What makes viral marketing work? It is the ability to create an event or offer that makes people want to participate and then tell their friends. They become your spokesman. And peer to peer marketing is by far the most effective form of marketing for women there is. Women trust their friends and family over any outside message by more than a 3 to 1 margin. That is where the community building aspect of WOM works.
I remember during the Presidential campaign, laughing at the pundits who were making fun of the Obama campaign for getting people to sign up for a text message or email when he announced his VP choice. The pundits were all focusing on why would anyone really care, and what a gimmick it was…. yada yada yada. They completely missed the point of the value of the WOM (word of mouth) that simple idea created. But most importantly, they missed the real reason for the text and email announcement which was... the Obama campaign gathered over 150,000 email and cell phone numbers from that event. They easily and with no cost, captured the names and contact information of a huge number of supporters. Supporters who later in the campaign received tons of information and ideas to help their candidate. It was brilliant and almost free.
Right now, Advantage… the flea and tick protection medicine for your dog and cat has a great campaign going on. It’s called Help Your Pet Get To The Vet. They have a website and a full page ad in USToday that focuses on their message of even in hard times your pet still needs to go to the vet, and Advantage would like to help. All you have to do is go to the website and sign up (www.gettothevet.com ). Each hour they give away 80 vouchers for $20 off your next veterinarian visit. You must sign-up with your name, contact info, the name of your pet and it’s age… before you find out if that hour’s 80 vouchers are still available. They have 13,000 vouchers to give way, but it is almost certain they will collect three times that many names with all of the personal and pet information they need for future direct marketing campaigns. And since I signed up and got my voucher… I have put the link on a couple of animal welfare Facebook groups and told a couple of my friends with dogs. Word of mouth at it’s best.
What can you do to get people talking about your station? What can you offer advertisers that uses the power of radio to create a campaign that puts targeted consumers in touch with select advertisers? In these times, we need to get creative. And that is what MStique Marketing’s Contagious Connections is all about. We create campaigns that make your brand contagious. To find out more, visit us online at www.mstiquemarketing.com or call us at 888-707-4441. Getting contagious is the key to surviving in tough marketing times.
