Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is more of an art form than a science. It is a discipline that focuses on creating buzz for a product or service either online, offline or both. One of the most famous examples of Viral Marketing is Hotmail mail service. Hotmail gave away free email, but required that every email that went out have a link to get a free Hotmail account at the bottom of the email. As more people used the free service and sent more email, more sign-up for Hotmail links were distributed - free.
Viral marketing is it's own animal as it requires intimate product knowledge, stealth and trust in your viral marketing provider because it is difficult to track and optimize.
Here are some typical approaches to Viral Marketing:
- Create good relevant content in the form of articles, blog or RSS feed. Distribute it to other sites so that they link back to you.
- Generate press releases and post on the online PR sites on a regular basis.
- Read and post relevant, informative information on bulletin boards with links to your product.
- Create stand alone websites that promote your product/service in a different voice that can be used as a "third party" information source.
- Interact with opinion leaders in the blogsphere to get endorsements or mentions of your product/service.
- Hire a company to engaged your core market where they hand out; bars, nightclubs, baseball games, concerts, etc.
- Hire a company to engage in event marketing - creating and attending events that promote your product.
Brand Digital has some experience and expertise in online Viral Marketing, but are not experts on the channel. However, we have relationships with Viral Marketing companies and can bring them in if the strategy calls for it.