5 Tips to Make Your Marketing Go Viral

Everyone wants their marketing campaign to go viral, but not everyone makes it happen. If you’re not seeing any traction online, you may be doing it wrong. Here are five tips to get you started toward creating a marketing campaign the Web will love.

Remember that visuals are key. People remember what they see. Use creative images, GIFs and videos to help your campaign stand out. Words on a screen simply won’t cut it these days. YouTube videos are a great tool for marketing campaigns, as are Vine, Twitter and other social channels.

Connect with your audience emotionally. Your audience is going to remember how your campaign made them feel more than what your messaging was. People want to know that your brand isn’t run by robots. Make your campaign thought-provoking or emotional. It doesn’t have to be a Hallmark tear-jerker, but it needs to be more engaging than the programming on C-SPAN.

Don’t make your campaign all about your product or service. This is a tough one, but it’s important that your campaign isn’t focused on your brand. You somehow need to incorporate current events or life milestones into your campaign that your audience will understand. No one wants to watch an infomercial. Think less about sales and more about what people will share with one another.

Don’t force it. Don’t force your campaign at the wrong time or at the wrong people. If you feel like the timing isn’t right, go with your gut. And, like you’ve done in the past, stick to your target market. Your campaign will be more effective if it’s targeting the right people. When gathering marketing leads, quality, not quantity, is what counts.

Make sure your campaign is shareable. If you want your marketing campaign to go viral, you need to make sure it’s compatible with all the softwares and devices people are using. For instance, is your campaign mobile-friendly? Does the formatting adjust to the size of a tablet or iPad screen? An accessible, easy to view campaign will go a long way.

Now that you’ve got these tips to help you get started, it’s time to grab your team and get brainstorming. Study other brands’ successful campaigns to find out why they were successful and learn from them. Better yet, study failed campaigns and understand why they didn’t work.