Viral Success for B2B Marketers

As a marketer, when I think about successful viral campaigns I think of reliving your glory days with Yearbook Yourself or Will It Blend, both of which are targeted toward consumers. But what about B2B viral marketing?

Recently MarketingSherpa highlighted some very successful viral campaigns that were able to help B2B marketers attract a new audience, cut through the clutter of various standard marketing efforts, and generate highly qualified leads.

My favorite campaign featured was VeriSign’s Liberty Fillmore, the Cart Whisperer. The idea was to connect with VeriSign’s audience (eRetailers) by creating a series of short, funny videos that addressed the problem of shopping cart abandonment – a problem eRetailers could easily identify with. They created a microsite to showcase the videos and provide visitors with additional ways to interact with Liberty via his poetry or user generated photo album.

According to MarketingSherpa the campaign was a success. “So far, the videos have been viewed collectively almost 3.3 million times on YouTube alone (seeding was done at the top 12 video sites). The site has seen 88,804 unique visitors with the average site visit growing over time to 4:13.”

If you’re planning a viral campaign here are some tips to keep in mind.

1. Know Your Audience

In order to connect with your audience and make them feel something (see tip #2) you need to truly understand who they are and what makes them tick. Knowing what they love or loathe, as well as what would make them laugh is key.

2. Make People Feel Something

Viral marketing is all about emotions. You want to make people feel something– whether that be love, hate, fear, joy, happiness, anger, etc.

3. Never Sell Your Product/Service

The kiss of death with viral marketing is trying to sell your user something. Your audience can smell a sales pitch a mile away.

4. Do Something Unexpected

This is pretty self explanatory, but if you want your ideas or message to go viral you have to push the limits and go beyond the norm. You have to make people be intrigued by your message enough to want to share it with their friends.

5. Make Your Content Easy to Share

Sharing via social media is the heartbeat of viral marketing. Make it as easy as possible for viewers to share your content across their social platforms.