Success in Viral Marketing is the ambition of thousands of companies: after all, reaching a massive audience in a matter of a short time is the desire of almost all brands. But, contrary to what it seems, this success does not happen overnight — at least not for organizations.

Internet And Memes: A Space For Companies Too

The popularization of the internet has transformed the lives of billions of people: what would our daily lives be without social networks? Without being able to access near real-time news and a plethora of varied information in a matter of seconds? In this explosion of stimuli, viral content emerged – that which spreads quickly to an immense number of users.

From baby and animal videos to elaborate productions, memes pop up daily. They are sent from contact to contact (among friends, family, co-workers, strangers, and so on) until they reach a potential audience. Many become famous from the exposure — for better or worse — and are given opportunities they would not have had without this event. 

And, of course, several companies realized that this phenomenon is also a business opportunity, incorporating this idea into their list of other communication and sales strategies, such as digital marketing, inbound sales and marketing, among others. 

What Is Viral Marketing?

Viral Marketing is a strategy that takes advantage of people’s natural tendency to share content that they find interesting, funny or relevant in general with their networks of contacts to publicize a product, service or the brand itself.  

In short, it means creating content with great popular appeal that awakens people’s engagement, boosting the company’s image — and, consequently, sales. This work can be done with video, images, audio, infographics, gamification and other forms of communication that are possible thanks to the internet.

These messages can either contain fictional or real stories, memes or other content, associating them with the organization’s products, services, brand or topics of interest. 

Many businesses invest in viral marketing expecting overnight results without any tactic behind it and waste time, money and effort for nothing. Or, worse, they end up damaging their image by sending the wrong message or ignoring the importance of online communication and the power of social media. 

Therefore, investing in strategy and planning is essential before creating any content and posting it on social networks. 

7 Techniques To Boost Your Business With Viral Marketing

Creating viral content is not simple or easy; otherwise, almost all companies publish content daily on social networks. However, there are some tips and techniques that can help guide you in the right direction to achieve this long-awaited goal: 

1- Know The Target Audience

The first step of any strategy is always to research and know in depth the profile of the action’s target audience: their age; genre; socioeconomic condition; likes; wishes; pains; expectations; behaviors, and other issues that influence your routine. 

There is no point in preparing elaborate content but using images and references that are not to the taste of the customers that the company wants to reach. Knowing the public is paramount to setting up an accurate communication and marketing campaign. 

This question goes from the use of images and the tone of the language to the channels used and other variables. Generally, the public and the content they expect vary between social networks: compare Facebook to understand this situation better.

2- Betting On Essential Topics 

Many contents go viral because they deal with topics important to the target audience. An example is the campaign #LikeaGirl (#TipoMenina, in Portuguese) by the company Always: videos and other actions were made to discuss how negative stereotypes impact women’s lives and their clientele. 

Touching on relevant and sensitive issues, it was possible to disseminate the brand through emotion and the identification of its target audience. Therefore, it is essential to understand what moves the hearts and values ​​of customers to create engaging content that goes viral. 

3- Awaken Emotions

Emotion plays a significant role in human decisions and behavior. It is common for people to share content that arouses feelings such as joy, sadness, anger, nostalgia or emotion.  

Using these stimuli is excellent for creating messages and running marketing campaigns. However, it is necessary to have a specific dose of sensitivity in order not to weigh the hand or make mistakes that will damage the brand image. 

4- Bet Not Humor

People often turn to social media to relax and have a good laugh. No wonder many memes, personalities and companies thrive on the internet by approaching their messages with humor. 

In this case, it is also necessary to avoid offending the target audience, dosing and reflecting on how to use humor positively and not negatively. 

5- Bet Not Unusual

Do you still remember the Cursed Ponies advertisement? It was surprising to see a car brand playing with stereotypes and references of the time: its image stuck in the minds of thousands and the music in the commercial. 

Investing in the unusual is to surprise the public. But it’s also essential to think about how to do this positively.  

6- Betting On Partnership

Something that can help boost content is partnering with influencers, people who have gone viral in their materials and famous people in general. 

However, it is optional to bring big names: taking advantage of a person with credibility and fame in an exciting niche for the target audience, even if it does not have astronomical numbers, is already an excellent marketing action. 

7- Understand That It Is About The Content, Not About The Product/Service/Brand

Many companies make a mistake when dealing with viral marketing and other strategies — such as branded content — to think more about publicizing and enhancing the product, service and brand and forget that content is the essential part of the action. 

These strategies have a different approach than advertising: content is the flagship, and everything else is a consequence of sound creation.

Also Read: Geomarketing: What Is It, Its Benefits And How To Use It?

Geomarketing is related to every marketing strategy that uses location to optimize campaigns and reach potential customers in the right place and time.

When looking for this tool, it is possible to find several on the market, such as Geotargeting, Geofencing, Geotagging, and Geofilters, each with a purpose.

Do you know those sponsored publications you come across when you access your social networks and specific websites? They are usually from a company that sells a product or service that, according to your browsing history, you are interested in, and the company is close to where you live. 

This sponsored publication uses one of the Geomarketing strategies to reach potential customers and, thus, generate greater sales guarantees since, according to the consumer’s browsing history and location, they show interest in the product or service.

What Is Geomarketing?

At first, Geomarketing was a concept used to represent business strategies that focused on determining the location of a possible new physical store, more promising locations for sales or even the line of action in each location.

But this concept took on greater proportions over time, especially when Digital Marketing grew significantly. Nowadays, Geomarketing is related to any marketing strategy that uses location intelligence to improve campaigns and reach the consumer at the right time.

The Geomarketing area works on issues such as:

• Indication of pricing strategies;
• Definition and optimization of sales territories;
• Acquisition of new consumers/clients;
• Definition of distribution channels for products;
• Choosing the best strategies for expanding the company;
• The decision to close or reposition units;
• Choice of new commercial points.

But for Geomarketing to be used in its entirety, it needs the support of big data, which is the location data of consumers that relate to your company.

Therefore, Geomarketing is not just a single strategy; it should be considered an area that studies the relationships between the territory where the company, consumers, suppliers and distribution sites are located.

The Benefits Of Marketing

Companies that adhere to Geomarketing have as their main objective the increase of competitive advantage, mainly about the corporation’s planning, marketing and sales.

In addition to this broader objective, this strategy can bring even more specific benefits to the business. See the main ones.

Greater Audience Targeting

Geomarketing allows your company to segment the target audience with all possible details, mapping their behavior through geographic coordinates.

That is, through geographic intelligence tools, your company can identify the location of your consumer and the places they frequent and are most interested in attending.

In addition to this possibility, your organization can combine this information with other important data and create more assertive “personas” for the business.

Improved Lead Generation

By directing your content according to the user’s location, there are greater chances of increasing your company’s leads. This is because you end up personalizing the communication content and providing relevant information according to each audience your organization has.

Increase In Conversion Rate

Ultra segmentation, more effective communication and more leads generated, as a consequence, a higher conversion rate, that is, more purchase interest for your product or service.

Improved Customer Relationship Management

Another area that Geomarketing directly impacts is customer relationship management, which now has several positive changes.

Your company can, for example, better understand where your customers are and how they behave in the places they frequent; through this, you can communicate more effectively, strengthening your relationship with them and making your intentions clear.

How To Use Geomarketing In The Company?

There are different ways to use Geomarketing to optimize strategies in your company:

Geotargeting

With Geotargeting, your company can manage internet ad campaigns to reach a specific audience you want to reach through the location. This is the Geomarketing resource most used by companies because it is possible to delimit the region where the business is located and its surroundings.

Being basic, it is found on different online ad platforms, such as Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. With these tools, your company can segment the public by country, state, city, neighborhood and, on some occasions, even by distance from your establishment.

Custom Website

Personalized sites are considered those that request the user’s location while browsing. He aims to make the user experience more useful, delivering content according to his needs.

But, as you can see, it is a resource that depends on the user’s authorization; that is, he needs to accept the invitation to share his location.

Geofencing

Geofencing is a notification sent in real-time, through a message on the cell phone or by email. Through this technology, the company manages to monitor the steps of consumers. As the user approaches an area of ​​interest, the notification is triggered.

This technology is used by Waze, for example, which uses the geofencing feature to inform about traffic in a certain region. Like there is Google, which asks for a review of a place you are visiting.

Check-Ins

Check-in is another Geomarketing technology that depends on the user’s authorization but that can be encouraged by the company. You can use this feature to publicize your business for free when you have a physical establishment.

For example, many organizations embrace this technology to provide free Wi-Fi. Before releasing access to the internet, the user needs to check in on Facebook and, consequently, disclose the location to use the internet.

Also Read: Innovation Marketing: How To Apply It In Companies?

Innovation Marketing is one of four actions that need to be implemented by a company for it to guarantee its space in the market in which it operates – the other three are process innovation, product or service innovation, and organizational innovation. 

It consists of using a marketing method not previously used by the company, such as significant changes to the brand logo, packaging, positioning, or promotion. As a final result, these changes are always aimed at improving outbound customer prospecting and, consequently, increasing sales, but the goals pursued can be several:

• Improve the visibility or exposure of services or products;
• Increase or preserve market share;
• Entering new markets, for example.

As a company’s success is not only related to the delivery of good products or efficient manufacturing processes, it is essential to have an innovative marketing strategy to attract the target audience. 

With growing digital technology, consumers can access various brands, but only some stand out. With this, companies must work with innovation in marketing to generate new ways to reach the public and increase sales, as well as neuromarketing techniques and practices.

There are countless marketing innovations that a company can resort to, but for them to be effective, the response team must be aware of the trends in its market so that it can stand out.

It is important to emphasize that marketing innovation can be distinct from creating a business profile on social networks or even sharing memes. Despite good practices that help develop innovation in marketing, it is important that there is planning behind all actions.

Actions To Apply Marketing Innovations In The Company

Several simple actions can be taken to create a culture of innovation in the marketing industry. Below, you can check out the main actions that will help achieve this goal. Look!

Create A Culture Of Innovation

Company leaders need to instill a culture of innovation in the corporate environment, in which employees in the marketing sector can take ownership of their creativity and innovation and bring in new strategies that yield better results.

This practice guarantees significant changes within the corporate context, which are quickly embraced by the teams as they bring greater autonomy and reliability to the work of professionals. In addition, the team makes fewer mistakes and becomes more engaged in their tasks.

Embrace Technology

Implementing technology in the corporate environment is a matter of survival these days. But when it comes to  ​​innovation, some companies tend to resort only to root marketing and ignore the potential in other tools, as is the case with digital marketing.

Large companies around the world are already adapted to digital. They are even on the main social networks, using strategies such as Analytics to analyze their performance, and define content that generates relationships with their audiences, in addition to the internet of things and others.

The focus of these actions is on the customer’s life cycle because the purchase decision of current consumers is not only based on their desire or need but is also directly related to trends in social networks, the alternative of shopping online through mobile devices, and because of the brand’s image in the digital field.

Thus, a company’s marketing is responsible for developing campaigns and sales actions and identifying the correct way to combine sector strategies with technology to generate more consumer buying interest.

Benchmark

Benchmarking means “reference.” In practice, it means conducting an in-depth analysis of the best actions used by competing companies that can be used in your organization.

In the benchmarking process, interpretation, evaluation, and measurement of data collected on institutions of the same niche that are qualified as competitors of your company are carried out.

This strategy can be used in any company, whether small or large. This action is essential to understand what is and is not working in the market. This is because it has helped facilitate the development of companies’ marketing innovation processes.

Give Autonomy To The Teams Involved

Giving autonomy to teams that are somehow related to marketing innovation is a way to put ideas into practice, test, and experiment with new solutions to identify whether or not it is worth continuing with such actions. 

Professionals should feel that they are important figures in the process and have the opportunity to act and give their opinions on the decisions that will be taken. But it is important that when implementing this change, your company focuses on defining goals and deadlines so that the results appear. As a result, employees will commit even more to their tasks.

Also Read: Benefits Of Inbound Marketing For Acquiring New Customers