during the COVID pandemic. 

4) Burger King: Burger King has used several marketing campaigns. Its "The Subservient Chicken" campaign, running from 2004 until 2007, was an example of viral or word-of-mouth marketing.

Where to start with viral marketing? 

With the following steps, one can master viral marketing. 

Step #1: Prepare for Growth

A marketer must be ready for explosive growth and visitors to the website and checking web hosting account that can handle a high volume of traffic and that merch accounts are ready for a sudden spike in sales, can assure a smooth transition.

Step #2: Capturing Contact 

Having an objective before spreading the message can help collect emails which is a much more effective means of viral marketing than making sales is. After collecting the emails, marketers have the opportunity to market to them and build a relationship for converting them from email subscribers into paying customers.

Step #3: A Message With a Free Offer

After having an objective for attracting new prospects, a marketer of a firm needs to offer something in exchange for capturing people’s email or contact information. A good approach is giving away something free right away and offering valuable content in the form of follow-up emails.  

Step #4: Offer an Incentive for Spreading the Word

This is where the power of viral marketing really shines. There is a need for a program that automatically emails the offer to the friends and which is set up to reward the person for inviting people. By having an incentive to your customers who are doing the inviting AND to the new invitees, there will be a powerful viral marketing machine in hand that will run with little or no intervention. 

Step #5: Deliver The Message with Multiple Forms of Media

Now, it's time to start attracting traffic to the offer page and a great way to do this is with multiple forms of media such as videos, articles, press releases, and podcasts. After this is complete, the next step would be to immediately make another offer to the new subscriber in return for them inviting friends to take advantage of your free opt-in offer.

Step #6: Explode The Viral Marketing Campaign With a Contest

Offer a great prize to the subscriber who invites the most people. Don’t be afraid to invest in this prize, because the better it is the more effective your viral marketing campaign will be. It might also be a good idea to offer a prize for those who invite the second and third most people.

Viral Marketing in 2020-21

As said earlier, viral marketing is like coronavirus, you think it’s just the small flu but before long, it spreads everywhere and conquers the world. The only difference is that people would love to experience viral marketing, unlike the COVID-19.

With new brands opening daily, all of them have the same motive in today’s scenario, to go viral. Everyone wants their posts to spread like wildfire and reach as many customers as possible through the medium of social media. 

The types of content that will go viral in 2021-2022

1) Puzzles and Riddles: Everybody loves a challenge that keeps them engaged and that’s why they love brain teasers and riddles. Social media has given brands a platform to challenge and reach their audience in a fun way. 

2) Infographics: Minimalism is a concept loved by all. Infographics play a very important role in minimising the use of words and still providing l content that is educational, entertaining and concise at the same time. 

3) Motivational Content: Sometimes there is just a need for extra motivation from someone to pass the day. Content that is providing positivity, quotes of famous people, etc keeps the audience motivated and positive which in return gives visibility to the company. 

4) Personality Quizzes: Questions like “Which Friends character are you?” or “What city should you live in?” create a generous amount of buzz between the people and it's a fun way to engage with the brand.

5) How-To: Creating content that is providing a solution for problems that users might have could help the brand to gain superior organic reach and it could provide a better chance of appearing at the top in SEO results. 

Conclusion

Until some time ago going viral may seem like a dream but the social media platforms and their influences have made this idea & dream a reality now. These opportunities have also brought some challenges with them, in the past, these platforms didn't monitor the content closely but now the content is measured on a variety of elements and you have to perform well in all these to stand out. If your content is unique and is offering some value to the users then not only you can go viral but also create a long relationship with your audience.

Digital Marketing for the Digital Generation

 Table of Contents

• Introduction

• What is Digital Marketing

• Significance of Digital Marketing

• Types of Digital Marketing

• Digital Marketer 

• Ways to do Digital Marketing

• Conclusion

Where can one begin if there is a need to build a digital marketing strategy? It is however a particular hurdle since it's widely expected how significant digital and mobile channels are in today's era for customer acquisition and retention. Still, they don't seem to have an incorporated agenda to assist in digital adaptation and company development while also connecting the audiences effectively online. In today's article, we shall read about Digital Marketing and the ways to master it. 

Introduction

Digital marketing is known by many names like Online Marketing or Internet Marketing. Every company wants to market its product online but it has become a big deal these days. Internet usage has more than doubled over the past decade and this peak was touched when we saw a huge transition to everything online in this pandemic and while this shift has transformed the way we live, it has primarily changed the ways we purchase products or interact with any business. 

What is Digital Marketing?

So now let’s come to the topic in question. What exactly is Digital Marketing? 

Digital Marketing is identical to any other category of marketing one can glimpse in the day-to-day world – it’s a door to connect with and impact potential customers. The distinction that makes digital marketing different from any other form of marketing is that the connection is placed through online mediums.

To explain it in a better way, digital marketing refers to any form of online marketing efforts or assets, this can include email marketing, social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising and even blogging.

Significance of Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is a very powerful weapon any company can use and imbibe in their marketing strategies to allow the scope of the following advantages.

1) Better growth & advancement options for small business

This is regarded as the most crucial facet of digital marketing. Most of the time small businesses are unwilling to do any type of marketing due to a deficit of funds. Initially, it was very tough for small businesses to market their products but Digital Marketing solves this problem by providing a wider audience at a lesser cost. They can even choose the method of marketing which suits their budget.

2) Higher rate of conversion

Conversion means specifying the percentage of viewers who are getting converted firstly as leads and then subscribers and finally purchasing the product or service. With other forms of marketing, it might be very difficult to track conversion rates, but digital marketing makes it so simple to track it in real-time. 

3) Ascertaining & maintaining brand reputation 

To make any business sustainable and survive for a long time, there is one thing that needs to be focused on primarily i.e, brand reputation. It is an impeccable part of a business. In the past decade, there has been a huge change in customer preferences. A customer will always prefer a company that is not associated with any scandal. Digital marketing offers various ways to establish a personal rapport with the customer and base. 

4) Grievance redressal 

The live chat option has made a huge revolution, one can solve any issue of the customers without making them wait for a long time. Through the medium of email marketing and social media, one can always offer the customer solutions and make them relate to the product. The website and social media can play a vital role in this process. Customers can directly ask queries and give suggestions and hence making the relationship with customers stronger. 

5) Engagement with customer surfing on mobile

Most of the customers engage with the products or services through their smartphones and all websites are now designed in such a manner that they are easily viewable on mobile as well. One can even customize the pages specifically to pay more attention to mobile users.

Types of Digital Marketing

Let’s take a look at the top 10 types of digital marketing.

1) Content Marketing

Content Marketing involves creating and distributing content in the form of text, images, multimedia. They add value for the audience, instead of just broadcasting an advertising message.

2) Search Engine Marketing 

Search Engine Marketing focuses on getting the website to appear at the top of the results when someone searches for any brand, products and services and other relevant words and phrases.

3) Display Advertising

Display Advertising is also known as banners and is a lot like the traditional print ads shown in magazines, except that they are online, and can target specific publications that the audience reads.

4) Mobile Marketing

Mobile Marketing involves doing everything on a mobile that is done on a desktop. It also includes doing mobile-specific things like in-app advertising, sending text messages to friends/relatives etc, and using social messaging apps. 

5) Social Media Marketing

Social media adds a whole new dimension of engagement and interaction by not just broadcasting messages out to a mass audience but also interacting with customers and listening to what they have to say. There are various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat etc.

6) Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing tools used by various e-commerce sites and retail brands for pushing seasonal promotions and discounts. Email newsletters can also be used to ‘nurture’ prospects by giving a lot of value beyond just pushing products and services.

7) Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing involves providing an existing audience by partnering with influencers like celebrities, experts, authority figures.

8) Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing involves the promotion of the products by outsourcing to other individuals or companies in return for a commission. It is a common activity for various bloggers and e-commerce sites 

9) Video Marketing 

Video Marketing includes creating bespoke content for the firm's digital channels using a short clip or a longer format, educational or entertaining, pre-recorded or streamed live, in real-time. 

10) Audio Marketing 

Audio Marketing includes podcasts and smart home assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Home, even those on music platforms like Spotify.

Digital Marketer 

Digital promoting isn’t near to basic promoting ways however conjointly creatively execution. Understanding what Digital marketers do may be a smart place to start. Digital Marketers build awareness and generate leads through digital channels. A few of the digital channels include:

• Company websites 

• Social media program 

• Rankings 

• Email promoting 

• Online show ads

• Company blogs 

• Newsletters

Skills of a Digital Marketer

Today's technology-driven economy dictates marketers and entrepreneurs to know more about digital marketing. It is a career that incorporates traditional marketing, web design, SEO, social media marketing, content writing, and much more, so the traits required to succeed are many and varied. 

With many firms enforcing digital marketing strategies and hiring digital marketing professionals, how would Digital Marketer set themselves apart from the competitors? Here are a few of the skills which a Digital Marketer must possess. 

1) SEO & SEM

It’s the hundred and one of any digital promoting campaign or content management initiative. Understanding however SEO and SEM affect the online efforts can help to figure with the remainder of a digital team while not trying such as the square measure within the wrong business. 

2) Video

Having an associate degree understanding of the way to write scripts, use the platforms and apps to make videos, and what works in videos can raise the firm's attractiveness once applying for digital promoting jobs. 

3) Content

Promoting Content is what’s accustomed to attract and interact with customers whether or not it’s a website, video, social media or blogging. It {can also|also will|can even|may also|may} entail something individuals can access online knowledge 

4) Data & Analytics

Observation campaigns and applying findings supported shopper behaviour can help to come back up with higher solutions which will increase conversions and drive traffic style 

5) Designing

Designing is crucial because it teaches corporations how best to have interaction with customers, however, on the far side, it ensures that their online experiences square measure easy and effective. 

Ways to do Digital Marketing

1) Social Media Platforms 

Social media platforms enable marketers to achieve their prospects in a myriad of ways. First, promoting groups will use these channels to distribute paid ads and sponsored content. Every platform includes a method for promoting groups to make paid ad campaigns and phase users thus these ads seem on the feeds of target market members. 

2) Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click may be a kind of paid advertising that enables promoting groups to basically purchase traffic to their website. Marketers place ads on websites or search engines like Google and Microsoft Bing and pay a fee on every occasion the ad is clicked on. These ads usually seem at the highest of the search results page and are generally determined by bids on specific keywords, whereas banner ads on websites typically have set costs.  

3) Affiliate Marketing

Promoting it involves operating with outside people or corporations beneath the agreement that they promote the product in exchange for a commission from every sale which will be attributed to their efforts. This can be how to chop down on prices and source a number of the work of promotion.

Conclusion 

Digital promoting platforms measure nice resources as brands arrange to be gifted across a mess of channels and guarantee this presence is driving the price. Tools like promoting Evolution’s single closed-loop platform alter marketers to live and optimize promoting performance, sales, and engagement by providing a holistic read into the success of a campaign at each touchpoint. With the power to trace granular knowledge like media exposures, sales, and geolocation, it is easier to derive unjust insights which will inform choices and guide promoting efforts within the future. Before choosing a platform, goals and KPIs must be confirmed to search out the platform that covers the proper practicality to align along with the business wants, hence mastering the ability to market digitally!