For any aspiring internet marketers you should check out a decent blog I’ve recently start to read written by internet mogul John Chow. His blog John Chow dot Com is designed to help you make money online. He is offering to link to your blog if you write a review which should help to send you a ton of traffic your and boost your page rankings.

So what’s good about John Chow’s blog?

He has a great post on the seven habits of successful bloggers which will help any newbies. I particularly agree with his ideas that giving out link love is important, particularly if you want to get some traction with other bloggers in the blogosphere. Also posting regularly is vital. If your readers are picking up new content regularly through their RSS feeds then they’ll keep coming back - assuming your content is good.

It’s also interesting to read about the salaries some of these “internet moguls” are taking home. Seems some of the most well known bloggers are earning well in excess of $100k US a year. Now if that doesn’t inspire you, then I don’t know what will.

Happy blogging!!

By the way - this is also a great example of viral marketing.

Ever since I learned about the Thresher viral in the UK which generated over £40 million in sales, I’ve been looking for other great examples of viral marketing campaigns. I couldn’t believe it when I came across Will It Blend - an phenomenal viral by Blendtec, a US food blender manufacturer.

The idea is simple, the president of Blendtec Tom Dickson appears in a series of short videos in which he simply blends everything from an iPod, to a golf ball, some glow sticks and my favourite, a video camera. They’re fantastically entertaining and have taken off, especially on the social video sharing sites like YouTube.

Check out a great example with Tom’s iPod

- Link to
YouTube Direct

So was there any value in this viral you may ask?

There’s a quote from Blendtec on Wikipedia and Squid News that would suggest it’s been of tremendously valuable:

“The videos were placed on the internet in early November. Within just a few short days, we had millions of views. The campaign took off almost instantly. We have definitely felt an impact in sales. Will it Blend has had an amazing impact to our commercial and our retail products.
The campaign is all about brand awareness. Helping us to build top-of-mind awareness and establish Blendtec as the premier blender manufacturer.”

So are there opportunities for other small businesses to use social video sites for viral marketing? Of course, but there are potential banana skins to consider also.

There’s a good post on the Protocol in Practice blog that warns of potential problems with copyright. The post also links to a great summary by LA based Feed Company which does these things for a living. Check them both out here and here respectively.

To give you something to think about. Consider how many people use the social video sites like YouTube and then think how much it would cost to reach that many people by traditional advertising tactics. According to the Feed Company, YouTube had 29,6000,000 viewers in December alone.

So how do you produce a good viral? Get creative and think about Feed Company President Josh Warner’s questions:

“Is the content Controversial, compelling, Outrageous, Hilarious, or Sexy. Will it start a conversation?”

Just before Christmas in 2006, Threshers - The UK’s largest off licence - issued a 40% off voucher for all wine purchases. Can you believe it 40% off the price just before Christmas, surely its the busiest time of the year.

I was convinced this was a smart viral marketing campaign, but nobody would listen to me.

The story was that the voucher was originally destined for Threshers top corporate clients only, but there had been a leek and the voucher was now readily available. Not only that Thresher would honour the voucher and therefore anyone could use it.

It went around the UK like wild fire. Just about everyone with email had a copy of the voucher and sent it on. The perfect viral campaign really.

Well I just learned from Hugh McLeod at www.gapingvoid.com that he and his team at Stormhoek wines were behind the campaign. This was no surprise to me as every time I come into contact with this guy he seems to amaze me.

Perfect timing also as only yesterday I posted about whether viral marketing is for you. Well, if you can copy Thresher and generate over £40m in sales I think you’ll agree, virals are definitely for you.

Maybe Hugh could give us a few pearls of wisdom about what makes a good viral. Hugh, can you help us out?

BTW Hugh has a new voucher for 40% off wine at Easter, but it’s already expired, sorry folks.

Sure, why not?

Check out the picture below - an example from a Brazilian coffee company.

It’s a simple marketing message made viral by the amusing (or maybe scary) picture.

It’s entirely possible small businesses can create a campaign like this, especially with the power of marketing and how quickly jokes, pictures etc can circulate.

There are plenty of pitfalls with viral marketing though. Once you hit the send button it’s impossible to direct how your message is carried, so you need to plan your campaign well. And of course you may not be creative enough in the first place to create something viral and designers / agencies are expensive.

One of my favourite virals was the Kylie Minogue campaign for Agent Provocateur. This spread like wildfire through London and proves the old addage, sex sells. Answers on a postcard for who the target audience was.

- link
YouTube Direct

By the way, for anyone who can’t speak Portugeuse, the text on the ad reads “wake up the ‘employee of the month’ that exists inside you”.