Viral marketing and IMC

With the increase in the number of ads on social media platforms, it is becoming more and more difficult for campaigns to break through the clutter. Even if marketers were able to come up with campaigns that they think will go viral, it might not necessarily mean it will. Why is this so? The very reason might lie with the fact that the campaign’s content might be missing some key factors that are essential for the campaign to go viral and these factors will be explained in today’s post.

But, first things first, we must understand how campaigns go viral and as mentioned in my second blog post, it can be explained using Jonah Berger’s 6 Principles of Contagiousness known as STEPPS. Also, in the post I did give one example of a marketing campaign that did not go viral like how marketers would want and the reason might be because the marketing content might be missing or did not follow this 7 ways to create a successful integrated marketing campaign.

7 ways to create a successful integrated marketing campaign

So, what is the 7 ways to create a successful integrated marketing campaign? Based on an article featured in CIO magazine, marketing experts share their strategies in developing a successful marketing campaign in today’s multichannel, mobile and social media driven world and it is categorised into the 7 steps as listed below.

1. Understand who your target audience is

The first step to every strategy or any marketing campaign is understanding who your target audience is. Understand what their needs and wants are and this will help your company to craft marketing campaigns or marketing messages that appeal to them and address their needs.

2. Choose your communication channels

After identifying your target audience, understand what channels they are using and choose the channel that not only do they use but is also the most effective in helping the company to achieve its objectives. This is important because out of all the channels out there, not all the channels will be frequently used by your target audience. Therefore, by focusing on those that your target audience uses more frequently, it helps the company to save costs and be more effective in reaching out to their target audience.

3. Have a consistent look

If your company is going to use many channels to reach out to your target audience, then it is important to have a consistent look across all channels. It is not just about having the same logo, but also about using the same fonts and common colours. This helps your target audience to be able to remember and recognise your company when they come in contact with your company from different channels.

4. Create clear, consistent content that can be easily adapted or repurposed to suit different media or channels

It is important to have a consistent content across all platforms so that your company won’t have different messages on different channels and cause confusion to your target audience. Therefore, to prevent this from happening, companies can follow the 3 C’s of creating marketing messages.

1. Communication - messages must be clear and not filled with confusing words or phrases.

2. Compelling - the content must be interesting or relevant to your target audience.

3. Consistent - the message must be consistent regardless of which channel use. May it be phone or in-store.

In addition, the content you have developed should be able to be adapted and be used in different platforms. For example, the content might be created for a blog post but an excerpt of it can be used on your company’s social media platforms.

5. Ensure that your message is integrated

For example, if your company is using magazines, newspapers ads and social media platforms together, ensure that your social media platforms links are included on your newspapers and magazines ads as well. This allows your target audience to connect easily with your brand and spread the word on their social networks.

6. Make sure your marketing teams/agencies are working in sync

Make sure that your marketing team members or if your company is using an outside marketing agency for your integrated marketing campaigns, make sure all members are on the same page and understand what is going on. This helps to ensure that the campaign is consistent and helps to manage company brand standards throughout all platforms.

7. Don’t forget to track your campaigns

Even though creating a successful integrated marketing campaign is important but what is equally important or even more important is putting in place analytics to track how effective your campaign has been and how this effectiveness have been translated into results such as increase in sales. This is important in helping the company to define which channels are working or what is not working and adjust it.

Example: Dumb Ways to Die campaign

A very good example of a successful viral and integrate marketing campaign is Dumb Ways to Die which is an Australian public service announcement campaign made by Metro Trains in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to promote railway safety.

It is launched in November 2012 on various platforms such as newspapers, radio, outdoor advertisement at Metro stations, Tumblr and YouTube. The campaign went viral and has witnessed more than 30% reduction in “near-miss” accidents around metro trains.

The reason why this campaign is so successful is the content as it talks about the different dumb ways that people use to kill themselves such as standing on the edge of the railway platform or walking onto the railway tracks. Also, the fact that they were able to take a boring topic and make it interesting by using cute characters, interesting lyrics and catchy melody cause people to engage with it and share it with their friends.

Other than that, people also find what is being mentioned in the song to be meaningful as it has a compelling message to let more people know about some of the dumb things that people actually do to get themselves killed and help to raise awareness to prevent people from continuing to do things like this. This campaign itself have garnered more than 50 million views on YouTube, over 3.2 million shares on Facebook and the music track also charted on iTunes in 28 countries less than a year into the campaign.

Hence, viral marketing will help greatly in your integrated marketing approach and brand strategy if they were to be planned correctly using the 7 steps as mentioned above.