Viral marketing is any marketing which by virtue of its content alone self-replicates, self-distributes, or auto-promotes your brand. If you follow internet marketing circles you’ll see at least two interesting things about viral marketing. One is that viral marketing is supposed to be all the rage. The second, strangely enough, is that it’s not easy to find anyone who claims to specialize in it. Many see success in viral marketing as part creative genius and part luck. I don’t think either is required for successful viral marketing.

Anyone who has ever had an email address has been exposed to viral content of some kind from a heart-warming story, to a funny home video, to a warning of some kind, to some ironic story that’s been passed from person to person for no other reason than they thought their friends and family would be entertained by it or benefit from it in some way. What do all these self-promoting viral snippets have in common? They have a twist.

The twist is the part that makes it worth sharing. It makes you look at something from a whole new angle and causes an emotional-physical reaction. The twist makes the tragic funny, it makes the difficult simple, it makes the obscure obvious. It says what everyone’s thinking but can’t put into words. It serves as a way of sort of tickling people you know. Tickling is actually a good analogy because it can be thought of as touching someone in a way that they’re not expecting to be touched which causes that instant emotional and physical reaction.

Any marketing that doesn’t incur distribution cost is good marketing in my book. And the only marketing that I know of that doesn’t cost anything is marketing that markets itself through the viral effect. The production might cost money, but that’s money you would have spent on a normal (expensive) advertising campaign any way. Why are so few businesses doing it and so few agencies offering it?

I’d estimate that ninety-nine out of one hundred businesses pay to have their advertising produced, and then they pay even more to have it distributed or broadcast. Then nine in ten ads that run don’t work well. Ninety-nine out of one hundred of the few ads that do work do not become viral. Can it really be that hard to create something that’s funny or uplifting or unusual enough for people to pass along to their friends or colleagues?

The problem is this: Even creative people think inside the box. Business owners are creative. They created a business didn’t they? But when it comes to advertising very few are willing to think outside the box and even discuss investing in advertising that doesn’t make a wholehearted effort to pitch their product. Well, where’s the twist in that? Without the twist, there’s no reason to pass it along and you have to pay to have it distributed.

Let’s look at and analyze an example.

I have a client in the home services industry who offers plumbing, electrical, heating and air conditioning services. We talked about all that he wanted to say in his advertising such as their fast, professional service, low prices, around the clock service, for plumbing, electrical, heating and air conditioning. That’s a lot of stuff to remember! And there’s no twist in just saying it. Everyone is expecting that. It won’t get their attention and it won’t cock their head even a little. So I asked the question, what don’t people expect of a plumber or electrician. And on top of that I needed to turn the tables on the fact that they had too many services to make it stick.

Here are two ideas for radio ads based on a twist (they’ve been shortened for brevity sake):

PLUMBING AD

Female Dispatcher: ABC Plumbing, Electric, Heating and Air Conditioning! How can I make your day better?

Old Man on Phone: Yeah, could you guys send over a plumber. Ahhh, my gazebo’s on fire.

Dispatcher: Um, sir, don’t you think you should dial 911?

Old Man: Weeeell, you guys did such a great job uncloggin’ my drains with the lightnin’ fast e-mergency service that I figured you could help me out with this situation… [and so on]

ELECTRICIAN AD

Dispatcher: ABC Plumbing, Electric, Heating and Air Conditioning! How can I make your day better?

New York Accent on Phone: Yeah, would ya mind sendin’ over an electrician. My cah won’t staht.

Dispatcher: I’m sorry sir we only do residential…

New Yorker: [Interrupts] Listen, Lady, you guys did such a great job re-wirin’ my garage, I’m sure you can handle this job….[and so on]

At the end of each spot we added a tag line that explains the twist: “You’ll love our plumbing, electrical, heating and air conditioning services so much, you’ll wish we did more stuff!”

With good talent, these ads made everyone that heard them chuckle. We were able to put in a plug for the benefits of using the company and still have a pretty good twist.

Another client in the residential moving industry asked me to come up with a viral video idea. I thought, “what can’t be shipped?” The idea I came up with was this: A family is sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner, and their two kids are fighting. The mother says, “If you kids don’t behave we’re going to trade you to the Indians” (something my mother used to say in jest). The kids stop for a moment and then go back to misbehaving. The next thing you see is the moving truck (with the moving company’s logo) pulling up to the house and two jostling boxes sitting in the driveway (the kids are obviously inside them). The truck pulls up to the Cleveland Indians baseball stadium and parks at the loading dock. Next you see the scowling kids scrubbing the pitchers mound and clipping the grass and the parents are having dinner with a baseball star (the kids literally got traded to the Indians). The tag line could be something like “ABC Trucking. Your family moving company.” The client never used this ad as far as I know, probably for fear of being criticized for showing kids packed in boxes, but that’s exactly the twist! In my view they chickened out and this would have been a great video to throw onto YouTube. It could be a quick 30 second gag and parents everywhere would get a laugh out of it.

Here’s another great example that came to me this past Christmas. My mother sent me an online Christmas greeting which was quite funny. It was a cartoon elf doing a funny dance and singing a song but it was my mother’s face on the elf. It was really cute. A flash program on the company’s website superimposed her photo with the dancing elf. At the bottom of the screen I saw an offer to send this to my friends with my face on the elf, and an office supply superstore logo which obviously linked to their site. There was probably a relatively small production cost to make the flash program that created the video. Once in place, it spread all by itself. I made one for my friends and I’m sure some of them did the same. What did it have to do with office supplies? That’s right, nothing! But it was a twist on the usual electronic Christmas card.

So forget what it is your selling for a moment. Stop listing the benefits. Think way outside the box. Start from the desired result - a useful or entertaining, self-replicating snippet of some kind which causes an emotional-physical response - and then work your way back. First think about what people are expecting you to say or do. Then think of something that will take a sharp left-hand turn, knock people out of their expectations, tickle them, and make a real impression. When you think you have something worth passing along, then you can tie it into your brand.

As a postscript I’d like to say that there are many other exciting viral marketing techniques than the few mentioned here. Give me a call at 603-560-6545 to discuss how I can help you create a twist and help your message go viral.

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