Viral Marketing

Video and your marketing strategy: a match made in online heaven.

What was the last video you watched on YouTube? Perhaps it was highlights from the EPL soccer game you missed on the weekend. Maybe it was the film clip for Rihanna’s latest chart topping/scandal inducing hit. Maybe it was even that massively cute video of the emotional baby. Whatever it was, you’re now a member of the ever-increasing online community which is embracing video as a quick, simple and massively effective means of communication. So good on you!

So why is it important to know what YouTube video you watched last? Well I want to explain to you how simple it is to use video as part of your successful marketing campaign.

Let’s have a little look at Pepsi.

Pepsi is a multi-billion dollar company which relies heavily on celebrity endorsement of its product but they’re also fairly cluey about this whole online video thing. In 2012, Pepsi released the first of their Uncle Drew videos. In the video the character of Uncle Drew, an older gentleman, heads down to his local basketball court and joins in a game when someone gets injured. The real kicker? Uncle Drew is actually NBA superstar Kyrie Irving. Uncle Drew’s unwitting opponents are dumbfounded when he absolutely wipes the floor with them. Big deal right? Well the first Uncle Drew video has notched 28 million views. That’s 28 million potential consumers who’ve seen Pepsi’s logo associated with a video they like. When the latest Uncle Drew video was released social media was abuzz with excitement. The video started appearing on Facebook feeds, Twitter feeds, on reddit, everywhere!Uncle Drew

What’s my point? Well rather than spending millions of dollars on paying for advertising that only a determined number of people will see, Pepsi have managed to capatalise on the effectiveness of having your consumers sharing your advertisements for you. Having a consumer share your video adds credibility to it and now 28 million people have cemented Pepsi’s position as a leader in online marketing.

It’s not just corporations jumping on this train. Degage Ministries is an American not-for-profit organisation which aims to help homeless and disadvantaged individuals. They recently engaged the services of filmmaker Rob Bliss to make a video about the transformation of a homeless veteran into a well-presented go-getter aiming to get his life on track. The simple video has now racked up 12 million YouTube views and is making headlines on news websites across the internet. 12 million people now know who Degage Ministries are and Rob Bliss Creative have exposed themselves to an incredibly large audience.

The beauty of video as a marketing tool lies in its simplicity as a medium and its sharability. A viewer only has to move their mouse mere centimetres and click a few buttons to share it with their online network and the credibility this can add to your business is close to priceless. In terms of content, video is a marketer’s dream because it can say so much in such a short time.

So what does that mean for you? Well making videos might not be as simple as sharing them. And that’s where you have to start trusting other people.

Here at Messages On Hold we’re tremendously excited about a new venture we’ve launched called VideoUpdate.me.  We’ve been on this video train for a few years now and we want other businesses to start enjoying the benefits of adding video to their marketing strategies.

Our On The Money series of videos which focus on accounting and finance are already being sent out from accounting firms across Australia, helping these businesses tell their clients the latest news in the industry and actually engaging them at a more sophisticated level.

Every business should have something to say about itself and if you can tell that to potential clients through video you never know just how many people might end up seeing it.

– Sophie

The Element of Surprise; Surprisingly Easy

Do you remember the good old days when you didn’t have to pump your own petrol? I don’t, because I was born in the nineties. But I’ve heard great things about those pre-World Wide Web times; milk delivered to your door step, corner shops where the shopkeeper knew your name, bank tellers that were neither automatic nor machines. But those little customer service quirks have gone the way of the dinosaur and the human race has evolved to have lowered expectations to help cope with this changing climate.

My generation is getting used to poor customer service to a point where we don’t even know what we’re missing out on. We’re desensitized to video game violence and waiters who won’t make eye-contact. While this may make us an apathetic lot, it also makes us strangely easy to surprise.

A bar in Perth recently announced it was going to go against the norm and sell coffee for $2.50. Big whoop. But in Perth, this is newsworthy because we’ve been subjected to coffee that’s on average 40 cents more expensive than the rest of the country.

So why not take advantage of these lowered expectations and surprise your disgruntled customers with some good old fashion service? Your customers will either react like this guy (watch the video, I’ll wait here until you’re done) or they’ll be so surprised by the interaction that it will become an anecdote shared by word of mouth or across social media.

The Interaction

The Interaction

There are many examples of customers making waves across social media, some good, and some bad. One positive example is the story of the Dragon and the Kangaroo. When the Galaxy SIII was released a man asked Samsung Canada for a free one and attached a picture of a dragon he had drawn for them.  Samsung apologised to the man, stating that they could not afford to send everyone a new phone who asked. Pretty run of the mill response, except for one interesting addition; they complimented his dragon and gave him a drawing of a kangaroo on a unicycle in return.

The man was charmed, took a screenshot of the conversation and posted it on Reddit with the caption “Well, Samsung Canada has won me over”. The image went viral and Samsung Canada gained the image of a cool, laidback and friendly company.  But then they took one step further. As a token of their appreciation for the positive media, they sent the man a one of a kind Samsung Galaxy SIII customised with his drawing of the dragon. (And of course, that photo made the rounds online as well).

The Payoff

The Payoff

Now I’m not suggesting you dish out free products to your customers, but they are likely to be surprised by outstanding customer service. They’ll also want to tell their friends. So take advantage of Generation Y’s careful combination of lower expectations and desire to share every life event online. You never know what will go viral.

– Emily