A guide to creating your next viral campaign

How To Create A Viral Campaign
That Gets Your Message
Spread To The Masses
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you had a message that really took off and got everyone talking. But creating content that can go Viral is more than just a matter of luck.
So what is the secret to achieve a successful viral marketing campaign?
There are so many videos, images and posts shared on the internet that grabbing and holding the attention of your prospects is increasingly difficult.
Getting into their mindframe and finding out what makes them tick is the best place to start. You need to consider how your content will be received… will they laugh, feel relieved, or be impressed? I’ve mentioned before about looking at emotional triggers and how they affect people’s decision making.
Read on to consider the following 5 factors before launching your campaign >>
Use Trigger Events
Consider relating your message or content to a specific event that can be tied back to your business. So for example, what could be your equivalent of the Coca-Cola truck at Christmas, or even National Hug A Plumber Day?
Take look at the Year Ahead website to get ideas and inspiration for events that could tie into your message or offer.
Try and Appeal to People’s Emotions
Creating a truly viral campaign will often be powered by touching and affecting the emotions of your prospects, more than simply relying on the function of your message.
The Persil Dirt is Good pledge encourages children to spend more time playing outside ans uses videos that tug at your heart-strings.
This video looks inside the mind’s of prison inmates to find out exactly how much their outdoor time means to them.
It may not be possible to produce something on the same scale – Persil has a huge budget – but it’s a great example of how to transform the appeal of an everyday item using emotions and sentiment.
Make Your Content Highly Share-able
An excellent example of a shared viral video is by a business called Blendtec. Their Will It Blend campaign not only showed the product in(unusual) use, but also remained simple and cost effective
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It seems that the more public something is, the more likely people will imitate it.
Louboutin make designer shoes, instantly recognisable by their red soles. This is copied and replicated by many, yet still women want the real deaL.
Keep It Personal By Telling Stories
Create a story for your business or product and take your customers on a journey. Do you have a strong purpose or driving force behind why you started your business? Innocent Smoothies were a start-up with an authentic brand story and created a clear, friendly way of positioning themselves. Watch their ‘tastes good, does good’ video
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Deliver Great Personal Value
Buzzfeed’s ‘life hacks’ is a high-profile example. How often have you seen this type of content shared in your Facebook feed or on Pinterest? The key to this type of idea or campaign is ‘news you can use’ – so look to inform and educate your prospects (rather than try to inspire your readers) and your content will be more practical and effective and make their lives better or easier!
Whatever stage you’ve reached with your content marketing, don’t be too hard on yourself if something you produce doesn’t achieve nationwide acclaim!
You must make sure that every time your customers and prospects hear from you, it is helpful, informative, largely about them, and delivers real value, then good things will come to you sooner or later.
2 Comments
James Walker
22nd July 2016Thank you most sincerely for your excellent information newsletters and updated received weekly. We are quite busy as a small company but do not have teh wherforall to employ reliable and quality staff at present. Hopefully by the end of September we will be in a position to look at your services in depth with a view to taking on quality marketing. Employing honest reliable staff will be the next challenge.
Kind Regards
James Walker
Richard Lomax
22nd July 2016Hi James, thanks for the great feedback – much appreciated!
Good luck with your staff search, and we’ll speak soon.
Regards, Richard