Go Viral
Wireless World, Singapore/Kuala Lumpur, May 2004 issue
What’s the biggest annoyance when you step off a flight? Is it the long queue for Immigration, or waiting for your luggage? If you ask me, now it’s something even more irritating: SMS from mobile providers. I usually get two or three of those, along with the ones real people sent me during the flight. Telcos welcome me to their network or tell me what to dial in order to supposedly save 78% on international calls. That’s 78% on how much? Doesn’t say. And I never asked for the message or gave permission.
Mobile marketing is a promising new medium. It’s close to the skin, people carry their phones with them and they open each and every message. But there are challenges: tiny little screens limit the message you can deliver, and many still have to pay for receiving. And there’s a low irritation threshold. Keep off my phone; it’s private.
Challenges and opportunities travel together. The opportunities are great, as long as you don’t antagonize the receiver. The mobile marketing medium combines high impact with a reading guarantee. And the challenge? Annoyed receivers, ready to accuse you of spamming.
What’s spam? The official definition is ‘unsolicited mail without a recognizable sender address or proper unsubscribe possibility’. That fits the nefarious network messages I mentioned. Wonder when someone is going to prosecute the likes of SingTel and M1.
But the reality is, spam is anything I don’t like, in my inbox or handphone. Especially my handphone. And that’s also our opportunity. If people like a message, if it brings a laugh or affection, or something they can talk about, that’s where you get your high impact without irritation. A marketer’s dream, in other words.
This is where viral marketing comes in. That is delivering your message to consumers in such a way that they will deliver it to others for you. Nothing is easier than have someone forward an SMS. You only need to give him a reason.
The power of this concept was shown not long ago. A Singaporean youngster overheard his sister gossiping with her girlfriend, and thought he heard them mention a bomb in Holland Village. He dashed off an SMS to one of his friends and caused an avalanche. In no time a thousand score messages flew around. Hours later authorities had no choice but to evacuate the entire place.
We’ve seen proof of concept in marketing too: highly effective campaigns that reached hundreds of thousands of messages on an incredibly low budget. Nice examples were the ‘God’ campaigns in Singapore and Philippines, where people received messages from God (“Thank me it’s Friday”) together with an invitation to forward them to others.
What is the secret of effective viral campaigns? One, select your initial target carefully; they are the pillars of your distribution. And two, craft your message even more carefully. This message is the key. If it catches people’s attention, they will act upon it. And if it’s worth talking about, they will forward.
Sounds difficult, but there’s also good news. Thanks to the viral mechanism, your initial target can be small. And delivering the initial message is cheap. That leaves all your ammo for the conceptual part. You can afford to spend a lot of creativity and attention on the message that gets people going. So spend it. Once you get that right, you don’t need to spend a lot more for a successful campaign.
Mobile marketing can do great things for you. Go viral. Be creative. Spend more on a smaller, well-targeted group. These people are your gatekeepers, the road to riches. Give them stuff to think, and especially to talk about. Then sit back and let them do the rest.
What’s the biggest annoyance when you step off a flight? Is it the long queue for Immigration, or waiting for your luggage? If you ask me, now it’s something even more irritating: SMS from mobile providers. I usually get two or three of those, along with the ones real people sent me during the flight. Telcos welcome me to their network or tell me what to dial in order to supposedly save 78% on international calls. That’s 78% on how much? Doesn’t say. And I never asked for the message or gave permission.
Mobile marketing is a promising new medium. It’s close to the skin, people carry their phones with them and they open each and every message. But there are challenges: tiny little screens limit the message you can deliver, and many still have to pay for receiving. And there’s a low irritation threshold. Keep off my phone; it’s private.
Challenges and opportunities travel together. The opportunities are great, as long as you don’t antagonize the receiver. The mobile marketing medium combines high impact with a reading guarantee. And the challenge? Annoyed receivers, ready to accuse you of spamming.
What’s spam? The official definition is ‘unsolicited mail without a recognizable sender address or proper unsubscribe possibility’. That fits the nefarious network messages I mentioned. Wonder when someone is going to prosecute the likes of SingTel and M1.
But the reality is, spam is anything I don’t like, in my inbox or handphone. Especially my handphone. And that’s also our opportunity. If people like a message, if it brings a laugh or affection, or something they can talk about, that’s where you get your high impact without irritation. A marketer’s dream, in other words.
This is where viral marketing comes in. That is delivering your message to consumers in such a way that they will deliver it to others for you. Nothing is easier than have someone forward an SMS. You only need to give him a reason.
The power of this concept was shown not long ago. A Singaporean youngster overheard his sister gossiping with her girlfriend, and thought he heard them mention a bomb in Holland Village. He dashed off an SMS to one of his friends and caused an avalanche. In no time a thousand score messages flew around. Hours later authorities had no choice but to evacuate the entire place.
We’ve seen proof of concept in marketing too: highly effective campaigns that reached hundreds of thousands of messages on an incredibly low budget. Nice examples were the ‘God’ campaigns in Singapore and Philippines, where people received messages from God (“Thank me it’s Friday”) together with an invitation to forward them to others.
What is the secret of effective viral campaigns? One, select your initial target carefully; they are the pillars of your distribution. And two, craft your message even more carefully. This message is the key. If it catches people’s attention, they will act upon it. And if it’s worth talking about, they will forward.
Sounds difficult, but there’s also good news. Thanks to the viral mechanism, your initial target can be small. And delivering the initial message is cheap. That leaves all your ammo for the conceptual part. You can afford to spend a lot of creativity and attention on the message that gets people going. So spend it. Once you get that right, you don’t need to spend a lot more for a successful campaign.
Mobile marketing can do great things for you. Go viral. Be creative. Spend more on a smaller, well-targeted group. These people are your gatekeepers, the road to riches. Give them stuff to think, and especially to talk about. Then sit back and let them do the rest.
posted by Jos. at Saturday, May 01, 2004
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home