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Important Viral Marketing Lessons from AllState’s Bergwood.Net Campaign
October 5, 2008 · Print This Article · Comments
Chances are you’re guaranteed to fail at viral marketing, if you don’t look at it in the right way. It involves creativity and timeliness. Creativity to invoke the participation of your target; timeliness to be at the right place at the right time with the right message. There are viral experts who have the “gift,” the ability to just get it and get it magically. The rest of us just need to work at it a little harder.
Big agencies call it viral marketing, digital interactive marketing, interactive promotional marketing, or promotions, and a host of other fancy names - the distinctive lines classifying online marketing campaigns is not as clear as it used to be. Whatever you call them, online viral campaigns typically have many components as drivers to success. It’s no longer enough to market or direct traffic to a video. You need to influence your audience, you need to interact with your audience, and not just with a sales pitch. That’s why “online, interactive, promotional, viral, marketing” works so well. If you do it well, your audience likely doesn’t even feel as though they are being marketed to. Not only that, they happily share the love with their peers.
That, my friend is what viral marketing is all about. It’s much more than just sticking a video online and hoping people share it. In the land of the big boys, it’s a fully digital, interactive, promotional campaign. One that entices an entire group of people, hopefully a large portion of your target audience, to interact and participate - ultimately leading them to interact with your company. Sound grandiose for the average online business?
Not really. While you won’t have the million dollar budget that most Corporations have, you can certainly take inspiration and serious lessons from their most successful campaigns. Just realize what would work for your company and your audience, and get creative.
That’s what AllState has done successfully, among others. Watching other successful campaigns can help you innovate viral marketing solutions for your own online success. These are the “must understands” for online businesses looking to develop a viral marketing campaign - large and small - these will keep you on track.
It’s not just advertising stupid!
AllState’s Bergwood.net viral campaign is a perfect example of getting the concept, viral marketing or any kind of online marketing today, can not be centered around advertising. It has to be a means for having your brand interact with it’s audience at a different level. Once you go beyond advertising and start offering value to your audience, you’ll start to see greater returns on any online viral marketing campaign you offer. You’ll see great interaction, greater relationships building, and a better perception on your brand overall.
Lesson: Stop shoving advertising and promotions down your audience’s throat, you’ll get a lot farther in building your sales online.
It’s not just about the sale!
Some of the best online viral marketing campaigns do not directly generate immediate sales, although eventually they do. Many focus on lead generation, with a much bigger goal of generating quality leads through relationship building. AllState has done a great job of building the right relationship with a huge segment of it’s potential buying audience - tying it all to the craze and beast of sporting fanatics - fans and rivals.
Lesson: Relationships first, pitch last.
It’s about personality!
All successful viral campaigns are also based on that strange thing called personality. Not necessarily your’s but the one that your audience can uniquely and intimately connect with. Take the AllState campaign, Bergwood is the quisessential male fanatic with dreams of hitting the pro’s - as unlikely as that may be - his travels and antics have amused hundreds of thousands of sporting fanatics — leading them directly into the hands of building a relationship with AllState’s brand.
Lesson: Don’t be afraid to show your personality and connect with your audience.
You and your company actually need to participate!
Yep, it’s true. You and your company absolutely need to participate in the actual act of building the relationship. Period. AllState’s current campaign and online activities are a super example of participating. Not only are they actively managing their brand in social media, but they also focus on the interaction while subtly collecting leads that give them permission to connect, not market. The marketing comes later and at more appropriate times. But you better bet that when the marketing does come, they’ll have a much easier time calling their audience to action.
Lesson: Authentic participation grants you access to connect, serving all your marketing purposes later.
Viral Marketing is more than sending massive traffic to a video!
Most online businesses consider viral marketing the act of producing some funny video, optimizing it and driving massive amounts of traffic to it. No, no my friend. An enormously successful campaign is much more complex, with video simply being a tool in the arsenal of promoting the overall campaign.
Take the AllState campaign, not only did they draw massive amounts of traffic to Bergwood’s antic videos, they also have a complete social media campaign, digital interactive components that entice audience participation, and even developed grass-root activities that encouraged local relationship building. In other words, the AllState campaign went well beyond one or two components to a total package that benefits the company on many levels.
Lesson: You need an entire campaign, not just a video.
Your viral campaign should serve more than one purpose!
AllState’s campaign inevitably serves many purposes for the company, at national and local levels. Online brand building, local and national relationship building for the company and agents, increase in buyer loyalty, quality lead generation, and much more. For a successful viral campaign to pay off, you need to reap benefits across the entire sphere of your online presence. That’s leverage.
Lesson: Seek to benefit in many ways from your online viral campaign.
Read more about AllState’s current online campaigns:
The Official Bergwood site - Where the magic happens. You can also search for Bergwood or AllState in Google and watch the buzz unfold.
AllState Tailgates to Boost Local Ties - Great information about tying your online campaign to building local relationships. Yes, even the little guy can do this.
Jim Tozzi Tackles Viral Campaign for AllState - Notes from the minds behind AllState’s campaign about building a campaign that wasn’t about marketing and more about entertaining.
Other online viral marketing information online:
Wikipedia’s information on Viral Marketing - Great beginner’s information for beginner’s covering the basics.
Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing - From Web Marketing Today, a great article on the very basics of viral marketing. A must read for beginners and pros.
The New Rules of Viral Marketing - Like I said, it’s not just about video. It’s much, much more!
Facebook Publishes Inside Guide to Viral Marketing - TechCrunch takes a look at what Facebook has to say about viral marketing on it’s platform and in general.
Great examples of viral marketing across the Net:
Examples of Good Viral Marketing from The Internet Marketing Bible blog.
Examples of Viral Marketing Campaigns from Dan Zarrella.
Examples of Viral Marketing from Pass It On.
Viral Marketing Examples from PR Move.
Marketing Sherpa’s Viral Marketing Hall of Fame has some of the best examples you can find online.
Top 6 Ideas for Viral Content in Social Media from Technipedia.
The Power of Viral Marketing and Examples from Clickz that show websites to videos that are great examples.
7 Tricks to Viral Web Marketing covers great ways to make something go viral with super examples.
Viral Marketing for the Real World with super examples and actual case studies.
Good Examples of Viral Marketing in Blogs from Social Voice covers more than just video.
Photo Credit(s): Smile4Camera’s on Flickr
Update: More Great Information From Across the Net:
Dan Zarrella’s Viral Marketing CheckList
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A very good resource with an insight into viral marketing. The links for further reference into viral marketing would be too helpful for those who are new to this. Thanx for sharing this wonderful post.
[Reply]
WebSuccessDiva Reply:
October 7th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Thanks so much, that is my hope. Many don’t really get it, but they need to. Viral marketing can work for all businesses large and small
Thanks for stopping by!
[Reply]
nice article bout viral marketing..
thanx..
[Reply]
Nice article by viral marketing but isn’t it long?
[Reply]
WebSuccessDiva Reply:
October 9th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I guess it all depends on your perspective.
I’m about writing good content, not too worried about length
Thanks for stopping by
[Reply]
Thanks for sharing.. Very helpful.
[Reply]