10 Super Viral Marketing Ideas


 

 

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is an amazing thing. It can take a small business to places they’ve never imagined. There are various types of viral marketing campaigns, from as simple as a video on YouTube to very extensive and detailed multi-media campaigns that include online and offline elements. I just want to hit a few ideas that came to my mind while thinking about this topic.

Video on YouTube

You’ve most likely seen some viral videos on YouTube that even made it to main stream TV shows. Videos like this. How do they do it? How can you apply it to your business? You just need to dedicate a couple of hours of brain storming with your fellow workers friends or family. Think of something extreme that has to do with your business that any person would find fascinating. Just get together and start spitting out ideas, write them down and continue to grow on those ideas. Develop an idea for a video that will be shockingly amazing, scary, gross, etc. Make sure that the concept you come up with will not turn your customers away.

More Advanced Viral Marketing Ideas

Taking ideas from some Viral Marketing I’ve seen and experienced here is a list of things that you can incorporate into the campaign.

  1. Create a story.
    First you’ll need to develop a story. Some kind of fictional event that you can lead people to by having them follow various clues spread throughout various media like websites, newspapers, phone messages and etc.
  2. Setup a set of websites that follow the theme of the story.
    Clues, continuation of the story, support or controversy can keep the followers interested as they continue on their hunt for clues throughout the websites and blogs.
  3. Twitter messages.
    Drop clues to follow the character on Twitter where other clues and the story can continue to develop.
  4. Facebook profiles.
    Character Facebook profiles with biography and other information about the character can also establish the character’s role and personality.
  5. Video recordings.
    Video messages posted on websites and YouTube should play a big role in a Viral Marketing campaign.
  6. Dropping a USB drive
    Nine Inch Nails Viral Marketing campaign used this element in their 2007 Year Zero album. A USB drive was found at a concert in Barcelona. It contained 2 files on it, one was a track “Me, I’m not” and the second file was an MP3 track of static. After analyzing the track through a spectrogram a phone number was found. The message recording at that phone number revealed a website URL.
  7. International sites that give clues and information.
    Creating pages supporting the main story on international websites in various languages would create excitement because not everyone speaks Japanese for instance so a search for an interpreter would create more suspense as everyone waits for the translation.
  8. Forums.
    Sharing of the information and clues as well as discussions on a forum would unite the followers.
  9. Message phone numbers.
    A couple of phone numbers can be setup with a recorded message that gives clues or information in another offline aspect that will make this more of a realistic experience.
  10. Actors & conventions.
    If this can be pulled off it would be even more realistic. Hiring of actors that can perform a part of the story in front of a crowd will make it that much more exciting.

I am sure that much, much more can be added to these ideas. Please add to them in the comments if you have any.

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5 Responses to “10 Super Viral Marketing Ideas”

  1. valiik  on October 23rd, 2008

    Codes, sequences and puzzles is another one you can use for Viral Marketing.

  2. T-Enterprise  on October 24th, 2008

    We at T-Enterprise are fond of using Flash Games as a form of Viral Marketing. You can have some fun playing a game based around a company or product, while still getting your message out ther.

    Viral Marketing is becoming more and more popular and something that a lot of companies are looking into as part of a bigger marketing campaign.

    A good viral marketing campaign can pull in a lot of new interest to your website or product which you might not otherwise have been able to gain using convensional methods of marketing.

  3. Scott Green  on January 9th, 2009

    Brainstorming, ideas and getting the message across is definitely the most important part of an effective web viral.

    It’s not just about making things llok good which is something I personally have come to realise. This is an area that I have personaly been developing recently. The ideas and story part doesn’t come so easily for me but I hope to work on ideas for a viral to help promote my website (http://www.splurj.com) this year.

    If anybody has any suggestions, or would even like to collab, I’d love to hear from you.

  4. Jason Verdelli  on March 18th, 2009

    One of the best viral marketing ideas is to market through relationships online. Give people an incentive to forward your information onto others and automate and streamline the process. Give the person forwarding the incentive a better discount or offer than the person they are sending to is going to receive. Be sure to put the necessary links in the email of the person receiving the email back to the original site where you are offering them the incentive to the person forwarding the message. Sounds sort of complicated, but it flat out works and you can grow a great qualified email database in the process. I came across a website that does something like this, http://www.forwardmyflyer.com. They have developed a program that does something like this.

    Any thoughts of ways on viral marketing through email marketing?

  5. Marketing Success  on July 23rd, 2009

    I’ve been browsing through your site, and it is very interesting and very informative. I enjoed reading it thanks for posting :)


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