Have fun with viral marketing! February 23, 2010
A few weeks ago we were having a chinwag in the office about a local barber shop. The first bit of amazement was just the fact that James got a haircut. After the initial shock of James’ grooming, we chatted about how the barber he went to seemed to be struggling for custom.
The barbershop has been in town for years, and being in a town centre should be doing reasonable well, offering cheap ‘short-back-and-sides’ services. So the team wondered what we would do if we were hired to help promote his business. Believe it or not most of the techniques we discussed were offline, not online – bizarre for an online content and SEO company!What followed was a fun brain-storming morning with the daftest ideas thrown about the office. But in truth it’s the daftest ideas which work the best! We thought about dressing everyone in the office up with big beards and moustaches (even us girls!) and walking around town handing out leaflets. Or having moustache and beard stickers to stick on people’s faces on adverts and billboards with the tag “Can Curly Cut It?”
Techniques like these are so often only reserved for big brands, but when scaled down can work just as well for small businesses if done in the right way. Viral doesn’t just have to be offline, it can be online too. Viral games are big business for brands wanting a fun way to compliment their existing online strategies, who doesn’t love to play a free game? Data is collected from these game via forms players can fill into submit their high score for a possible prize. I’ve seen it in action and it really does work (did my work placement at a viral games studio a while back).Viral techniques are particularly good using social media, Facebook and Twitter are the best ways to catch a viral campaign!
‘Viral’ works how it says on the tin, like a virus. One person catches it and passes it on to more people each time. When done in the right way it can be a fun and successful way to promote your business, as long as the basics aren’t ignored of course… don’t go making a game if your content online is rubbish!
Hi Amy,
I love a woman with a beard, there are some great circus acts around with bearded wonders, im sure you could use a take on this to promote the barbers services, plus say hi to James for me. Thanks.