Thursday, 6 November 2008
Viral Marketing That's Right On Time
Of course the US election is now over, but in the days before it a friend forwarded me a an amusing and excellently timed viral promotion.
It didn’t blow my socks off but I thought it was amusing enough to send out to some friends and colleagues. This promotion obviously wouldn’t have worked outside of an election period, but the fact that it does tie itself into this wider event makes it all the more powerful.
A lot of the viral marketing tactics I’ve seen involve you playing some game or filling out a quiz. I personally prefer the latter, I’ve rarely seen a game that does much to support the brand message of the company it was created for, a quiz however can. But the example Viral above is even more powerful. The news will often touch the different industries we work in, it’s been HEAVILY focused on my industry recently (financial services) so there is always scope for doing something like this. Instead of trying to force people to pay attention to you and your industry, why not ambush them, wait when they’re in the right spot, i.e. peering into you industry and then hit them.
This approach also makes it a lot easier for your existing clients/fans to recruit new members. It’s a lot more digestible for me to talk to you about my share trading activities when the whole country is looking into this than just randomly sending you an email asking you if you want to try it out.
Finally, it’s also a great way to show a bit of a sense of humour in your marketing, something a lot of financial services companies are in dire lack of!
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