By Christopher Ryan

Viral marketing can be a powerful weapon to accelerate your business. However viral marketing is not easy and you not only need great execution and timing but a bit of luck can also help. While many companies have attempted viral marketing, relatively few have achieved success.  But you don’t need to be a big winner to have a very positive outcome. In fact, you have much to gain and nothing to lose by practicing viral marketing.

The entire idea behind viral marketing is to get people who view your promotion excited in such a way they are willing to share your news, offer or promotion with (infect) others who then also pass it along, creating strong cumulative impact.  Viral marketing campaigns share six common characteristics:

1. They are self-perpetuating.
2. They are relevant and focus on a hot current topic.
3. They make it easy for others to forward the message.
4. The message is easy to grasp and intuitive.
5. They are designed to create interaction.
6. They are scalable.  

 9 Viral Marketing Strategies

Direct marketing can be fairly predictable based on response statistics meaning that you can add a specific amount marketing expenses to generate a given amount of revenue. In other words, there is a linear relationship between expenses and results. By contrast, viral marketing programs are designed to give you exponential results because the same investment could generate Y dollars, YY dollars, or YYY dollars. It is a powerful thing when well executed, and this is why viral marketing can really speed your business success. Following are nine proven viral strategies.

1. Be amazing. It can be tough to generate attention if you are a small or medium business, so to stand out, you must be unique. There are several ways to do this.  You can entertain or provoke (or both). Being funny works. Making big statements works. You can also challenge conventional wisdom as long as it doesn’t make you look like a kook or weaken your brand.
2. Give away something of value.  Most people like to get free stuff so giveaways are a good way to gain attention and build loyalty. You might want to use information as your giveaway because it is inexpensive to reproduce and can be targeted and distributed easily.
3. Create a series. It is sometimes a good strategy to create a series of promotions that can reinforce your brand and build up a massive audience over time.
4. Use the right media to distribute your message. The best media vehicle to use is the one that will get response from the right type of people. Some of the hottest viral marketing promotions end up on YouTube, but B2B marketers can also achieve success using the press, blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
5. Practice persistence. To use a familiar baseball analogy, the best way to hit home runs is to swing hard, but this increases your chance of striking out. This also applies to B2B marketing. You may have to swing for the fences multiple times to have a big success.  
6. Reinforce viral marketing strategies by using traditional media. Make sure that you provide links to the viral offer in your ads, emails, press releases, Website, etc.
7. Capture contact data. It is always nice to generate attention, but what really sets you apart is the ability to build a database of prospects and customers that can be nurtured over time. Every viral and non-viral marketing program needs to help grow the database.
8. Prepare a follow-up process. You may not be able to accurately predict how much attention you are going to get.  But regardless of the campaign outcome, you need a lead-nurturing strategy to immediately contact those who register for the offer or download your materials. Utilize a compelling offer to convert these prospects into customers.
9. Publicize your success.  In a best case scenario, you will have created a big excitement about your campaign and exceeded your campaign objectives. But don’t stop there. Alert the press to get even more attention. Also use your social media outlets to keep the buzz going. This extra publicity can transform a lukewarm campaign into a red-hot publicity machine. 

Author Information

Christopher Ryan is a well-known expert in B2B marketing.  Chris is President and Senior Strategist of Fusion Marketing Partners. Prior to founding the company, he severed as a marketing executive at companies like Stellent, Sybase, PeopleSoft, SpringCM and Group 1 Software. You can buy Mr. Ryan’s latest book, How to Create an Unstoppable Marketing and Sales Machine, at Amazon.com or at Barnes and Noble.