Effective Viral Marketing For Your Business

In marketing, we all dream about achieving viral success and receiving an exponential amount of “buzz” for our individual campaigns. From time to time we hear about creative successes, such as the Moonfruit “win a MacBook” campaign on Twitter. What does it take to go viral and is it even something you can plan for, or does it just happen?

Fundamentally you need to be able to create a passion, a reaction or a significant feeling in your target audience to act as a catalyst. This means that you have to create anger, laughter, concern, surprise, need or a combination of these to ensure that your couple of seconds of product fame will turn into a focus of attention. Remember that it has to be all about arousing emotions.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make, however, is to start off by coming up with a weird and wacky idea and by focusing too much on the bizarre or the extreme. It is important to focus on emotions, but not fundamentally good for long-term image to shock, scare, repel or repulse potential clients! It is true to say that “shocking” almost always means viral exposure, as in the “guy who miraculously avoided being squashed by the out-of-control bus” video, but you want to be able to portray your business in an always powerful and positive light.

Remember that viral campaigns need not be restricted to one medium. Indeed as we know, social marketing is most effective when several different platforms are interconnected. While you may be focusing on social marketing to get your ball rolling, don’t be afraid to plan press release campaigns or other off-line initiatives to enhance and to back up.

If you believe that you have come up with a neat angle for your product, service or brand, don’t be ready to rush it out to the waiting world. Ask yourself the question – are you really ready for a viral explosion. You must prepare as if this campaign will really take off. The very objective is to make sure that you get a lasting benefit from what will effectively be a shorter term spike. As such, will you be able to capture the contact details for everyone who visits your primary website or social media sites as a consequence of this buzz? Moonfruit estimated that their US traffic (they are a UK based company) increased over 1000% as a result of their viral campaign success.

How do you plan to “go viral?”

Matthew Toren

Is Amazon Onto Something With Same Day Delivery?

As consumers, we simply love to shop. Call it self-enrichment if you want or merely a thirst for the possession of something shiny and new, but in any case we love to take that trip to the mall and come out with bags in hand. Of course dealing with hundreds of pushy shoppers, losing the car in the parking lot and fighting traffic to get home can all get very old, rather quickly and this is part of the reason why online shopping has really taken off over the years. Combine the ease of choosing from the comfort of your office chair with a buying experience that has been perfected over time and you have the right solution for the hermit shopper.

If someone could come up with a solution to combine these two methods, then they would be onto a winner, surely. Bypass all the hassles of physically going somewhere to get something yet still achieve that feeling of instant gratification. Maybe Amazon has come close to helping us achieve this utopian existence through the introduction of their same day delivery service?

Amazon is one of the world’s strongest retailers as we know and when they introduce a new service such as this, anyone involved in the consumer industry stands up and takes notice. Others have tried to achieve the ultimate in fulfillment before, but have not been successful. By and large, the nearest you can get to receiving your goods when you pay for them, other than by going and getting them yourself of course, is to wait for the “before 10 AM” delivery by FedEx or UPS the following day.

Amazon’s local express delivery, remember – local, is available in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, DC, Las Vegas, Baltimore and Seattle. The company is focusing its attentions on these cities to rollout what must be a very logistically difficult operation and it will be intriguing to see how it works.

Figure about $21 for the delivery of an average packet, although if you are an avid online shopper you would do well to become an Amazon Prime member, forking out $79 a year for free shipping and receiving local express delivery in one of the cities for only six bucks.

Will this profit versus cost model work and will it be extended to other cities? You would imagine that people are still too firmly focused on pinching pennies as we emerge from this recession right now, but through clever marketing and the use of loss leaders here and there, maybe this form of delivery will become as popular as pizza.

Would you use Same Day Delivery?

Matthew Toren

2009 TRAFFIC New York Domain Auction Results

Here are the RickLatona.com live auction results from the TRAFFIC show in New York with an impressive total of $1,295,000 in sales with Rio.com, as expected leading the list of sales at $450,000.

As you can see, there were some that were extremely good deals!

Here is the complete, unofficial list of the domains that sold:

Rio.com $450,000
Whiskey.com $185,000
SchoolLoans.com $137,500
iAuction.com $50,000
Boy.com $45,000
Porn.co.za $45,000
Megan.com $42,500
900.com $40,000
Kasino.com $35,000
Hookahs.com $26,000
PapuaNewGuinea.com $25,000
PopStars.com $21,000
PinkDiamond.com $18,000
Hackensack.com $17,500

Z6.com, Z6.net &
Z6.org $15,000

ChildPsychologists.com $11,500
247Live.com $10,000
Schizophrenic.com $10,000
UTN.com $10,000
Stimulant.com $9,000
QDC.com $7,000
ChargingStations.com $6,000
Bulldoze.com $5,000
TheBronx.net $5,000
UZS.com $5,000
DumbAsses.com $3,500
SandyBeaches.com $2,600
FiletMignons.com $2,500
minister.net $2,500
Nudged.com $2,500
OutOfState.com $2,500
ExecutiveSalesJobs.com $2,100
Altercation.com $2,000
AntiDepressants.net $2,000
Collapsed.com $2,000
Cultivating.com $2,000
DrugMoney.com $2,000
Frustrate.com $2,000
Halp.com $2,000
Odes.com $2,000
SaddamHussein.com $2,000
SenseOfHumor.com $2,000
Ciders.com $1,750
AntiWrinkleLotion.com $1,500
Infringing.com $1,500

Skidders.com &
Skidders.net $1,500

Pears.net $1,300
Carts.net $1,100
DryMartinis.com $1,100
WrinkleLotion.com $1,100
Dabbled.com $1,000

Ignoring.com $1,000

Overridden.com $1,000

Overtaking.com $900
Aunt.net $800
Figuratively.com $750
Disappointments.com $700
Satisfier.com $700
UsedSmartPhones.com $650
BackInjuryAttorneys.com $600
HairStudios.com $600
Laggard.com $600
LasikSurgeons.net $600
PreownedExoticCars.com $600
Clemson.net $500
Decorators.us $500
CommercialBonds.com $400
HeavyweightBoxer.com $400
StockInvestments.net $360
AortaSurgery.com $300
BusinessNetbooks.com $300
CommemorativePlate.com $300
DearbornHeights.net $300
NeckInjuryAttorneys.com $300
ProductCycles.com $300
WeddingProverbs.com $300

List courtesy of TheDomains.com

Do any of you buy/sell domains? What have been some of your latest domain purchases or sales?

RIVworks Brings Down the Cost of Interactive Video

It can be so difficult to set your site apart from the rest, especially without appearing to be overly gimmicky or even cheesy. When you have spent considerable time and effort in the design and layout of your webpages and are sure that you have your optimized message perfectly portrayed, then why not consider looking at a “new niche” (as one of the founders of RIVworks describes it) and put a rich interactive video online?

The concept of RIVworks, as outlined by its founder Ty Ricker, is a video delivery service featuring actors that walk onto the page and describe what you have to offer, pointing out special features, buttons or talking about your site in general. You may have seen this once or twice as you are surfing the web, but generally it is still considered novel and in its infancy. Thus “rich interactive video” engages shoppers and enhances the selling process by making the experience more fun and entertaining.

The service is surprisingly affordable and starts off at only $79 per month. For this you can choose from among the company’s 5000 recorded video clips, using a male or female actor in a “full body” or “half body” format and select whether they walk onto the screen from the left or right.
As the idea is to really project a human element to your website this can have a markedly positive effect on your visitors. We have always preached that you should “humanize” your e-commerce site as much as possible, even if it means just putting up photographs of the owner or staff, including quotation marks around text and attribute content to real people, including links to Facebook pages and so on. If the walk on actor may seem too generic for you, you can opt to spend some more and reproduce yourself. You can also opt to create a custom set of videos, which will mention specific services or site options, although your prices will increase accordingly, up to about $1700.
It seems that the company may also have its sights on creating a video marketplace and offering creative types a platform to sell their wares to marketers just like you, who want to be on the cutting edge.
It is not recommended that you include this type of presentation on your site if you already have an overly rich experience lined up for visitors anyway. You need to be aware of potential conflicts between different scripts and applications and remember not to slow down your page loading times too much!

Have you tried RIVworks? Let us know your experiences.

Adam Toren

A Small Bad Experience Can Have a Big Effect

There are so many intangibles standing in the way of converting a prospect into a client that it makes sense for us to focus on areas where we can make a noticeable difference. Site usability is completely within our control and we must present a perfect playing field if we are to expect our visiting player to score a touchdown!

A lot of effort goes into a typical web sales funnel. You may use several social media campaigns, article marketing, pay per click, video marketing or a combination of methods to drive warm prospects to your site, relying on the strength of your marketing message to finally convert them once they are there. Yet even the smallest “bad experience” appears to have a devastating effect when it comes to the ultimate conversion.

This seems to be especially true the closer you get to the point of reckoning. Shopping cart abandonment is a phenomenon that we are only too aware of and should do everything within our power to contain. Even if the visitor is on his fifth or sixth visit and has finally decided that he or she would like to do business with you, there is still a certain amount of trepidation or “advance buyer remorse,” maybe. The prospective buyer does not expect any surprises during the purchase phase and will likely abandon the entire process if anything is out of place.

Moral number one: make your entire purchase and checkout process as seamless as possible.
Moral number two: pay a great deal of attention to the structure and composition, grammar and general “readability” of your site. Remember that a spelling mistake here or there or an inadequately composed sentence could create just a little nagging doubt in the mind of the prospect. They are about to engage in a process of trust and you should not present any stumbling blocks, no matter how small.

Your entire site should be nothing less than fully professional, but remember that it is not all about the first impressions created by your homepage, but can also be about the “next to last” impressions contained within your registration, payment or checkout pages as well. While this is at the top of your mind, go and have a good look at your site right now!

How have you prevented bad experiences?

Matthew Toren

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