Viral Marketing - not a dirty word

[weepete]

Can someone tell me why companies are still spending a ongiong fortune on interruptive web adverts which only seem to irritate the potential customers with an average 0.5% clickthrough, when a well directed viral campaign can deliver up to a 50% click through with no ongoing markleting spend after the initial pend layout?

[fisicx]

How do you know they are spending a fortune?

[weepete]

Wth Yahoo and Alta Vista (popular ones) charging about £10-£25 cmp for a minimum impression of 100,000 you will be looking at paying about £1000-£2500
a month.. For what? A one way conversation which may or may not catch your targets eye.
My argument is to create content that your user WANTS to interact with, which has been seeded in a targeted campaign, and for an immersive communication to begin.
And that does not mean a half baked Whack a mole game with your brand stuck on it in a vain attempt to grab the attention, its about strategic content. strategically placed and immersive to the point that they wish to share it with their peers - thus marketing it for you , pre-approving it as they send it onwards exponentially.

[fisicx]

Maybe I'm missing something here but if you do have something amazing to offer you still need to tell the world. You mention providing something interactive, such as what? Where are you going to publish this whatever? How is this going to suddenly generate thousands of returning visitors?

Most of the viral stuff I've seen creates a buzz for a day or two then fades aways. Get on the homepage of digg or stumbleupon and you will get a flurry of visitors over a 24 - 48 hour period of time then, nothing (it happend to me a month ago so I know).

The other problem is that you cannot guarantee that anything will go viral, the top 10 list of humerous housebricks might attract the attention of a popular site but that still won't pring in the paying punters unless the target site has some great content to keep the visitor interested.

Not saying your idea isn't viable, it's just that I'm not sure it's going to work in the way you want.

Incidentally, a client of mine runs a succesful PPC campaign, £300/month with a CTR of over 6% generating £4000 of new business each month. A lot less than the £2500/month you suggest.

[weepete]

tis true that a poorly produced and poorly seeded campaign can fall short, but it is also true that a well thought out and strategically targeted campaign can save you in the long run in marketing spend.

Example:
Recent campaign created for £25k with a fixed £5k seeding strategy, had, in only one month , 1.8million people interacting with the advertainment, not view but interact.. with 300,000 click through (17% CRT) and from there increasing clients sign ups by 900%.

I know there is a lot of poor marketing which is masquerading under the guise of viral,and this is the bane of my life. Strapping a send a friend mechanism to my latest pinched loaf doesn't make it viral.

Yes you need to tell the world, but isn't it better to tell them in a format that they can best hear about it.....and not, as used by television marketers, by cutting a film you want to watch into pieces thus interrupting their viewing pleasure

[bubblewrap]

I think the term 'viral' is being used loosely these days.

If the product or service offered has the buzz in it already, it's bound to generate the CTR you're looking for. If on the other hand that's not the case, having the greatest viral marketing strategy in the world won't do much.

It's conversion that's important I reckon. It doesn't matter if a zillion people click to view a site / online ads; if they don't register because the product hasn't got the 'buzz' in it, something of value, then it ain't worth it.

I'm thinking of the Nike+ (iPod recording device + shoes to graph out your marathon running progress) and everything they've put into it; now that's buzz. People talk about it. Same as the iPhone...

If you're selling the same broadband service; with a similar monthly payment; doesn't matter how much viral marketing campaigns you do; it'll be fun; but not sure it'll be effective.

My 2p.

Elie aka bubblewrap