Handled well, a B2B viral can engage your audience like no other form of advertising. Misjudge it and it can leave you looking like your dad dancing at the Ministry of Sound.
So, how do you ensure your brand doesn’t end up the laughing stock of YouTube? How do you measure your audience’s reaction, and how do you ensure that your viral well, goes viral?
1. Set brand boundaries
Are there company assets or themes that creative should avoid?
Where are your limits creatively? It can be helpful to review existing virals together with your viral team and discuss what feels right/wrong for your brand/target audience
2. Get stakeholder buy-in early
Many virals are thwarted at the final hour, so set expectations and ensure that everyone understands what makes something viral. Agencies should be prepared to push back if viral factor is being compromised
3. Make your viral fit
Select the right medium for your audience based on how they are networked – video may not be the best option. Consider email content, copy, an image, a game, an audio track, an experiential microsite or SMS.
Viral entertainment that is specific to a niche audience’s views and experiences can have a huge impact because there is so little of it. Ideally spend some time talking to them directly – get a sense for what floats their boat outside of work as well as in their official capacity.
4. Minimise risk
Once viral is set loose, there’s no calling it back. Testing is strongly encouraged. Educate PR/internal employees to eliminate any possible misunderstandings – plus get them behind the viral to maximise impact.
5. Consider a series
Develop a character or format that crosses multiple executions. If you have a limited target universe, doing multiple virals is a good way to maximise impact. It can be cost-effective to produce numerous virals at once – depending on the creative route.
6. Never dupe your audience
Take care when seeding – beware of infiltrating established communities without credibility/with marketing messages. Make sure you comply with word of mouth marketing legislation.
In terms of content, never mislead audiences.
7. Don’t overdo the marketing messages
Typically, the more marketing messages and associations squeezed in, the less viral. Allow users to enjoy content and build positive associations with your brand. Ideally, the punch line and/or and content will embody a key brand/product message. Often a flash at the end is enough.
8. Leverage internal resources
PR, contact data, employee blogs, employee advocacy, competitors – all valuable resources that can boost the success of a viral. Viral can form part of an integrated campaign or it can stand alone.
Depending on how universally appealing the content is, sometimes you can reach your target audience indirectly via a broader audience who forward it to the friends and contacts who will find it particularly relevant.
9. Not just quick and dirty
Yes, viral is cost-effective but don’t expect miracles, and note that there is a lower limit to producing anything with guaranteed view rates. Follow common sense rules: cheap production and no seeding is not a wise strategy. A stronger seeding strategy and increased production budget can really open up the creative options and boost the viral effect. You may want to incorporate viral into an integrated marketing strategy to increase its impact/value and gain efficiencies.
10. Take time when reviewing creative ideas
A chipmunk looks menacingly at the camera. Doesn’t sound like it deserved 14 million hits, and yet
Viral humour (in both B2B and B2C) has a different quality – it is not just a cheap TV ad – so work with specialists who ‘get’ viral. Make effort to view similar viral concepts and get a real sense for what’s being proposed. Remember that you can use the end frame to distance the brand from the content itself. It doesn’t necessarily have to represent your brand values, it may overtly do the opposite.
Ultimately, viral marketing relies on energizing people. The content must be strong enough for viewers to proactively email it to their peers. It must be fresh enough to spark blog entries and PR interest – and compelling enough for people to add comments.
This is certainly no mean feat in B2B, but it is possible – and the rewards are huge. With marketing budgets under increasing pressure and businesses feeling the pinch, viral offers a dose of genuine engagement in a cost-effective, measurable way. And with more and more brands taking the plunge, 2009 looks set to be the year for viral to really mature in the B2B arena.
[email protected]
