Can businesses actually make money with virals?

• Indirectly, yes. Viral marketing is simply about creating word of mouth, developing communications that raise awareness and drive engagement with a brand in the hope that it will be passed on. The same ATL success metrics of ‘awareness’ and ‘engagement’ still apply.
• Word of mouth marketing is THE most effective marketing tool

What should marketers bear in mind when considering a viral for their company - Dos and Don'ts?

• The biggest mistake that marketers make when creating viral campaigns is to think that a brief to ‘create a viral campaign’ will create one campaign or idea that will ‘go viral’ – the essence of what creates a great viral can be hard to pin down and therefore a number of different routes should be created and perhaps, one out of every 20 ideas will get traction and hit that all-important ‘tipping-point’
• Ensure that viral is considered throughout development of all marketing elements to maximise impact and cost effectiveness – not just created as an ‘add-on’
• Viral is NOT simply:
  • uploading the latest TV ad to YouTube (unless it’s a gorilla playing the drums…..)
  • simply creating a member-get-member mechanic or ‘send to a friend’ functionality – and does not even have to be about creating a ‘piece’ (ie a video, application etc). The US TV show has hit #1 in the DVD charts simply from the amount of online buzz and word of mouth content seeded throughout online communities and the press.
• Therefore, how to seed the viral should be considered as much as the viral concept
• Lastly measurement is key – and again this is something that should be planned at the outset – there are many ‘buzz marketing’ tools that can help in the tracking of campaigns and their impact

What makes a good viral?

• Viral ‘pieces’ need to be easy to send on – it sounds like a basic requirement, but it’s often missed
• Content and engagement is key: virals must be: engaging, funny, sexy or a weird for users to send on
• Remember virals don’t necessarily have to be complex pieces: consider the recent Gap virals (and the successful if a little costly Thresher email from previous years) that simply offered customers a good deal (eg 30% off) on a given day / product