Do you want a mobile or static audience to set your viral campaign on fire? Don't know the difference? NextStage's CRO has the story.
NextStage recently completed two years of research into viral messaging, what some folks call viral marketing or word of mouth marketing (WOM). As usual, NextStage's research took a slightly different approach.
We weren't interested in marketing per se; instead, we were interested in how a message travels through society. Learn what makes a given message powerfully viral and you learn how to market virally.
I'll let folks know when the full research paper is available, but right now I'd to share three preliminary items that come from the research.
A little history: necessary elements
A little over a year ago I wrote three articles based on the first phase of NextStage's research into viral marketing (see "Additional resources" below). We learned early in our research that the most effective viral messages have six elements in common:
- They are unique
- They are entertaining
- They have some utility to the recipient
- There's a reward attached to spending time on them
The above four elements were put forward by Jim Meskauskas. NextStage added the concepts of Trust and Fair-Exchange between sender and receiver of the viral message in order for the message to be successful.
Predicting viral outcomes
The last article in that year ago arc outlined a mathematical model for determining what needs to be in place in order for a viral campaign to be successful. We've spent an extra year refining that model, learning when factors become irrelevant and when they become overwhelmingly relevant, so on and so forth.
It has been quite an undertaking. You know those "How many X does it take to screw in a light bulb?" jokes? That's how this research went. "How many Millenials does it take to get the word out about an online video?" "How many Boomers does it take to get the word out about an asthma medication?" "How many 30-somethings does it take to get the word out about a new family-based resort in Costa Rica?"
Some of what we learned is directly applicable: how many Millenials does it take to have a specific message cover a 250 mile radius? About 30 ± 2, and it depends how vested those original 30 Millenials are in the original message. You can expect those 30 Millenials to get the message to 4,500 of their peers within the first two hours the message is released.
How many asthmatic Boomers does it take to get news about a new medication out? Again, vesting in the message is a key element. Are they asthmatic? Do they know an asthmatic?
Key factors
Everybody knows about KPIs: Key Performance Indicators. It shouldn't be surprising that there are similar factors in successful viral messaging methodologies, such as:
- Seed population (How many X does it take to Y?)
- Some messages are bound by geographies (mile radius)
- How important is the message to the target population (vesting)?
- How much mutation can the original message go through before the original goal is no longer achievable?
- How long can a message be out before it's no longer effective?
Yes, I recognize that what I'm listing above are more like mathematical variables than key performance indicators -- Surprise! Hey, we are NextStage, after all.
These key factors are important, though. It's great to know KPIs, and unless you know the Key Factors (KFs) that bring those KPIs about you'll never know where you're going, only where you've been.