Back in 17th century England, an average person was unlikely to come across the amount of information found in a weekly issue of the New York Times….in their entire lifetime! Flash forward to the 21st century now. Imagine how much information that is absorbed by an average person today. It’s no wonder why then, that conventional marketing techniques are diminishing in effect and dare I say, becoming obsolete.

More and more companies are convinced that the effectiveness of traditional marketing is not favorable compared to their expenses. People are building a stronger mental filter towards advertisement each day, however, companies still need marketing to generate awareness. Thus, they are turning to unconventional methods which would gain more attention from its viewers.

Viral marketing is a natural evolution of marketing which reduces the amount of “information overload” that we are facing from traditional marketing. It came from a need to capture the attention of viewers to the point of where they would be the main marketers. Think of viral marketing as a “marketer-induced” word of mouth. Organic word of mouth is great because it excites people and creates a natural enthusiasm that they wish to share. Unfortunately, it may take a long time to establish such an effect as well as being out of the company’s hand. Therefore viral marketing encourages word of mouth and accelerates the process.

image credit: www.utalkmarketing.com

The Semi-Usual Suspects: Tools of the Trade and its Methods

(Note: Parts of this information was influenced by the writings of Anneke Loeffen and Leon Oosterwijk about buzz marketing.)

• Influencing the fluencers: Within your niche, some people have more influence than others. Effective use of influencers will accelerate the acceptance of your product and disburse information about it, effectively igniting word of mouth. A popular method in the blogging world would be guest posting. Taking a deeper look at it, getting your post on an influencer’s blog means that the influencer approves of your message and thinks it’s worthy of being posted on his/her site. Furthermore, he/she wants other viewers to notice what you have to say. This could be a doorstep in getting the influencer to recognize you and be a frequent visitor to your site…which brings me to another point, write great content. I cannot stress enough how important your content is. It is that which will drive your blog/site in the long run as well as create buzz. Try not to be intrusive when asking to guest post, but do be honest. Request them to have a look at your writing as politely as possible (Most of them don’t have much time…and will immediate hit the ‘delete’ button or stop reading if you come off as rude and pompous.) and then ask them that if they enjoyed what they read, you would be appreciative to have it posted on his/her site.
• Planting the Seeds: Typically, when companies want to get their name out there, they do what is called seeding. This refers to the technique of handing out their product, or a sample of it, to strategic points of various networks. Seeding gives a strong impression on the company. By being able to hear, touch, and see, they will be more likely to remember your message. In the blogosphere, an example would be the eBook. Handing out an eBook effectively lets the viewer experience your knowledge and they will be intrigued as to what else you have to offer. The effectiveness of this technique depends on the whether your eBook discusses a topic that people are “talking about” (aka of great interest). As a side-effect, seeding will make you come off as being generous, which will relate to the next bullet.
• Events: Creating buzz around your product can be done quite easily with holding events. The more unique or extravagant, the more it will ’stick’, or spread through out the mouths of others. The idea behind holding events is that it will get people talking because of the sole reason that people like to talk about what they are doing (just look at Twitter, for example.). When people run across something unique or extravagant(such as an event), there is a high possibility of them mentioning it. In blogging, we can do this by holding a contest and think of ways to make it unique (By either the prizes or the ways to win the contest.).
• Give your readers a ‘behind the scene’ look: In general, people like to naturally be the first to know of something extraordinary, as well as how things work. Give the reader something along those lines…give them the “inside scoop”.
• Generate scarcity or mystery: In viral marketing, the main focus is spreading the word about your product. At the same time however, you don’t want to spread out too much information, but rather sharing it gradually over time. This all relates to the idea that if something is scare or hard to come by, that it’s probably valuable. Creating mystery piques the viewers interest and makes them curious as to what is ‘under the veil’.

image credit: adam.t.bull.googlepages.com

Viral marketing is all about generating interest in your product and encouraging it to go viral. I discussed the various ways of harnessing viral marketing mainly through blogging examples, however, it can be applied to any medium. Do your research and consider what are the best techniques to get your site out there. I’m sure you’ll find it very rewarding.