Viral marketing refers to online promotional campaigns that (hopefully) spread like a virus. The heart of a viral ad campaign is the content. People don’t spread the ad because they love your brand, they spread it because they can’t help but adore your content. They’re not evangelists serving you, they are self-serving. So, all successful viral ad promos appeal to any one (or all three) of these basic human motivators:

• Appeal #1 Entertainment: Fun, humour, games, quizzes, videos, songs… anything to pass the time not working.

• Appeal #2 Greed: Sweeps entries and other free offers.

• Appeal #3 Charity (and/or fear): You can help save the world. Ask all your friends to sign this online petition/buy this item/visit this Web page daily… etc.

KEY DRIVERS

Driver #1. Because, as we’ve already noted, consumers are fed up with (irrelevant) advertising

Driver #2. Standing out in a cluttered world Uniqueness catches the eye, but is your product really truly unique enough to stand out?

Driver #3. The possibility of outrageous reach If your campaign is a viral hit, you’ll reach far more people than you ever dreamed possible on a fairly moderate budget. As the word “viral” indicates, your campaign can “go viral” ... exploding to hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers. However – and many marketers find this scary – you have almost no control over how many people your campaign will reach or what demographic they’ll be in.

REASONS FOR FALIURE:

Plenty of viral ad campaigns:

• Never really take off.
• Take off at an unexpected velocity (too fast, too slow, too lingering) causing havoc with related hopes, offers and systems.
• Take off in unexpected directions such as other countries or outside your target demographic.

It all depends on the quality of your creative, the expertise behind your seeding campaign, and a walloping dose of luck.

BEST PRACTICE

When used responsibly, viral marketing can be a powerful community-building, brand-building, and list-building tool. Gone wrong, it can result in legitimate campaigns being perceived as spam, reflecting poorly on your company and your brand.