[Want Customers? Think About Launching a Viral Marketing Strategy for the Ages]
As a time-worn marketing person, I can share with you that marketing on the web is a hard-won game. The reality is, getting attention on the web is hard. Viral marketing is hard. And viral isn't what you think it is.
When you are thinking about a marketing strategy that uses the web, you need to remember two things:
1. The difference between a great digital marketing strategy and a good one is that a great digital marketing strategy has to tap into what customers want in their lives. This is often separate from them wanting your product.
2. The web is the birthplace of network effect, which many people have seen when content "goes viral." But going viral is not something that happens with content delivery. It has more to do with psychology.
I want to share with you a strategy we used at Starbucks, where I worked with the digital team, that leverages network effect. I think this was in 2014-15. It taught me that marketing that goes viral isn't really about the messaging, it's about the customer need.
Every winter holiday season, Starbucks rolls out red cups.
We noticed that when these red cups emerged in the stores, Instagram and Twitter would be flooded with photos of people enjoying the red cups.
One of the people on our team came up with this idea that we should ask people to create a beautiful red cup image on social media. We would reward the most creative image creators.
The rules of the game were:
1. Create a stunning image of a Starbucks red cup
2. Post it on Twitter or IG with a hashtag (I think it was #redcupscontest
3. We will choose the best five for prizes, and give one real gold Starbucks cards to an overall winner and supply them with a lifetime of coffee at any store
More than 24,000 people posted images in two days.
What made this is a "viral" marketing campaign is that it had inherent network effect. If you participated, you made it attractive for other people to participate, not just because you might get a reward, but because you could help your own business and lifestyle.
People posted their images not just in the hopes of getting noticed by the brand. They posted them because they sought attention from creative teams, ad agencies, digital design houses, and creative directors. Those people cruised the hashtag looking for talent.
Over the subsequent years, the red cup contest has become a "thing." It celebrates the artist and creative lifestyle.
The secondary benefit is that it helps the brand, because it gives the brand image a halo -- Starbucks is creative, sincere, and a creator of special moments that deserve attention.
Notice, it says nearly nothing about the chain's ability to serve coffee.
Marketing on the web is really good tool for helping people, ad in my personal belief, I think this is the secret sauce to digital marketing. It's not about saying who you are in a fancy way that gains attention.
It's about helping someone who knows you feel better about themselves, learn something, gain extra super powers, or create synergy and serendipity in their life.
That's the magic muscle of digital. It amplifies life. It makes the feedback cycle of risk-taking and communication a positive one for whoever taps into it.
Think about that the next time you seek customers on the web.
Doug Crets
Communications Master, AppWorks Accelerator
Photo credit: xxolgaxx on Pixabay
