A few words about buzz marketing
Buzz marketing is one of the most effective and cheapest ideas for online promotion, but at the same time, it’s demanding and full of pitfalls. How to do it well?
It is a seller’s dream to have their products gossiped or whispered about a lot and and in a positve way – Creating a trend ,this always translates into sales. Recommendations are powerful – most of us make our purchasing decisions after following product reviews and reading a few threads about it on industry forums. We take our time to learn about others’ opinions and trust that they have chosen well. Trend setting – this is what we call buzz marketing – unobtrusive, as natural as possible, triggering a discussion about a product or a brand. Smartfactore and our clients operate in e-commerce – so let’s focus on creating a buzz on the Web.Be the trend setter.
How to do it?
* Follow threads about your industry and products on forums – answer questions, recommend, explain, describe how it works and its benefits – the goal is to create discussion and engage potential customers (community marketing)
* Respond to threads about your products on social media channels, *
publish recommendations and evaluations in online stores and on product rating sites of a given industry
* Make products available to opinion leaders and influencers so that they speak and provoke discussion about your products (product seeding)
* Ceate messages that are attractive in content and form, which will spread like the wind and will be positively associated with your product (viral marketing)
Buzz marketing, if conducted professionally, has a great impact on the company’s image, builds community around it, creates trust. The brand is more recognizable, your website is visited more often, and ultimately – the products are sold more. But you have to know how to do it, because unfortunately it is easy to achieve the opposite effect…No one like a bad buzz!!
How not to do it?
Internet users can always smell BS !! They have a knack of knowing or sensing a pushy salesmen trying to sell them something. Don’t encourage them to buy something. Don’t publish content filled only with superlatives about your products. Avoid repeating yourself. Don’t paste the same content in different places. Don’t spam – a grave sin in marketing! Don’t abandon threads or disappear without replying. Avoid being a smart arse , encyclopedia-like descriptions, and extremely professional language. Don’t slander your competitors. Don’t lie. Don’t argue with those who have different opinions. Buzz marketing has its own code of ethics – anyone who doesn’t follow it.. will pay with no sales. It’s easy to make mistakes here, so don’t decide to do buzz marketing if you don’t know anything about it – approach it professionally – spend your time and energy, otherwise – trust a professional, you’ll avoid discouraging potential customers.
This is where you need a strategy
Don’t sit down and write blindly. Be prepared. A strategy is necessary for buzz marketing. It’s a very elegant yet challenging branch of marketing. Before you get started:
* point out your key products or services – name their biggest advantages, realize what problems they solve for others, what they can be used for
* check out the market and your competitors, monitor their news, progress
* think about who your customers are, what age they are, what they represent, what places on the Web they frequent, where they look for information and where they exchange opinions
* track keywords related to your brand and your products * get savvy . Save the discussions you’ve taken part in , the threads you’ve contributed to – go back to them, check what’s going on, respond when someone calls you for a reply – you’re marketing, not spamming…. And that’s an art.
