This post is the first in a series of four about viral video marketing. We'll discuss strategy, content, and implementation insights that we have either learned through practice, or are widely recognized as best practices.
Every viral video campaign should begin not with the content, but with a strategy. The best content could fall flat if it isn't inline with the greater marketing strategy and company goals. Viral video marketing strategy should include measurable goals, defined integration to a company's overall marketing strategy, and a strategy to land the content with your audience.
Define Goals
Strategy begins with goals - typical goals used to be to drive traffic to a website with the purpose of making a sale or some other kind of conversion. With more sophisticated tools and analytics, goals can also include awareness, sentiment, or engagement shifts.
- Awareness: You have a new product and would like to create some awareness. Your goal is to get as much exposure as possible in your target audience, and probably to dive traffic back to a website to find out more information.
- Sentiment: You have a product that exists in a competitive marketplace. Your goal is to change the sentiment around your product in your target audience.
- Engagement: You'd like users to become more engaged with your product or brand. Your goal is to use video to elicit a call to action for your users to create their own content around your product, submit to a contest, or perform another action that requires engagement with your company (not necessarily a purchase though).
Integrate with Greater Marketing/PR Strategy
Video should raise some questions - after all, you do want your audience to be intrigued/amused/delighted enough to perform another action after viewing the video. However, your video content should not be so disconnected that you leave your viewers confused. Before creating any content, make sure you communicate with marketing and PR to understand what your key company messages are, who your audience is, and what their goals are. Your video should fit in somewhere in this overall strategy.
Identify Channels to Land the Content
A video will likely not go viral unless you understand the mindset of your core demographic and there is a strategy in place before production to land the content. First, identify the channels your company currently engages in. If your audience is engaging somewhere else, you need to start building trust in those channels. During the strategy phase, identify who the key influencers are in each channel, and if possible, understand what their preferences are. If your content appeals to them, chances are it will receive their endorsement and appeal to their audience.
We recommend writing a clear strategy document, and having this document approved by the marketing team. If the strategy is in place and agreed upon, then the content creation and implementation processes will go much smoother down the road.
