Search Engine Optimisation, Online Marketing

Some Viral Marketing agencies would have you believe that commissioning a Viral Marketing Campaign be it Game, Video of Widget (maybe all three), will lead you to the Mecca of Online Marketing. Why focus resources on traditional online marketing when looking at the advantages viral marketing provides as a marketing vehicle:

1. High volumes of targeted traffic
2. Higher than normal ROI
3. Data capture
4. User interaction
5. and has unlimited reach

…As if! While successful viral marketing campaigns can deliver these some if not all of these objectives, too many organisations fail to realise that effective viral marketing and viral marketing best practice are firmly linked to the processes that should govern traditional online marketing vehicles:

1. Creative
2. Relevance
3. Integration
4. Timely
5. Incentive
6. Placement/Positioning

Failing to recognise these points as a client or agency can seriously impact your viral marketing campaign. While all of the points are important the two which I have found effect your viral marketing statistics the most is the creative and the viral seeding (Placement/Positioning) before you do anything the creative has to be right for your audience. Once that is done just like a banner ad or pop up research has to be done to assess where the best place to place your viral ad or send your viral email. Depending on your audience this can vary dramatically I will cover seeding in more depth in my next post.