Results-Focused Online Marketing Strategies

Viral marketing is an awesome, cheap way to get your product or service spread across the Internet, right?

Wrong.

The very idea that viral marketing can be applied to your business is a myth that has been perpetuated mostly by folks who are unwilling to believe that you need to work hard and do the groundwork in order to succeed.

Not to say that nobody ever succeeds in “going viral” but the bottom line is that almost without exception, most efforts that succeeded owed their viral success to either:

1. Giving away something for free that formerly cost money - i.e. Hotmail for email, Napster for music, Skype for long distance.
2. Creating a meaningful community - i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Flickr. OR
3. Both of the above - i.e. YouTube offering free video hosting and creating an online video community, Wikipedia offering a free encyclopedia and a community of contributors.

Other than that, there are a few successful examples (Mentos and Coke video, Axe viral commercials) but the bottom line is that the chance of orchestrating a viral campaign that succeeds in propelling your business to new heights overnight is about as likely as winning the lottery.

So, all that said, what CAN you do to leverage the Internet to spread word of your product or service online?

1. Identify a group of users who love what you offer. For instance, if your product is a time tracking software tool, your most happy users might be independent graphic designers.
2. Find out where this type of user congregates online and join in where possible and appropriate. There are numerous sites that provide resources, articles and forums for customers in just about any industry you could imagine..
3. Engage in these sites and communities in a meaningful manner. For example, in the case of a graphic design business forum, start to read forum posts daily and reply where you can add insight to business topics.

   Resist the urge to “pitch” your service, but rather focus on becoming a valued part of the community (be sure, however, to always include an online “signature” in your posts that explains who you are and what you do). In the case of news and article sites, figure out some topics that would be of interest and find out how to submit articles to the respective sites.

The most important advice, which may seem at first to be counterintuitive, is to avoid “selling” in your interactions. Focus instead on building trust, relationships and credibility (although never hesitate to tell folk what you actually do when it’s appropriate).

Also, once you’ve established your credibility in the group, it’s usually reasonable to do things like ask the group for opinions for product improvement, post short surveys to learn more, and recruit beta testers or focus group members.

If you take a long-term approach to this strategy and spend a bit of time on it weekly, you will eventually achieve widespread awareness of your product within the group, positive word of mouth, and a position as a leading supplier (in your field) to the industry.

Best of all, you’ll get to know your best users even better, resulting in product improvements that will make your product even better for them. In doing this you create an ongoing feedback loop that will give you the insights you need to become insurmountable in your chosen industry.

Hard work? It definitely takes a bit of time and patience, but the good news is that it will work for anyone who sincerely wants to improve their competitive position within a chosen industry. Plus, it beats waiting around to win the lottery.

Note: Obviously, if you want to embrace this approach there are lots of other things you can do in terms of Online PR, Word of Mouth Marketing, Article Marketing, etc. We’ll be tackling these in future newsletters and blog posts. In the meantime, check out the 5 Secrets To Success In Article Marketing if you’re interested in learning more about article marketing…