The power of viral effect marketing

Being top of mind requires more effort today than it ever has before. Consumers today are less concerned with what is relevant to the masses but are more drawn to what is trending amongst their peers and their own close knit communities. So brands have to really earn the stamp of peer to peer credibility that comes with a customer choosing to share or recommend your product or service message.

Going viral, be it through word or mouth or social media is the responsibility of every department within a business value chain and is not sole responsibility the marketing department.

As we have seen in recent history, some businesses go viral for the wrong reasons. Steinhof, Momentum and Clicks are just a few of the most recent examples of how a legal, administration or design decision can land a brand being in hot waters. Because people can now share almost any experience online; they tend to do so. Particularly if the experience falls on the far end of spectrums labelled as either good or bad. A customer service, product quality or administration mishap can find the attention of millions of people online, so it is important that everyone in the business is a part of marketing and communications value chain.

To increase your probability of going viral, for the right reasons, your brand must remain relevant with current trending topics while effectively communicating your value proposition. To go viral means that your marketing content has to evoke a positive emotional response in your target audience, to such an extent that they feel that they can take ownership of the message by sharing it, because it resonates with their own values.

If you think about it, social sharing is a big ask because you are asking your clients or prospects to spend their social credibility and capital to recommend or advancing your objective for free. Unless you invest the money to run a mass reaching competition or promotion. So it’s only fair that you invest as much time, energy and resources to make any transaction with your business easier and more dependable for the person sharing or making the recommending.

Begin with the end in mind and use neuro-associative strategies and creative tactics that best aligned with your brand objectives.

Whenever you share any messaging content, it’s best in terms of what it would mean to customers. Will it be informative, entertaining and engaging? Think of it this way, if it is not designed to elicit the desire to share, it’s not worth publishing. So reverse engineering the campaign so that the style and topics are optimised to induce the desired outcomes you want to produce in your target audiences mind.

Begin with the end in mind and use neuro-associative strategies and creative tactics that best aligned with your brand objectives. All of this is to create outstanding and consistent experiences will continue to be the linchpins of on going customer engagement. This will offer you the priceless benefits of having raving fans who serve your brand as die hard advocates.

Having a team dedicated to mining your data for strategic insights and creative solutions that consistently delivers measurable growth is so important. And this is where having a growth partner that is solely dedicated to developing new and improved ways to best relate with your target audience is so invaluable. Word of mouth is still the best form of advertising and promotion there is.

So being innovative with how you use the above mentioned elements can initiate those positive viral effects that go far beyond your immediate audience reach.