Rigid — The Bane of Marketing

Today I’m not going to say what makes Viral Marketing work.

I am going to tell you what makes Viral Marketing not work.

The term “Viral Marketing” is on the rise. More and more people wants to know how to go viral.

In actual fact, most people just want to know how to get more people to know about their brands in the shortest time, least effort and cheapest way possible.

Most people do not understand going viral takes a lot of effort and although it can be cheap, it has to be smart.

There, I bold it just in case you missed it.

And if you are working under a boss or management that is rigid, you are cursed.

What do I mean by that?

Restricted by corporate rules, brand image and ROI.

Traditional marketing or business management will tell you they are important and very crucial to the rise and break of the business.

But in the fast changing world today, I do not think so.

I am not saying every rule is made to be broken.

I mean rules are guidelines created to guide us, not restrict us.

Rules

They guide you into what should or should not be done. The problem is too many people read into it too much and tend to “follow the rules” too rigidly.

These will hinder and in time form obstructions and road blocks to creativity.

Rules are meant to be bend, broken in some situations, but all in all, they are for the better good.

Don’t be too rigid and inflexible to change. This world is fast changing and fluid. Being rigid is putting on a curse on yourself. In fact it is a sure way to lose instead of win. Asking for failure instead of success.

Brand Image

I hate this word. Brand Image. It is the one thing that really hinders.

It is not easy to stay aligned with the brand image you have, because a brand is a perception we want our consumers to see us.

However, it is also another curse.

Brand Image sometimes hinders and breaks.

In this fluid world, no matter what industry you are in — fashion, tech, food and beverages, hospitality, writing industry, manufacturing, airline, banking.. If you are rigid here, you are dead.

Apple was rigid in coming out with bigger sized iPhones and smaller sized iPads before Samsung came along.

It doesn’t suit their brand image to be following.

They realised there is a market for bigger phones and smaller tablets, that is why iPhone 5 is longer and iPad Mini is now on the market.

But as Steve Jobs quoted, we are all told not to judge a book by its cover.

But we DO judge a book by its cover.

And that is why people are so mindful on changing their brand image.

Being fluid and flexible doesn’t mean changing your cover to be something else that is not you.

Change to a cover that will perceive well with your consumers and target market!

ROI

Returns. That is why we do business. That is what makes sales people happy. That is what indicates marketers’ effectiveness.

But it is actually bullcrap.

Not that it is entirely bullcrap, maybe 50% of the time it is bullcrap.

I don’t mean Facebook insights or Google analytics are useless.

They are brilliant and accurate metrics that you can use to gauge your online presence.

It is an instrument to mark your returns.

However, too many people fall into the trap of ROI.

What do I mean by that?

To fully understand Marketing, or Viral Marketing in this case, marketers shouldn’t study on marketing.

Marketers should focus on Anthropology.

“Now that’s dumb cus I ain’t going back school to get another degree for that!”. Of course you’re not!

Now, that phrase is actually by Malcolm Gladwell. And how true is that?

Marketing is all about relationships with one another, human behaviours, and passing of information from one to another.

When we market a product, what do we do?

There are a few ways depending on the product/message/company.

Generally, bigger companies have more to spend and awareness is bigger than smaller ones.

In today’s situation, I beg to differ.

It is a world of Davids winning Goliaths, underdogs toppling giants.

So, how do we do ROI on human relationships? Measure the heat generated when a conversation is carried out?

One aspect of Viral marketing is Word of Mouth.

Through conversations, we talk about everything and anything to anyone.. Our colleagues, friends, peers, family.. Online strangers..

Being too rigid on ROIs can cause a major setback on going viral.

Because behaviours are difficult to track and benchmark. You can have a lot of surveys and tests to track, to benchmark behaviours is possible, just that it takes extraordinary feat.

So instead of tracking how many views your YouTube videos go within a few days, how many likes your post on Facebook has.. It is better to track how much engagement and awareness you have generated.

Even those Facebook likes and YouTube views can be fake. By bots. I heard half of Justin Beiber’s Twitter account is fake. Is that more than 2 million accounts?

Instead of focusing on ROIs on your marketing campaign’s reach, focus on the ROI of the engagement.

Because so what if it reach a few million? What are the returns — Sales generated/ Awareness reached?

A business shouldn’t focus ROI on how viral a message goes.

It should calculate the ROIs on how engaging the message does.

So it seems what I am talking is just traditional marketing, what has it gotta do with going viral?

Ok, simple.

If you, your business or your management have at least one of the above, it is difficult to go viral.

Going Viral is not a young man’s game.

But traditional mindsets will hinder in going viral.

And the above 3 are the deadliest traditional mindsets.

Sharing is Caring! It will mean a lot to me if you recommend and share this article =)

For more in-depth content on Viral Marketing, please visit ViralProverbs.com