Viral Marketing is Like a Fat Midget w/ a Wig on a Unicycle

[pdstein]

Four weeks about I launched a viral campaign to help raise money for a home for AIDS-orphaned children in Africa. The AIDS Clickathon is like an online walkathon. You click... the sponsors donate to this orphanage. No donation required, no registration, no strings attached.

Seemed like a good concept, but with this being my first attempt at viral marketing (see viral marketing strategies article for details) I made a lot of mistakes and it hasn’t been as successful as I had hoped so far. (Too bad since it’s a great cause). So, I thought I'd share some things I learned along the way...

Viral marketing is like a fat midget with a wig on a unicycle. With all due respect to little people and carnival workers, if you can get people to look, that’s half the battle.

Viral marketing is like free iPod spam. Most people assume it’s too good to be true so they don’t even bother to check it out. We learned some people would not go to AIDSclickathon.com and click the link because they thought either it would cost them something or they would have to give out personal information.

Viral marketing is like Sanjaya’s hair. Sometimes things are popular because they stand out not because they’re good.

Viral marketing is like a shampoo commercial. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” If you screw up the launch you put a huge dent in the chances the viral will ever catch on. That’s because the people most likely to be your biggest evangelists are the people you know personally and contact first. If your viral is confusing at the launch (as mine was) or lame or has broken links, it’s not likely you can get those people to enthusiastically spread the word even after you’ve fixed those things.

Viral marketing is like a bad haircut. Get a great new do and people will compliment you. Get a terrible haircut nobody will tell you about it to your face. I found the same is true with viral marketing. Good feedback is easy to come by. But when something’s not right and things aren’t taking off, nobody will tell you why it didn’t click with them.

Viral marketing is like cooking burgers on a campfire. Done right you simply light a single match, which ignites the kindling, which gets the big logs burning long and hot enough to cook up a great meal. But if the wood is wet, it’s too windy, or you don’t use enough kindling it the fire goes out and you end up scrambling and scrounging for anything that will get the fire going again just long enough so you don’t get food poisoning from eating raw beef. When viral marketing works it’s easy and things take off on their own. When it doesn’t work you can end up spending a lot of time scrambling to contact new people in the hopes that some of them will get the viral going on its own.

Viral marketing is like running for president. Sometimes it’s not what you do but who you know that matters most. If you have relationships with popular bloggers or other people who have a large audience and are willing to mention your viral, that can make all the difference.

Viral marketing is like a caged monkey at the zoo. After a while it’s easy to get frustrated and start throwing anything against the wall to see what will stick.

So, I'd like to know from you viral marketing veterans, what have you learned through experience about viral marketing? What would you say it’s like?

[bjbtexas]

...is like a wet golden retriever with a stick in its mouth. Fun to play with, but you know you'll end up soaked sooner or later.

Golden retriever lessons:
Keep throwing the stick...
Get a different stick...
Try an old can...
Get a ball...

Just keep throwing the stick, the ball and the can and have fun trying.

[crazyblue]

If your viral marketing is as catchy as the title of the topic, you should do well.

The thing about viral marketing is that a big part of it is like, "what's funny?" Everyone things they know, and yet very few people are successful comedians.

At lot of it is about asking what it would take to seduce someone into interrupting whatever they're doing, and checking out something probably irrelevant. And on top of it, being worthwhile enough that people will spread it.

I think that part of the problem with the AIDS clickathon is that you're mixing approach and audience.

The kind of audience that cares enough about a cause like AIDS, will be more motivated by something that speaks to their values. The Clickathon seems like something aimed more at the crowd that shares silly youtube videos with their friends. This is not a BAD thing. The problem is that the two are mixed.

If you want to appeal more to the people who will spread this to their friends, you basically have to take this serious topic and find a funny/silly/shocking side to it.

Last comment: you're very right especially about how with viral campaigns, nobody tells you when you get it wrong. That's because viral campaigns are by definition about fighting indifference. You start from a point of indifference (I see a bazillion ads every day, why care about yours?) and have to interest them in something that is of interest, whether a circus, a car accident, or a puppy dog.

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by crazyblue

If your viral marketing is as catchy as the title of the topic, you should do well.

I wish it was, but it's rather difficult to make jokes about children whose parents have lost their lives to AIDS.

If you want to appeal more to the people who will spread this to their friends, you basically have to take this serious topic and find a funny/silly/shocking side to it.

Maybe you're right, but I'd like to believe there are other emotions virals can appeal to. Maybe not as effectively, but to some degree. From what I've read this generation of teens and young adults is the most socially responsible since the WW2 generation. But when I check the Clickathon MySpace profile it's friends are predominantly in their 30s and 40s, so obviously I've failed to connect with the younger crowd.

[mantawebsolutions]

pdstein, I don't know much about Viral Marketing so I am not going to answer your question directly but I am rather going to point out something about people.

I think the reason why some people do not get involved in something like a AIDS campaign or click-a-thon is because of three reasons.

1. Ignorance/self preservation
2. Lack of Knowledge
3. Fear

1. People are often self-centered and do not give of themselves simply because society has shaped us that way, we live for ourselves and do not care about others. We are ignorant of others and their problems because we are just focused on getting ourselves fed, clothed, warmed up... The rational is usually "Who cares about the little orphan somewhere in a country in Africa or wherever."

2. Our lack of knowledge (Specifically on AIDS) causes us to not venture into areas that we are unfimiliar with. People tend to stay away from something they know nothing of, whether it is good or bad.

3. As a result of our lack of knowledge, fear creaps in. Whether it is a fear of the unkwown or fear of getting infected, we are afraid to come close.

I think that with anything related to help or relief on AIDS victims should come a basic incentive to learn about the disease or the affects of it, and this does not happen easily and is costly.

I am probably not doing a good job to explain myself, but I think you get the idea...

[orfeo]

Excuse me but I didn't get it.

Why should I click? I am not telling "Why should I care". I want to help and you simply tell me "Click here". What will happen if I do? If it made me wonder, and I would click anyway just to see, imagine other people that are afraid of viruses, mallware.

This should be on one page, one domain with nothing else than that. No web hosting, no other content.

It should clearly say "This will happen, for that. You can help doing that."

I know I might not making great sense here but the whole idea is confusing.

I would never mention this to my blog since it is in a page that also has link to "Web Trends Blog", "Partnership Program", "Advertise with OCC".

I mean if your goal is to really help the kids you failed making that obvious (at least to me). If your goal was to promote ourchurch.com you got caught.

my 2 cents

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by orfeo

Excuse me but I didn't get it.

Why should I click? I am not telling "Why should I care". I want to help and you simply tell me "Click here". What will happen if I do? If it made me wonder, and I would click anyway just to see, imagine other people that are afraid of viruses, mallware.

Thanks for your feedback. This is great! I'm being totally serous, because like I said above almost nobody volunteers negative information about why this didn't appeal to them, so I really appreciate it.

Did you not see that it says:

"For each person who makes a free click below $0.25 will be donated by the Clickathon sponsors."

Are you suggesting I add to the page something like:

"Clicking this link will take you to a page that shows you how much money has been raised for AIDS-orphaned children so far and ways you help spread the word. There are no viruses, no malware, no registration, no tracking other than noting your IP address so we can count unique visitors, no request for personal information - absolutely no catch whatsoever."

This should be on one page, one domain with nothing else than that. No web hosting, no other content.

It should clearly say "This will happen, for that. You can help doing that."

I know I might not making great sense here but the whole idea is confusing.

I would never mention this to my blog since it is in a page that also has link to "Web Trends Blog", "Partnership Program", "Advertise with OCC".

I mean if your goal is to really help the kids you failed making that obvious (at least to me). If your goal was to promote ourchurch.com you got caught.

my 2 cents

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. I hadn't considered that. I wonder how many people visited the Clickathon site and left with the same impression as you did.

FWIW, I thought about doing the AIDS Clickathon as a separate micro-site like you suggested. My reasoning for doing it as a subsection of OurChurch.Com was:

a) I thought it would lend credibility to the Clickathon. As a micro-site people might ask, who's behind this? How do I know the money will actually go to the orphanage? I thought our reputation providing website services to faith-based organizations for more than 10 years would give people confidence that their donations would be used as promised.

b) Because our the OurChurch.Com site is well established in search engines, adding the Clickathon pages to that site would ensure they get indexed by search engines quickly and get good rankings. That has proved correct as the Clickathon has top 10 rankings for several phrases like "AIDS victims" and "help african children" and has received more than 100 visitors from search engines.

c) It was easier than designing a whole new site.

[juliemarg]

I think you also were harmed by the "i got a free $50 card from Target just for clicking on this link" spam. On MySpace variations of that are constantly in the comment spam. I never respond to that type of thing.

I had the same type of problem when I used a subject line of "win a free iphone" on the contest that I'm running. Some people here coached me on that. Now, I'm still giving away an iphone, but it's not a lead in my promo of the contest.

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by juliemarg

I think you also were harmed by the "i got a free $50 card from Target just for clicking on this link" spam. On MySpace variations of that are constantly in the comment spam. I never respond to that type of thing.

I hadn't heard of that. Never the less, the whole premise of word of mouth marketing is that receiving an endorsement from a friend is supposed to help overcome the natural skepticism we all have for spam and other sounds-too-good-to-be-true offers.

Isn't that true?

Or have urban legend chain emails (like AOL will pay you a dollar for every person you forward this emial to) made people nearly as skeptical of email forwarded from their friends? Hmmmm...

[juliemarg]

on myspace, the hackers will hijack your account and send out click here to get a free giftcard type emails to your friends. I've been on the internet for around 15 years and on myspace was the first time I've ever been hacked. And I've received those crazy email forwards from people who seemed to be reasonably smart.

[SemAdvance]

In all honesty it would seem to me to be the wrong mix of things.

People go to Myspace to feel a part of the community. They go to escape their real lives and live a vicarious thrill, at times dressing themselves up like fake stars and whatever affluent loser happens to have the most TV time at that particular moment.

As such they are pretty much self absorbed, and want little to do with the realities of the outside world especially anything of a serious nature.

I think you would have done much better working with forum postings say at ivillage or such.

I have been trying to explain this same concept to an insurance company too....wrong place for the idea or category.

Good luck!

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

In all honesty it would seem to me to be the wrong mix of things.

People go to Myspace to feel a part of the community. They go to escape their real lives and live a vicarious thrill, at times dressing themselves up like fake stars and whatever affluent loser happens to have the most TV time at that particular moment.

I tend to agree with you, except that that Barack Obama was able to gain 75,000 friends in a short time and the One Campaign has 100,000 friends. How did they become exceptions to the rule? Maybe their celebrity status.

Another viral that's worked to raise money for charity is Campbell Soup's Click for Cans. I'm just speculating but perhaps the fact that they de-emphasized the people in need (no pictures of hungry kids) and instead emphasized the competition among NFL teams helped that viral to spred.

It's exceptions like these that cause me to hold out hope that a viral for charitable purposes could be successful. Though they seem to be few and far between.

[mully308]

pdstein - Your problem isn't the technology or the mediums used - its very simple - its plain ol human psychology. Having built our business from the ground up on viral/word of mouth techniques (www.brewtopia.com.au) I now have a dubious honour of being paid to traipse around the world telling businesses how they should do it and I think I can solve your problem in 30 seconds:

The biggest thing your missing is you're not giving anyone a REASON pass this on - hence, there is no reason for it to be viral. Below are what I consider to be the essential elements of a viral campaign (and I'm not talking about "manufactured" campaigns that so called Viral experts proclaim they can guarantee for tens of thousands of dollars) I'm talking about good organic speedy buzz!
This is not a definitive list, but if you incorporate them all, you'll have given yourself the best shot of it going viral.

1) HAVE A BLOODY GOOD STORY!
Discover the power of the anecdote, the parable, yarn, myth. Comprise multiple stories, makes it more majestic and multi-faceted and appeals to more folk!
2) THINK LIKE A BUYER, NOT A SELLER.
People love to buy, but hate to be sold to. They buy on emotion and justify on logic.
3) ELIMINATE RISK TOTALLY: There must not ANY downside to them partaking. There can not be a time when they question "what will happen if I do X?"
4) BUILD CURIOSITY: Self explanatory
5) BORROW CREDIBILITY: Use a well known reference if you feel people may be skeptical
6) PLAY HARD TO GET: The more you limit access the more you increase demand
7) LIFT THE KIMONO & LET THEM HAVE A FIDDLE!: Once in, give them access to add input, give opinions and get emotionally bonded. Make sure you act on any input and opinion asap
8) DO THE UNEXPECTED/BE OUTRAGEOUS! STAND OUT AT ALL COSTS - POLARIZE IF YOU MUST!

Go an familiarize yourself with Maslow's Hierarchy of needs - make sure your offering has something of each of his 7 stages and you're on a winner.

It works - just for credibility's sake - we started with 1 email to 130 people and never advertised our product ever from that day - within 3 years we floated the company and currently turn over millions of dollars a year - the power of the people is daunting, if you have the ability to harness it!

*As for you believing you've blown your 1 chance - I disagree - the beauty about it flopping is that no-one knows it did! I would encourage you to incorporate all the ideas in this thread and have another stab at it!

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by mully308

The biggest thing your missing is you're not giving anyone a REASON pass this on - hence, there is no reason for it to be viral. Below are what I consider to be the essential elements of a viral campaign.

mully308, thanks for your post. This is excellent information. I think I've incorporated most of these elements in the AIDS Clickathon. I would appreciate it if you could look at the site and see if I could do a better job of applying these principles.

1) HAVE A BLOODY GOOD STORY!
Discover the power of the anecdote, the parable, yarn, myth. Comprise multiple stories, makes it more majestic and multi-faceted and appeals to more folk!

Our story is about two average middle-class Americans who visit Kenya. They see hundreds of children who have lost their parents to AIDS living on the streets sifting through garbage for scraps of food. They're so moved to help, that they sell their house and move to Kenya to build a home for these children. You can help them build this home and help these destitute children with a free click.

2) THINK LIKE A BUYER, NOT A SELLER.
People love to buy, but hate to be sold to. They buy on emotion and justify on logic.

We could probably rewrite the 3rd of the 3 paragraphs on the main page to come from more of the visitors perspective.

3) ELIMINATE RISK TOTALLY: There must not ANY downside to them partaking. There can not be a time when they question "what will happen if I do X?"

There is no risk. Just click. There's no cost, no registration, no email lists, no catch whatsoever and it only takes 30 seconds. If people perceive some risk, I'm not sure what it is.

4) BUILD CURIOSITY: Self explanatory

How could we apply this principle?

5) BORROW CREDIBILITY: Use a well known reference if you feel people may be skeptical

Like quote Bono or something?

6) PLAY HARD TO GET: The more you limit access the more you increase demand

Not sure how to apply this principle to this campaign.

7) LIFT THE KIMONO & LET THEM HAVE A FIDDLE!: Once in, give them access to add input, give opinions and get emotionally bonded. Make sure you act on any input and opinion asap

We've got the blog on the site where people can comment. Perhaps having a "shoutbox" or comment form directly on the page people click to would help. What would you recommend?

8) DO THE UNEXPECTED/BE OUTRAGEOUS! STAND OUT AT ALL COSTS - POLARIZE IF YOU MUST!

Got any suggestions?

Go an familiarize yourself with Maslow's Hierarchy of needs - make sure your offering has something of each of his 7 stages and you're on a winner.

This is great in theory, but I'm not sure every website/product/service can meet a visitors needs in each phase. The AIDS Clickathon meets esteem and self-actualizaion needs. Perhaps it could meet the love/belonging need if it faciliated better interaction among participants. But I don't see any way it can meeting the physical or safety needs of participants.

It works - just for credibility's sake - we started with 1 email to 130 people and never advertised our product ever from that day - within 3 years we floated the company and currently turn over millions of dollars a year - the power of the people is daunting, if you have the ability to harness it!

Your company is based on an innovative, unique, and fun concept. IMO, your product sells itself. Not only that but it markets itself. When people buy it, they share it with their friends.

[chrisJumbo]

Well, I just clicked. Just keep getting your message out. The nature of your subject matter is just going to make it take a longer.

Also, stay persistent with groups like One. Seek to partner with other churches and stuff.

Just keep at it.