Viral Marketing: The Rant.

Viral, shmiral. IF I HAVE one more would-be client tell me they’re looking for a “viral marketing” campaign... I’ll scream! (And I guarantee that the video of my screaming will result in a higher social network potential than 90% of the products or services that I’ve been approached to virally market!)

Let’s get a few things straight: just because FACEBOOK.COM and YOUTUBE.COM did it, just because the Blair Witch Project did it, does not – repeat – does not mean that you can do it. Or should, for that matter.

What is viral marketing? It’s a marketing strategy/tactic that focuses on social networks to boost brand awareness. For all intents and purposes, it means: word of mouth. One person sees an interesting thing and tells another and another and another. It is based on the belief that a satisfied consumer will express their satisfaction to an average of three others. (NOTE: there is also the belief that a dissatisfied consumer will express their dissatisfaction to an average of eleven others, so better hope your viral marketing campaign doesn't go wrong.)

Would-be clients that ask me for viral marketing campaigns have little understanding of the dynamics of such campaigns. What they really want is low cost; somehow there is the assumption that viral marketing campaigns are inexpensive. But this is simply not true. YouTube.com, for example, invested more than $10 million to achieve its success – and, as anybody can see from their site, it wasn’t all spent on software development!

Here’s a few things you should know about viral marketing campaigns…

First, they are rarely successful in B2B marketing. The reason is that the decision makers don’t commiserate in the way that end consumers do.

Second, you might notice that most highly successful viral marketing wunderkind – like YouTube, or Digg, or Facebook – offer their services for free.

Third, the money you hope to save in paid advertising is likely going to be spent on the market research necessary to find a high coefficient of social networking potential – in other words, finding an audience that will actually behave virally with your product or service.

Fourth, a lot of viral marketing is really better known as “astroturfing” – that is, it’s formal and structured marketing or PR campaigns disguised to look like grassroots reactions. It’s call astroturfing because it’s fake grassroots. It’s a technique borrowed from the political arena (e.g. it would be like the AMA flooding the U.S. Internet community with emails allegedly from people in Canada, talking about how bad their healthcare coverage is.)

Bottom Line: Get over it. If you really have the kind of budget to engage in a real viral marketing campaign come talk to me. If you're just looking to do marketing cheap, think again – viral marketing isn’t the way you’re going to do it.

Alternate Strategy: Think in terms of 'word of mouth' marketing. Not the verbal kind of viral marketing but rather the old-fashioned kind -- the kind where you produce such an excellent product or service that your clients feel compelled to tell their associates.

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