Feb 02
AndrewA Writer's Blog, Business, Life in Digital
It sounds irresistible in theory. A completely free marketing campaign that reaches potentially millions of prospective customers. But how does it work?
A viral campaign at its heart is a word of mouth campaign. (Click here for part one of this article) You create a message to advertise your product and send it out to as many people as possible. The vitality of your campaign depends on those people then forwarding your message on to others -- specifically potential customers you wouldn’t reach otherwise.
To design a campaign, you first need to look at the specifics of the product you are selling, the time available to produce the message, the resources available and how best to reach your target audience (since you should always pitch to them first). Start by writing down your top-level outcomes. For most of us it would be “to interest new customers in purchasing my product” but there could be other outcomes for you as well. Perhaps your outcomes are “to get people to sign up for my mailing list” or “to announce a special sale starting soon.”
Then decide how you want to get the message out to potential customers. Videos, weblinks, comic strips, podcasts, and sound clips are all viable viral vehicles for your campaign messages. But it helps to work within a medium that you are comfortable with. Videos tend to be looked on as a universal medium for viral marketing, but if you don’t know the first thing about putting together an effective video message then you might want to start somewhere else.
Once you’ve have decided what kind of message you are going to create, you need to figure out how to present your pitch. It helps to create an outline or even a storyboard to plan out how your message is going to look, feel or even sound. Then look at the overall scope of your campaign and ask yourself:
1) Does the message make sense for the product?
The best campaigns not only make obvious connections to the product, but the campaign actually makes sense for the product being pitched. Dancing babies are great, but what do they have to do with what you are selling?
2) Is there a clear call to action?
A call to action is a specific instruction for the customer to take action after viewing the message. It can be to direct them to a sales website. It can be “come by our store today.” It should be very specific and it should match your top-level outcomes.
3) Is the message eye-catching?
This is the short-attention span generation. You need something within your message to get your audience to immediately take notice. The good news is that for viral campaigns, it’s not necessary to keep their attention for very long.
So what happens if your product isn’t glamorous, exciting or particular flashy? What happens if you don’t know the first thing about marketing? What happens if you just are not familiar with the technology to start a viral campaign? Then ask yourself:
1) Is this the type of marketing project I should be embarking on at all?
2) Should I pay someone to do the work for me?
3) Do I have the time and resources to complete the campaign myself?
My recommendation is to create a sample message -- short and sweet -- as a test run. For instance, create a 20-second video clip using your phone’s video recorder and post the video to YouTube. Ask your friends to watch the clip and provide some feedback. Or draw out a comic strip with your pitch and post it online. Ask people to leave comments about it.
By trying it out, you also take the process from start to finish and possibly identify some pitfalls that maybe you weren’t aware of. Here’s one that you may not have thought of: what if Facebook isn’t working the day you want to link to your campaign on the site? Technology fails all the time, websites go down, internet connections are lost. A test-run gives you the opportunity to see where things might go wrong before you spend a lot of time and energy on a large-scale campaign. I would also recommend keeping a list of all the things that may not have worked the way you expected them to so you can plan for it next time.
Finally, before you move on to a full-blown campaign, ask yourself:
1) Is it clear what I am selling?
2) Is it clear how to purchase my product?
3) Is it visually interesting?
4) Am I achieving my top-level outcomes?
If the answers are ‘no’ then tweak your campaign. Once you are comfortable with your test message, it’s time to move on to the full-length pitch.
Part three will look at how to measure the success of your viral campaign.
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Writer’s Income is a weekly blog that covers all aspects of writing for publication. Topics include writing, publishing, and marketing with an emphasis on doing all the work yourself.
About the author
Jan 31
AndrewA Writer's Blog, Business, Life in Digital
It sounds irresistible in theory. A completely free marketing campaign that reaches potentially millions of prospective customers. But does it work?
Viral marketing is a word of mouth campaign using one of the various free social networking sites, of which facebook, youtube and twitter are probably the most heavily played to. You post a link or a video to the site and your friends share the link with their friends and you’re in business. Instantaneous increase in your potential audience ten-fold.
But does it work?
Viral marketing, whether it’s a video or a web link or a photograph, relies on volume. It requires buy-in on a scale beyond your circle of friends and their circle of friends. It works by the sheer numbers, the likelihood that if you can reach enough people, someone is going to buy.
Viral marketing is completely contrary to the notions of conventional marketing. The whole point of marketing is to focus in on your target demographic and pinpoint your advertising to people who show a bent for buying your product. You aren’t marketing to make friends, gain fans or followers. You are trying to convert sales. Most viral marketing is completely untargeted. The people receiving your message may not be the ones you are trying to reach.
But does it work?
In a sense, word of mouth is the best way to sell a product. Unsolicited testimonials are hands-down the most effective type of marketing. Viral marketing taps into the notion by having your friends recommend to their friends whatever you’re selling.
But the untargeted nature of viral marketing means that your message may get lost along the way. You may be missing a call to action that urges people to make the purchase. As long as facebook and youtube and twitter are free, the only cost to you is your time. So yes, if you can make sales by this means and had minimal or no costs to launch a campaign, then the return on your investment has the potential to be high.
In part two, we’ll look at some ways to maximize your viral campaign. In part three, we’ll look at ways to measure your success.
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Writer’s Income is a weekly blog that covers all aspects of writing for publication. Topics include writing, publishing, and marketing with an emphasis on doing all the work yourself.
About the author
Mar 23
AndrewBusiness, Life in Digital Ads, Blogging, money
Every fine, computer-savvy individual has a blog these days. Many of them exist (however overtly or not) to make income, to host ads, or to sell a product. For the record, I myself am hocking a book called What Do You Say to the DJ? but I don’t make any money from ad service on this site particularly.
When smartremarx.com was first published as a blog, the ad service was intended as much for an experiment to see if I could make money as to give the site a “professional” vibe. At the time, ads distinguished the site from a livejournal environment which for years was the blog standard. The numbers in the beginning (both subscribership and impressions) weren’t large enough to generate any useful income; we are talking pennies a day. Though both subscribership and impressions have increased, the income has never materialized, largely because I refuse to follow the gold standard for blog success.
The blogs with the most success have found a profitable niche, one central theme that dominates every post. As the market has become saturated with blogs, a few have managed to rise above as leaders even within an oversaturated market place, by tenacity, volume or ingenuity.
Now imagine writing about every possible topic depending on the whim of the day and the way the wind blows, and you have yourself a corner store of blogs. That is the paradigm that smartremarx has followed since the first day. As a model for profitability, I don’t recommend it. As the blogosphere has become a crowded place, there is nothing that distinguishes my writing from anybody else’s except…me. So no longer am I looking to advertise a niche expertise, but I’m essentially selling myself as the main attraction. In fact, at some point, it could easily become a sort of Seinfeld model, about nothing at all whatsoever.
To make profitability even less likely, just about every website out there, whether it’s a fan page, a news service or entertainment site is running ads across its flanks. The saturation of ads has made readers virtually immune to them. No amount of placement or design is going to make earning ad revenue any easier in the future.
I have thought trying to follow the model that generates income. I know from experience, that I get the most hits when I write about Dunkin Donuts. Believe it or not, that single topic has probably made 40% of the revenue I have generated from this site since its inception, even though the number of posts on Dunkin Donuts has been about 4% of the total. It illuminates to me that model can work. The secret isn’t that much of a secret. It starts with writing about what people want to read about; and if you do it well, you create search hits and increase traffic to your site. Increase the frequency of your content without decreasing the quality, and all of the sudden, you have a model for profitability. (Of course, the dirty secret of any blog is that most of the information is stolen and tweaked from somewhere else on the web, but if that is the only way you can generate content, that’s between you and your readers).
There are many ways to refine the model from that point, but the essence of how to make it work requires a niche focus, reliable content and readership loyalty. Of course, if you really want to be an income generating site, you also need scalability, search engine website site optimization and other tools.
Ironically, I am afraid that if I stick to the model too closely, it will degrade the product itself. On this website at least. After all, if I can’t stick to a topic from one week to the next, forcing myself to do so may eventually reflect negatively in my writing. That leaves me, for better or for worse, writing on whatever hits my fancy on any particular day. It won’t make me money; I think I’ve known that for a long time. In the absence of a profitable strategy, I would need a phenomenal boost in traffic to see revenue gains. A long term goal, maybe.
But hey, in the meantime, there is always that book to promote.
Feb 09
AndrewBusiness, Travel concerts, Hard Rock, Las Vegas, live music
The Joint, the venue at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV will get a makeover and reopen the weekend of April 18. The venue originally opened in 1995 and boasts one of the most intimate rock venues in the city. Its maximum capacity under the old design was 2,000 people, standing room only. It also served as an after hours night club.
The remodeled version will double the capacity but maintain the intimate setting of its predecessor. The cost of the revamp is estimated at $60 million, part of a larger expansion project of the hotel-casino. A new sound system will be put in, along with almost 40 video screens, and a blogging station for press coverage. The venue will also get a upgrade in its lighting system and include WiFi access venue-wide.
Paul McCartney has been tapped to play the first concert in the new venue on April 19.
Feb 05
AndrewBusiness Casinos, Gambling
Among the possible options for the Twin River casino in Lincoln, RI are imminent shutdown, bankruptcy by the operators BLB Investors LLC and possible purchase by the state of Rhode Island. The casino reportedly faces $525 million in debt, but has become the state’s third largest source of revenue since it opened almost two years ago. That gives the state a strong interest in keeping the casino open.
In a deal with the state, 60% of the casino’s gambling revenue goes back to Rhode Island. That take could conceivably increase if the state took over ownership of the property.
Though a state-owned casino is unprecedented in the U.S. (it’s a model that seems to work for Canada), lawmakers are giving the proposal serious consideration, even as the casino owners are lobbying for help. Twin River wants the state to reduce its percentage of operating revenue, something the legislature appears unwilling to consider. It is actively looking for options to avoid bankruptcy and restructure its debt while remaining open for business.
The question of state ownership has allowed parties on both sides of the gambling debate to raise the moral and economic arguments again. Money flows to the state, but does the model work if the casino patrons are made up of tax-paying residents to begin with? As anyone connected to the casino industry knows, once a gambling hall opens, it takes a lot to bring it down. The state quickly becomes dependent on the revenue source and will likely find a way to bail out the casino because it is in Rhode Island’s best interest to keep it running.
In these murky economic times, any description of a “bail out” is met with skepticism, and the legislature is (rightly) avoiding the comparison to the federal government’s stimulus bailout.
Jan 16
AndrewBusiness, Music, Travel concerts, HOB, House of Blues, venue
The House of Blues is set to open a new location in Boston’s Fenway Park area on Lansdowne St. The venue doubles as a live concert hall and restaurant. It’s original location in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA closed down 5 years ago. The new location is substantially larger, 27,000-square-feet and replaces what used to be two clubs Avalon and Axis.
This week, the chain began a hiring process that hopes to eventually employ 200 staff in addition to the approximately 20 managers already hired for the location.
This House of Blues venue is reportedly the largest with a 2,400 capacity standing room only on three levels. Like other locations, a restaurant and VIP Lounge are being opened.
House of Blues Boston already has a number of high profile acts lined up through the end of March including Morrissey, B.B. King & Buddy Guy and a six-night stand by the Dropkick Murphys. The Gipsy Kings will open the venue on Friday, February 20. Tickets for most of the currently scheduled shows go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m. local time.
House of Blues current line-up
February 20 Gipsy Kings
February 22 B.B.King & Buddy Guy
February 24 Thievery Corporation
February 25 George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic
February 26 Jimmy Eat World: Clarity X 10 Tour
February 27 Jesse McCartney
February 28 The Disco Biscuits
March 6 Saints & Sinners Tour 2009 featuring Hollywood Undead, Senses Fail, Haste the Day, Brokencyde
March 7 Missy Higgins & Justin Nozuka
March 10 Flogging Molly with The Aggrolites
March 11 An Evening With George Thorogood & The Destroyers
March 12 Dropkick Murphys
March 13 Dropkick Murphys
March 14 Dropkick Murphys -- Matinee Show
March 14 Dropkick Murphys
March 15 Dropkick Murphys
March 16 Dropkick Murphys
March 17 Dropkick Murphys
March 18 Ozomatli with Chali 2NA
March 19 Bloc Party and Longwave
March 20 The Pogues
March 21 The Pogues
March 22 Cut Copy
March 26 The Oddity Faire: A Mutated Mini Fest Feat. Les Claypool, Saul Williams, Secret Chiefs and O’Death
March 27 Live
March 29 Morrissey with The Courteeners
March 30 Lady GaGa with White Tie Affair and Chester French
April 1 Katy Perry
April 2 Derek Trucks Band
April 7 Mates of State/Black Kids
April 9 Umphrey’s McGee
April 14 Black Label Society Bash featuring Black Label Society with Sevendust, Dope, and Infinite Staircase
April 25 John Brown’s Body and Soldiers of Jah Army
May 1 AP Tour 2009 featuring The Maine, 3oh!3, Family Force and Hit the Lights
Tour information is up to date at time of publication
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