A reader sent me Fail your way to success in viral marketing. There are several excellent elements in it and the one that really caught my eye was Mr. Verdino's suggestion about dealing with a viral marketing failure:
"The marketer should get back out there -- release another clip, and another, and another, and another one after that. This may sound counterintuitive, but it really is the key to viral marketing success. You can give it your all, but it is ultimately the consumer (not you) that determines success in viral marketing. You won't necessarily know what will work and, once you've figured out the formula, your intended audience may have moved onto something else. In order to trial-and-error your way to success you need to fail, not just once but over and over again until -- all of a sudden -- you don't.
"You need to produce lots of content, try different things, and get them into the marketplace for reaction. And you can't get discouraged, at least not after one attempt. Viral marketing simply doesn't work the way traditional advertising and media do. In traditional advertising, you launch a campaign and expect immediate, measurable results. In viral marketing, you need to put something out there, expect nothing and keep at it until you get (well) more than nothing. That's when you'll know you're on the right track."
I have no real idea of Mr. Verdino's background. I do agree with him based on NextStage's research into WOM and viral marketing methods.
In fact, Mr. Verdino's comments play nicely into something NextStage research recently created models for; group size and geographic distribution of these groups plays a calcuable role in determining WOM/Viral marketing success.Essentially this is Mr. Verdino's "another and another and another" concept done by rephrasing the timing and content variables of successive campaigns into size and distance variables of a single campaign. Both Mr. Verdino and NextStage are utilizing Jason Nesmith's "Never give up! Never surrender!" motif, NextStage is simply advocating the use of strategic placement combined with tactical execution rather than attritional assaults.
NextStage is proofing the formulae now. Let me know if you'd like to be notified when we're done.
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
- A New Branding Paradigm, Online and Off
- Why Some Viral Marketing Doesn't Work
- Yes, You Can Predict Viral Marketing
- Social Networks and Viral Marketing
- BizMediaScience Word-Of-Mouth Blog Posts
- BizMediaScience Viral Marketing Blog Posts
- DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
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