Marketers who have experience creating viral campaigns favor microsites, games and video clips according to Marketing Sherpa’s “2007 Viral Marketing Survey.”
Microsites Win For Viral Campaigns
Viral marketers know that having a separate presence for campaigns can return good results. The most preferred tactic used by marketers is “Creating cool microsites” with 37 percent saying they produced excellent results. One-third said that online games brought good results.
Video clips had fairly good reviews for marketers, with three out of 10 saying they had positive results, and only 13 percent called their results poor.
When it comes to budgets around 43 percent of seasoned marketers say they spend between $5,000 and $10,000 on video clips for their viral campaigns, while 49 percent of less-experienced marketers say they spend between $2,500 to $5,000.
About two-thirds of marketers said they would use video in a campaign in the coming year.
The chances of the video actually achieving viral status are not that high according to an Online Publishers Association (OPA) survey.
When people come across online videos that grab their attention they tell others. Only nine percent of OPA survey participants did so on a regular basis, but an additional 29 percent communicated about online videos occasionally.
There are two ways of looking at the OPA study’s results, according to eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman.
“Since fewer than one in 10 people frequently tell others about online video, it could be argued that the whole concept of viral online video is somewhat overblown,” says Mr. Hallerman.
“Having said that, only about one in 10 people in any field are the ‘influencers’ who give word-of-mouth marketing its power.”
“Reliance on viral video, rather than making it just one element for getting the message out, will succeed only in rare cases,” he adds.
