Word of Mouth Marketing Campaigns
We’ve all heard about the death of print media; the death of print and display advertising as we know it. Today’s consumers are so savvy that they have become virtually impervious to ads. They can stream their TV without ads, they can listen to satellite radio without ads, and they can spot traditional forms of display ads from a mile away, and subsequently ignore them.
Here’s the thing; people don’t want to be told what to buy, where to spend their money, or how to live their life anymore, they want to hear about the things they care about through friends, co-workers, and the largest buzz churner of all – the Internet.
Consumers are far more likely to purchase a household item based on a recommendation from their favorite blogger than due to an ad in Good Housekeeping. I don’t know that I ever saw an advertisement about an iPhone prior to its release, but I had read no less than twenty blog entries and articles about it and I had searched for images of it online. And I leapt to attention when the first InfoMedia iPhone arrived in the office.
In light of this, planning a successful word of mouth or viral campaign can to some extent be viewed as a contradictory concept. Internet audiences are fickle fellows; if you attempt to force something to go viral, it will inevitably be stopped cold. Movers and shakers on Digg, StumpleUpon, and other networking sites seem to nurse a genuine disdain for anything too commercial. Come off too salesy, and you’ll be ignored before you’re even out of the gate. A truly successful viral campaign only happens when people have fodder for genuine, active discussion. They want to be talking about it. Desperately.
Therefore, being genuine and acting with sincerity are crucial if you hope to harness the power of viral campaigns.
While there are no guarantees, planning and innovative direction are essential to building conditions for a successful campaign. Think of it this way; while you cannot automatically manifest the storm of attention and traffic of a truly viral campaign, you can create the ideal conditions for that storm. With a unique, genuine, innovative, and exciting idea, there are many specific things you can do to engineer conditions for success.
That being said, you must be wondering, what’s a marketer to do? Well, I have two words for you:
Pay Attention!
Pay a lot of attention. Take note of what you are seeing and reading about. What’s making the front page of Digg? What’s popping up on StumbleUpon? Which video is making Good Morning America’s play list?
When you see commercial campaigns getting attention, go online and research them! If what you see promotes any type of service, product, or saleable item, you are most likely going to find information on the campaign online. Most marketing agencies keep blogs of their projects, often divulging a great deal of information on their campaign creation and approach. Read them! Research their process and apply it to your business and products! I’ve selected five extremely successful campaigns for you to learn more about this month. All take different approaches and tactics, and you are certain to be inspired and notice at least one unique tactic from each.
