One of the promising ways to promote goods and services on the market is viral marketing. Viral advertising can be presented in the form of a funny, funny or shocking video, flash cartoon, game, photo, where the link to the advertised site is somehow displayed on the object.
Viral marketing is based on the voluntary interest of people in transmitting a marketing message to other users and thus creating the potential to increase the impact of this message.
For the first time the concept of "viral marketing" was used in 1996 by Jeffrey Rayport, who suggested that viral advertising can become the most effective advertising due to its effect on the consumer’s subconscious, on his emotions, and most importantly, it does not require significant costs and time from the company.. He turned out to be right: today, in all developed countries, viral marketing has gained immense popularity.
Internet Marketing Without a Budget: Tips for Implementing It
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to attract visitors to your site. Moreover, you can master Internet marketing without a budget at all by independently attracting potential customers to the site. What do I need to do?
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First and foremost, create a quality product or service that allows your website visitors to express themselves. As the best incentive for advertising, your creativity, which was created on the basis of some cool service for a friend or acquaintance, can serve.
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You must have a clear promotion strategy. Waiting a long time for a project to launch, then emailing a few friends, tweeting about the launch, and hoping it all just happens is stupid.
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Determine who your target audience is. To do this, you should describe the representatives of your target audience in great detail so that the formulation of advertising messages is done taking into account their interests and tastes. For record keeping, you can use Google Docs, where you need to record what works and what does not.
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Use some exclusivity before launch: pre-registration, invite-only access, etc.
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Consider partnering with other companies. To do this, you can create a special promotional code for providing a discount or special conditions to track performance.
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You can also try to arrange some kind of competition. This can help you get "shares" and reviews about your product or service.
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For those who are targeting Western audiences, hold an interesting offline event like Creative Mornings.
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Also, to attract a Western audience, publish a few posts and comments about your startup on Reddit and Quora.
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You can google the search phrases that bring users to your site and try to leave comments on the sites issued by the system for your queries.
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Find out what sites your target audience regularly visits and write a few articles for these resources.
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Reach out to a coexisting audience with a request to be recommended to someone.
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Shoot more video content.
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Try to find out who your first thousand customers are in order to accurately determine your audience.
Viral Internet Marketing Video
Creation and spread of the virus
It has been proven that consumer confidence in viral advertising is much greater compared to traditional advertising, since the principle of viral marketing is that a person who receives an advertising and informational message must be sure that it was sent by a user who is not interested in advertising.. For example, a person who hears positive information about a product from a friend is likely to decide to purchase it. And, on the contrary, having seen an advertisement for this product on TV, the consumer will ignore it, because there is a widespread belief that advertising overestimates the quality of the product.
- Viral marketing on the Internet will work effectively only if the created “virus" is able to evoke vivid emotions in the target audience. Only in this case, the user will want to share this “virus” with friends. Here it is necessary to accurately guess the preferences and expectations of the target audience so that the virus spreads quickly enough. The more unusual, interesting and creative the viral content is, the more successful it will be.
- Once a “virus” has been created, you need to think about how to spread it on the Internet, or “sow”, as viral marketers say. Forums, social networks, communities usually act as channels of "sowing". The success of the spread of the “virus” depends on the right channels.
- When the “virus” is “sowed”, the process of its distribution among Internet users will begin. But the problem is that it spreads at a very low speed. To correct this shortcoming and speed up the distribution process, users often join in – “activators”, “experts”, “unifiers”. “Activators” are users who are able to convince others of their own point of view, “unifiers” are people with a wide network of contacts, and “experts” are people who always have interesting and useful information available.
The main highlight of Internet marketing is the principle of trust: for the voluntary distribution of advertising information by users, it is necessary that this information be obtained from sources that users have confidence in.
So, a message sent by some unknown man, most likely, will not cause any interest. And if the “virus” is received from a friend or close acquaintance of the user, then for sure the person who received this “virus” will follow the link to see what is so interesting there.
A successful viral advertising campaign contributes to a huge surge of interest in the site and the creation of a buzz effect not only on the Internet, but also in the offline sphere. The natural result of a viral campaign is increased brand popularity and increased sales or orders.