Creating a viral marketing campaign, while not difficult, does take careful planning. You must be strategic and clearly define your goal (or goals) as well as the means you will use to achieve them. Here are a few simple steps to follow that will guide you through the process of creating and devising your viral marketing campaign.
Step 1: Clearly define your goals.
What is it you are trying to achieve? Are you trying to attain a certain number of click-thrus? Are you trying to grow your customer base? Or simply attract visitors to your site? No matter what the goal, you must know what it is before you can achieve it.
Step 2: Choose which outlets you will use.
Do you plan to employ social media to apply your viral marketing messaging to? Will you focus on your blog as a means to get your message across? Or will you submit articles to multiple directories in hopes of driving traffic? No way is better than the other, but try to choose at least 3 means of viral marketing, ensuring that each approach is unique, yet compliments the others.
For example, if you write a blog post as part of your viral marketing campaign, you can then drive people to read the post by tweeting about it, as well as emailing the link to your list.
Another example might be, if you create a video and post it on YouTube, you can drive traffic to the video by sending the link as a download or embedding it on your Facebook wall.
Step 3: Carefully craft your message.
Once you know what your message is going to be, it will be much easier to know how to apply it depending on the outlets you plan to employ. In other words, say you set out to write an article. Once you know the title, you can then craft that title into 140 characters or less for Twitter, and post a slightly longer description on Facebook.
Do you see how this all weaves together so beautifully? That is why viral marketing has become such a strong force to be reckoned with in and among the online business community. It truly is a powerful way of communicating, of advertising and of doing business. Now, more than ever before, we have the ability to communicate in real-time in such a way that carries a single message to millions within seconds.
While marketing in general has its limitations, the possibilities are endless. It’s up to you to make the most of your messaging and turn your target market into paying customers. And remember, its not only about them. It’s about who they are willing to share your message, your product, your business with. That is the essence of viral marketing. Keep this gold rule in mind and you will be on the path to success… or to going “viral” as they say.