Marketing Tools -- Doctor Ebiz Q&A

Email this article Printer friendly page

Viral Marketing for Non-Profits

"I have read your article regarding viral marketing. To what extent it can be applied to non-profit organizations?" -- Ina Muresan

You're referring to my article "Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing" (www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm), Web Marketing Today, 2/1/2000, exactly five years ago today. The term "viral" is used because viral ads are designed to spread exponentionally like a virus.

Viral marketing is easy to describe but hard to implement. But there's no reason it can't work for commercial as well as non-profit organizations. To have a successful Internet viral marketing campaign, what you need is some kind of "hand along" poem, graphic, video, article, animation, etc. that is so unique that people can't help but forward it to a friend.

One of the better known recent viral campaigns was Burger King's Subservient Chicken campaign, aimed at attracting 18- to 34-year-old men to the fast food brand. The online interactive video is edgy and bizarre, funny and compelling.

To achieve a hit viral marketing pass-along campaign is no easier than writing a best-selling book or TV script. Many achieve only mediocre results for the one that succeeds. The key to getting passed along is creativity. So start brainstorming with some of your colleagues and you may discover an idea that can be developed into a dynamic viral campaign.

(Incidentally, you can post my original article on your website at no charge. Just follow the instructions. It's a viral thing!)