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Creating a successful viral marketing campaign has been likened to hitting home runs—you never know which at-bat is going to produce one, so the key is to make a lot of trips to the plate. Put another way, there is no magic formula for producing a viral campaign, you just have to try different concepts. There are, however, certain characteristics that will either increase the odds of viral success, or doom it to failure.

Speed: people worth reaching tend to be busy. They’ll take a short diversion break, but unless your campaign is extremely engaging, they’ll shut it down if it’s too time-consuming. That means you either need to make it fast, make it brilliant enough to keep their attention away from other priorities, or make it flexible enough that anyone can engage quickly, while those with more time can interact at a deeper level.

Respect: most people understand that if you’ve created a viral campaign for marketing purposes, especially in the b2b world, you’re going to ask for contact information at some point. That’s fine, but ask only for the information you really need. If your initial interaction is going to be by email or phone, for example, you don’t need to ask for physical address.

Relevance: ideally, your viral campaign will actually have some relation to your product or service, so that it attracts people who are actually in your target market and reinforces your value proposition. How many times have you remembered a very funny or creative TV ad, but forgotten what was actually being advertised? `Nuff said.

Sharability: very simply, the easier it is to pass something along, the more likely it will be. Embed code, “email this” and social bookmark site tagging buttons are examples of simple ways to increase pass along.

I recently received a press release about a viral campaign for a new movie. While the concept sounded clever, it turned out to be confusing, unnecessarily complex, time-consuming, and worst of all, it required participants to give up not only their own privacy, but that of their social network connections as well. Bad idea.

On the other hand, there’s the Interstellar Pizza Express game from Minneapolis-based web hosting provider Visi.com. Players choose web hosting options to maximize their pizza sales. The high scorer each month wins an iPod. While there’s no guarantee this campaign will go viral, it does have most of the right attributes for potential viral success: it’s relatively simple (though some of the options could be made more clear); definitely original; moderately entertaining in a geeky sort of way; quick to play; extremely relavant to Visi’s business web hosting services; and asks only for pretty basic contact information. One area where the campaign could have been improved is on sharability—an email-this button and badges for social bookmark sites like Digg and StumbleUpon would have simplified pass along.

Still, the Visi campaign exemplifies many of the key requirements for going viral. Whether your next viral campaign is a home run or more of a strikeout, however, the most important tactic of all is to keep swinging.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Viral Marketing Campaigns - Keep It Simple

In The Disconnect in PPC vs. SEO Spending, Rand Fishkin demonstrates that “SEO drives 75%+ of all search traffic, yet garners less than 15% of marketing budgets for SEM campaigns. PPC receives less than 25% of all search traffic, yet earns 80%+ of SEM campaign budgets,” then asks: “Why does paid search earn so many more marketing dollars?”

No doubt the comments to Rand’s post will reveal many reasons for this differential, but here are three that spring immediately to mind:

1. The perception that people click on natural search results when they are seeking information, but on sponsored search ads when they are ready to buy. This presumption certainly justifies proportionately greater spending if it’s valid. I suspect that just the opposite may in fact be the case, but don’t have sufficient data to back that up.

2. The “media cost” is inherent in PPC. Companies can spend very similar amounts for SEO activities and SEM program management–in fact, they can even spend more on the former than the latter–yet still have much larger budgets for PPC than for SEO. That’s simply because PPC includes a “media cost” of paying for the sponsored search clicks from Google, Yahoo, MSN, or another search engine.

3. PPC is applicable to a broader set of search terms. Some terms (most commonly one- to three-word search phrases) are simply very, very difficult to SEO for, either because they are highly competitive, very common, or ambiguous. With SEO, you can spend a lot of money to try to rank well for these terms yet still end up with disappointing results. With SEM, you can guarantee your site will appear, then control total costs through day-parting and geo-targeting.

It’s also very difficult to show up well in the natural search results for a competitor’s brand name. PPC not only gives you a spot on page one for these phrases, it lets you customize the message (e.g., “consider the more cost-effective alternative”).

The bottom line is that SEO is both more effective and less expensive than PPC, which makes it a no-brainer for any website.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Continued here:
Why PPC Will Always Cost More Than SEO

One of the biggest question we recieve from clients and potential clients is along the lines of “How do we measure our ROI” or “How do we know the campaign is working?”  This is definitely the largest gap in social media marketing right now.  However with a little bit of ingenuity you can pull some […]

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Measuring the success of a Social Media Marketing Campaign

Note: the following is a guest post from expert researcher and freelance writer Heather Johnson on how businesses can effectively use social media as a component of PR efforts, and efficiently focus their efforts on the most productive sites.

Social media sites, no longer relegated to just teens and college students, are now the most cost-effective way for a company to drum up international attention. In fact, social networking serves as a great equalizer for small businesses, as anyone with an Internet connection can now launch a successful, global marketing campaign.

With so many sites to choose from, however, one can easily become overwhelmed. Small businesses have neither the time nor the manpower to cover every major site. Instead, it is best to strongly focus on several and then let the viral nature of social media take over.

Below, I have listed the five best social media sites for small businesses, as well as related tips for each one.

1. StumbleUpon - A recent post cited StumbleUpon as the best social media site for driving B2B Web traffic. Indeed, it is currently the reigning champ for promoting many types of Websites. Not only it is easier to gain attention on StumbleUpon than many other bookmarking sites, the tail of traffic is much longer.

Tip: After your business is “discovered” on StumbleUpon, give your site a little boost by starting a StumbleUpon ad campaign. For just 5 cents a visitor, you can drive a specifically targeted audience to your businesses’ homepage.

2. Twitter – Twitter is a great way for business owners to network at their own convenience. With this tool, you have 140 characters to answer the question, “What are you doing?” People on your Twitter friends list will see each of your posts (aka “tweets”), which can be used to promote new ideas and features for your business.

Tip: Don’t promote your site with every tweet, lest you become labeled a spammer. Point out other sites that interest you or something amusing that is really affecting you that day. With those tweets, you can sprinkle in a link to your latest blog entry or a special feature offered by the company.

3. LinkedIn – Everyone is truly connected in the business world and LinkedIn offers a way to visualize this massive network. By starting a professional profile on this site, you will be able to add real-world business contacts to your friends list, as well as the contacts of those people. And so on.

Tip: According to Guy Kawasaki, those with 20 or more connections on LinkedIn are 34 times more likely to be approached about business opportunities through the site.

4. Wikipedia – It is a boon to your small business to be mentioned on Wikipedia. The site’s many entries are highly ranked in Google and read by millions each day. One caveat: Wikipedia editors can be ruthless about removing external links from the site, so it isn’t an easy feat to make your small business “stick.”

Tip: Before you go bounding for the world’s largest wiki and adding a link to your business, start an account with the site and become active for a few weeks. Only after you educate yourself on how to contribute to Wikipedia should you attempt to start your own page. This will increase your chances of remaining on the site.

5. Wetpaint – Wikipedia isn’t the only wiki on the map. With Wetpaint, you can create your company’s own wiki for free. This wiki platform is attractive and easy to create. A “What You See is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) editor, even technical novices can customize the site, upload articles and widgets, etc. No programming knowledge required.

Tip: What Wetpaint offers is a way to get direct feedback from customers, as well as high Google ranking. If you don’t want the public to edit the pages on your Wetpaint site, as administrator you can lock each one.

Rather than starting a blog and tirelessly plugging your entries on Digg or Reddit, you should use the sites above to create long-term business contacts and continuous traffic. These five sites require less commitment and cost little to no money for a successful marketing campaign. Small businesses will truly be on an even playing field.

Heather Johnson is a freelance business, finance and economics writer, as well as a regular contributor at Business Credit Cards, a site for best business credit cards and best business credit card offers. Heather welcomes comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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The 5 Best Social Media Sites for Small Businesses