Clear Cut Communication

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features

CLEAR CUT COMMUNICATION

features, october 2006, COMMENTS

Promoters are familiar with the usual ways to communicate with clubbers, and many make the most of posters, flyers, email and websites to get the message across. But less operators have explored the opportunities that viral marketing can offer.

Chris Meehan of CreativeCultures, a cutting edge marketing agency specialising in viral marketing campaigns for the music industry, explores how clever cyberspace communication could give your venue the edge.

'Viral marketing' is the phrase used to describe word-of-mouth marketing that's caried out online.

It refers to strategies that exploit pre-existing social networks to pass on a marketing message, producing exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. By passing along and sharing content that they find interesting or entertaining, individuals build awareness and interest in the product or service - in effect marketing your product for you. Similar to a virus, these strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands and even millions of people. Viral marketing is relatively low-cost, generates high and rapid response rates and can offer companies access to a traditionally hard-to-reach demographic. Yet many still consider viral marketing a dark art.

ALL IN THE TECHNIQUE

The first step in viral marketing is creating the message, or ‘viral’. This can take a number of formats, including e-verts (an online advert or flyer that contains a link to a website), video clips or interactive games.

Digital flyers are a great way of enhancing the awareness of campaigns and driving traffic to the relevant website, introducing new potential customers to a product or service whilst reinforcing the campaign message to those already familiar with the offering.

Interactive games, sponsored by a brand, typically aim to provide an immersive brand experience for the player, leaving them feeling as though they have interacted with the product or service in a fun and exciting way. Similarly, video clips or ‘bootlegs’ are fast becoming a phenomenon, particularly since the founding of internet sites such as Youtube and Google Video. Bootlegs contain entertaining, interesting or funny content that can generate offbeat media coverage worth much more than a club’s advertising budget could ever allow.

IN YOUR SITES

Once the viral has been created it is then positioned on hundreds of relevant online community forums, reaching hundreds of thousands of targeted individuals. As the viral is downloaded and passed on its progress will be monitored, allowing detailed data regarding the exposure and pass-along rate to be gathered and making the success of the campaign entirely measurable. This measurability is one of the most attractive aspects of online marketing: using this method of communication managers can clearly demonstrate the return on investment that the activity is delivering.

BENEFITS

CreativeCultures has a healthy client list ranging from small independents to record labels, small festivals to large scale events. Clients include MTV Europe, In The City music convention,

Ministry of Sound, EMI, Sony, Universal, Too Nice Records, Positiva and Noise Festival, all of whom have typically used the company to promote a release or an event. For these companies, viral marketing provided a compliment to traditional marketing methods, with its ultimate benefit lying in its ability to specifically target new customers. Online communities are typically formed by groups of people with shared interests, which might be a particular kind of dance music, or going to festivals. Tapping into these communities, by posting messages in the forums of people most likely to be interested in your product and service, ensures an interested audience and a good response.

NEW TECHNOLOGY AND VIRAL MARKETING

One of the more recent developments in viral marketing has been the use of Bluetooth technology, currently used in a unique way by CreativeCultures to access club and gig goers. Bluetooth - which allows information to be sent cheaply and efficiently to people’s mobile phones - is a new phenomenon that enables operators to send innovative marketing messages direct to their customers. Those messages might be video clips containing messages from the acts or DJs playing on a specific night, used to generate interest in other nights; or clips of live performances, full versions of which might be available online for a download fee.

ADD IT UP

Clubs attract technology-savvy customers who spend more time on the internet ever before. Online communities are an exciting new marketplace through which new customers can be accessed and engaged, and this fact alone makes viral marketing a strong contender for any club’s marketing budget. Technology can get your message to your target market in a much more targeted way than ever before and as well as making sense for your marketing budget, this makes sense for your dancefloor, as more of the right people get interested in your nights and will visit to your club.

Words: Alex Eyre

From: October 2006 Issue

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