Characteristics of viral marketing

Viral marketing is the type of marketing that tries to create quick interest and generate sales from person to person. Nowadays, social networks are the perfect field to use and increase viral marketing techniques. We will tell you much more about it.

what are the main characteristics of viral marketing?

1. Viral marketing means that users receive advertisements according to their personal interests, i.e. online advertising campaigns are targeted to a specific audience.
2. You do not need a big budget to run an advertising campaign on social media.
3. Viral marketing content can improve brandimage because it can build a positive reputation for the brand in the eyes of the public.
4. It increases traffic to the company's website because valuable content generates user interest.
5. Positive feedback from the public about viral content gives the brand more credibility.
6. Viral marketing allows for feedback between customers and companies, and although it can be produced in all kinds of formats, the most popular and widely used format for viral content is the video format known as viral video marketing.

what well-known campaigns exist for viral marketing?

• The "pass it on" campaign: This campaign consists of encouraging people to invite other users. It is usually done through a chain of messages that includes a request to the recipient to forward the message. WhatsApp is currently the best option.
• The so-called "incentivised viral" campaign: This offers a reward for forwarding the message or giving someone's email address. It is a good way to increase the chances of mass mailings dramatically.
• Covert marketing: This consists of a message that is presented as a very attractive or unusual page, activity or news item. In other words, a shocking news item is disseminated, which disconcerts and the user does not really know where it is leading him/her. Therefore, a large diffusion is created due to the uncertainty created by the news item.
• Fan club: Thanks to them, it is possible to have a place to talk about the brand and only interested parties can go there, and benefit from promotions or news in advance. In many cases, these pages are created voluntarily, so if this is the case, it is important that there is no link between the brand and the page to offer greater freedom to the audience.
• Use the word free: A very good viral marketing strategy is to give away or offer something for free, without risk and that provides value. For example: an eBook, a small course, a plugin or an application. Depending on your niche market you can boost your viral campaign using the concept of giving away something valuable for free. Contests also work well.

Examples of viral marketing

• Estrella Damm's little things. The brand's ads are known for welcoming the summer every year and have become a tradition in Spain. For example, the 2016 spot went viral by telling the story of an actor who had to stop working for 4 days due to an incident during filming. A tour guide becomes his companion and, with her, the actor learns that the best thing in life is to enjoy the little things. This ends up being the motto of the short film. At the moment the ad already has more than 6.5 million views.
• Apple-Apple music: When Apple launched its music service, it teamed up with international celebrities such as Taylor Swift to advertise it. In the most famous video, the singer appears performing an everyday action with a bit of humour, something that makes the user feel a little more identified. The marketing campaign went viral and accumulated millions of views.
• Samsung and Iberia: The phone brand gave away 200 Galaxy Note8, valued at 1100 each, to 200 passengers on an Iberia flight, specifically IB514 from A Coruña to Madrid. With this initiative, the Korean brand wanted to clean up the bad corporate image of its previous Galaxy Note 7 model, which had to be withdrawn from the market and was strictly prohibited on board commercial flights due to the danger of internal combustion. The hashtag #Note8Abordo quickly became a trend on Twitter, thanks in part to many of the 200 passengers who tweeted about the surprise.
• "I love Laura" is considered one of the first great viral marketing campaigns. The Happiness, a fictitious Spanish musical group formed by two boys and two girls, became famous in 2006 with their song "I love Laura", a song in favour of sexual abstinence that became a real hit. The song was actually born as a result of an advertising campaign by Tiempo BBDO for MTV Spain, a channel that arrived in Spain at that time and that achieved an incredible visibility with a very high impact. It was 2006 and the song made one of the usual routes in this type of viral marketing campaigns, it became popular through YouTube and different Spanish blogs from where it even reached the mass media both written and audiovisual.