My mother always said "nothing worth doing is easy." Generally good words to live by, but especially practical when it comes to viral marketing. While some of the most talked about viral marketing successes appear to have happened effortlessly, chances are high you'll need to put a lot of time and effort into yours. That's why it's absolutely essential to understand the adage "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."
In this four part series I'll dig beyond the hype of Viral Marketing and look at four key lessons companies need to learn before diving into this style of outreach. Part one covered the need to know your customer and to speak to their desires. Part two talked about the need to be remarkable in either your business or your marketing. Today, we'll look at the hardest commandment to follow; the need to try, try again.
Failure is Not Only an Option, It's Likely
In fact, a Jupiter Research report from last year claims just 15% of viral campaigns are ever deemed "successful." Granted, success measurements vary by company, but that's still an extraordinarily low figure. Imagine if only 15% of your other marketing plans were successful. It wouldn't take long before your marketing department or agency was out of a job.
Viral marketing works in a completely different way. It's a calculated risk designed to back load time and energy into the creation of the idea rather than the spread of the idea. Most successful viral campaigns cost less than more traditional campaigns because despite increased creative costs, there's virtually no need for an ad placement budget.
That means companies that committ to viral marketing need to view it as an ongoing process and they need to know the odds are working against them. They also need to see it as a numbers game. A big company might devote $2 million a piece on 6 viral attempts knowing that if they play the odds and one takes, their $12 million investment will still be on par with a more traditional campaign. A small company might choose to invest $250 a piece on 6 viral attempts knowing that if they play the odds and one takes, their $1500 investment will likely go much further than a single ad spend of that amount would.
Every Attempt Improves Your Odds
That may sound disheartening to companies looking to cash in on easy viral success. (Fair enough, as easy viral success isn't something you cash in on, it's something you thank your lucky stars for.) The truth is, the high rate of failure for viral options is actually something your company may want to embrace.
You see, viral marketing is a whole other beast from traditional advertising. There's generally more space for experimentation, more space for taking chances and more space for screw-ups. That means you can push the envelope a bit and try things you might not otherwise get a chance to try.
The reason this is good is because each attempt gives you data to analyze. Back in part one of this series, I explained the need to know your customer. The challenge here is even when you know them, you don't always know how to communicate with them.
Launching a viral attempt gives you the chance to see how your audience reacts to your message. You can run searches to follow the conversation, taking note of the good and the bad. You can segment your analytics to see which types of sites sent the most visitors to the campaign and which types of sites sent the most engaged visitors.
Based on the data you gather from these attempts, you can fine tune your campaign, your message and even your launch points to increase the chances of your next campaign succeeding.
Every Attempt Improves Your Business
What it really boils down to with repeat viral marketing attempts is the impact it can have on your business. If part of your challenge is to figure out what your customers want and to find ways to be remarkable...you're not just helping your campaign; you're helping improve your business.
When Dell went on a mission to turn the tide of the Dell Hell messages sweeping the web, they had to closely look at the changes they needed to make as a company. It wouldn't have been enough for Dell to simply launch new ads or lower prices. They were forced to examine the very core of their business model, including their customer service and corporate outlook. Once they began listening to consumers and seeking out ways to be remarkable, things began to fall into place.
Dell has now enjoyed one of the strongest resurgances in online popularity since bloggers first began tearing companies down.
This is exactly what you need to be considering with your own business. When you ask questions like these:
What does my customer really want?
Am I deliverying what my customer wants?
What do my customers not like about me?
What do my customers really like about me?
What motivates my customer
...you arm yourself with the information you need to transform your business. That's why it's so essential that companies view viral attempts as part of their business development and not just another marketing channel.
Coming Up...
In the final installment I'll be looking at the need to tie your message into your viral campaigns. After all, it's not just about chalking up a score on the wall, it's about bringing in new business.
This week I've been looking at the speakers from Search Engine Strategies in San Jose. I first covered a handful of featured speakers and then moved on to the search marketers themselves. I've found that that many of us in the industry are good at teaching things that need to be done but often overlook those very things when it comes to our own stuff. I'm no exception, of course, as Jackie pointed out in the comments yesterday.
Jordan Kasteler Overstock.com
I started my search for Jordan with his name. Topping the list in the first two spots is Jordan's personal SEO site. Next is Jordan's LinkedIn page, followed by an interview on another blog. The rest of the results are all Jordan centric with various profiles and interview links. Jordan had done a fantastic job branding himself and tying it in with his Utah SEO Pro site. Unfortunately that doesn't provide much benefit to his employer, Overstock.com, who I assume pays his way to these shows. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I'm going to skip the search for the company name as I'm sure we all know how that will turn out.
Jill Whalen High Rankings
Jill has been a household name in the industry for just about as long as the industry existed. It's no surprise, then that a search for her name produces results that are all about her. Her company with sitelinks appears in the top position with her newsletter page coming up in number two. Next is her wikipedia page and then several profile pages, blog posts and interviews.
What I'm most surprised about is that Jill also dominates the top results for her business name. Not because she shouldn't, but because her business name is also a generic keyword, in a sense. The first two spots are taken by her site, with sitelinks, and then her forum. Jill has two more spots on the first page with the rest going to various pages discussing how to get high rankings.
Randy Pickard User Centric Inc.
Looking for Randy Pickard in Google isn't as clean as the previous two. There isn't anything that immediately jumps out at me as ensuring me that the Randy I'm looking for is actually in these results. I actually have to click around to see if I've found the right guy.
I did find him in the second position which linked to his profile in a business directory. The next few results are various profiles, but it's difficult to know if any of these are the Randy we are looking for. Some make vague references to marketing so it's likely him, but I just don't know. There is a definite 9th spot result that leads to Randy's Search Engine Strategies profile. Again, in these results there is nothing that might lead me to Randy's company, User Centric.
That leads me to perform searches for the company name. The search produces the company in the top spot, but because that the company name here is also a general keyword, none of the rest of the results appear to be relevant.
While Randy can obviously be found with either search, a lot can be done to improve his branding in the search results.
William Flaiz Avenue A | Razorfish
First results for William's name, if you spell it correctly, is his Search Engine Watch profile followed by a recent article he's written on the same site. Next up are several profile pages, what appears to be a personal blog and a few other miscellaneous posts. There is but one lone link to a PDF on the Avenue A | Razorfish website.
Next I performed a search for the company name, or rather, a part of the company name, "avenue a". Not suprisingly they take the top spot immediately followed by a wikipedia page and then a link to their parent company, aQuantitive. Two more of the top ten results reference the company with the rest going out to different companies and products by the same name.
A third search, this time for "razorfish" produces results more dominated by the company. In fact, all 10 results have something or other to do with the company or its employees (or ex-employees in one case).
Conclusion
Well, I think that will wrap this series up for this year. It seems that many search marketers are doing a far better job branding themselves in the search results than they were last year. Overall I found fewer gaps and almost all were much easier to find. Last year I remember having to perform several searches just to find some of the people I was looking for. Not so this year, where most were readily found, and in the top spots.
This either means that search marketers are paying better attention to their own names or that search engines are doing a better job and finding them. Or a combo of both.
I scan hundreds of feeds and read dozens of articles each day so you don't have to. From changes to Google AdWords' Quality Score to hyperlocal search to back to school viral videos, find out the six articles I dubbed as must-read for the small business crowd today.
Carrie Hill puts together a nice post called "SEM Success in 10 Minutes a Day" over at Search Engine Watch. Carrie taps into the small business time challenge and points out ten different things you can do in just ten minutes a day that will help improve your site. It's a good reminder that SEO isn't a job you have to do all at once. Schedule a little time each day and you WILL see improvement.
There's an article in the Washington Post this week that looks at how companies of all sizes are utilizing the Blogosphere. From corporations as large as Marriott to small businesses the size of a local ice cream shop...blogs are being creatively used to build brand loyalty and to tap a small customer base for ideas. Well worth the read. (Hat Tip to Matt McGee over at SEM Clubhouse.)
Miriam Ellis plays up to the tinfoil hat tendancies of us all with a post suggesting you Google-proof your house by erecting camera blocking hedges. Having just discovered my own house in my very small town now has a "street view" I can tell you, I'm with her. The post is tongue in cheek, but only to an extent. Does leaving me wondering just how far this will go before the world finally tells Google to back the heck off.
Matt McGee, the man of a million blogs, has launched a new five-part series on his Hyperlocal Blog about writing....hyperlocal blogs. Follow Matt's thought process as he explains how he's helping his wife launch multiple local blogs as a marketing tactic for her real estate business.
John Jantsch has a great post on Office Max's back to school viral video series "Penny Pranks." If you haven't seen them yet, check this one out and then click through to YouTube to watch the series. Yes, this one was done by a big business, but it's yet another great example of a viral attempt that could have been pulled off by almost anyone.
Google is once again updating the AdWords Quality Score system and your accounts may be affected. John over at PPC Hero offers up the scoop on the removal of the minimum bid feature and shares his thoughts on how it might impact AdWords advertiers.
Sage unleashes his endorsement for Search Engine Guide's Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference that is coming to Columbus, OH this September 22-23. Day one is full of general sessions to get your feet wet in everything from site architecture to blogging for business and link building; day two dives you down deep into hands-on workshops such as viral marketing, copywriting and usability. Sage's favorite aspect about SBMU is how intimate the environment is. With only 100 attendees, everyone meets everyone and you learn more. Check it out at SBMU.com.
We all know the viral campaigns that travel the furthest and carry the most impact tend to be the ones that leave the greatest impressions. Viral campaigns are, by their very nature, remarkable. Otherwise they wouldn't carry the emotional impact required to make us pass them on. With that known, the challenge becomes whether or not you should build a remarkable campaign or a remarkable company.
In this three part series I'll dig beyond the hype of Viral Marketing and look at three key lessons companies need to learn before diving into this style of outreach. Part one covered the need to know your customer and to speak to their desires. Today's article will talk about the need to be remarkable.
Why Remarkable Matters
Think about the number of items you use in a month. The number of people you meet, the number of meals you eat, the number of clothes you wear. As humans, we experience an absolute overload of exposure to people, places and things on a daily basis. We absorb far too much for all of it to have a lasting impression. It's why we have favorites.
Favorite people. Favorite foods. Favorite outfits. Favorite movies. To really catch our eye, things have to be remarkable. So why does the average business expect things to be any different? Yes, you've got a good shot at running a solvent business by coasting along somewhere close to average. After all, we all wear the outfit that isn't our favorite when the laundry is piled up. Every last one of us has eaten a bowl of cereal for dinner because it takes too long to make something we'd rather eat.
And yes, someone will shop at your company even if there's absolutely nothing extraordinary about it.
But you won't go viral unless you're remarkable.
Build a Remarkable Message
When Volkswagon decided to shift the focus of their commercials from "hey, we're what the cool kids drive" to "hey, we're the car that keeps you and your friends safe" they did it in a remarkable way. While certain car companies (like Volvo and producers of minivans) have always put an emphasis on "crash test ratings," few car makers had been willing to depict a non-slow motion crash in a commercial. After all, no one wants to buy the car they've just seen get in an accident.
Or do they?
Volkswagon's "Safe Happens" commercials created sort of a love it or hate it reaction among marketing critics and consumers. The spots were fairly jarring, especially the first time you saw one, but all did a remarkable job of getting across a message. "Car crashes happen. VW drivers walk away."
While the commercials sparked both positive and negative feedback, the results were indisputable. Within three weeks of launching the commercials, brochure requests rose dramatically and online quote requests rose 59%.
Volkswagon's campaign worked because it was remarkable. It took a concept that had been used for decades (our cars are safe) and presented it in a way no one ever had (we'll scare the daylights out of you and make you feel REALLY uncomfortable). While the ads could have backfired, they were remarkable enough to have worked.
Of course there's nothing that says you have to create a remarkable campaign. Sometimes the most remarkable viral success stories are the ones that are consumer sparked in response to a remarkable company.
Build a Remarkable Company
Sometimes you're stuck with a product that isn't very interesting, like ball bearings. Sometimes you're stuck with a company that has neither the time, nor money to put toward creating remarkable advertising. That's ok. It doesn't mean your company can't or won't experience viral success. It simply means you need to stock up on your Seth Godin philosophy and focus on making your company remarkable.
One of the single best examples of this strategy is online retailer Zappos. What launched as an online shoe store less than a decade ago is expected to generate one billion in sales this year. Even more remarkable is how that growth happened.
Zappos relies almost exclusively on repeat business and word of mouth marketing. In fact, more than 60% of their sales come from repeat buyers. The companies growth is mostly credited to the sheer remarkableness of the company. Aside from offering free shipping and free returns on all orders, (allowing customers to try products on before buying at no extra cost) Zappos also empowers their customer service agents to create a great experience for buyers.
Zappos has done such a good job of building a remarkable company the web is simply full of customers singing their praises. In fact, the now famous "I Heart Zappos" post may be one of the most impressive odes to Zappos' corporate philosophy, but you'll also find fan stories here, here, here and here. (And that's just what I found in three minutes of searches.
Granted, it's far more work to build a remarkable company than it is to build a remarkable campaign, but the results last longer.
Coming up...
In part three of this series, I'll take a look at the third commandment of viral marketing: Thou shalt try, try again. After all, marketing is a never ending process. What doesn't work this time, may well provide you the clues you need to run the perfect campaign next time.
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'We asked for a search marketing program two days before Thanksgiving and it was up and running before the holiday. What else can I say? Good work and thanks.'
Nick Polumbus,
Marketing Manager
Killington Resort
Rock Coast Media, Inc. • 38 Merrimac St, Suite 203, Newburyport, MA 01950 • Phone: (978) 499-0069 • Fax: (978) 477-4782
