In my last article I shared a fairly detailed dissection of the attraction stage of the funnel, whereby I hypothesized that storytelling around the internal feelings and emotions of the target audience is critical to a campaign’s success. We had the privilege of working on a campaign in August for one of our regional clients where we specifically tested out this idea, and I am happy to report that the results were astounding.
As the infographic notes, we first identified the client’s stated problem and the actual problem. Through rigid audience analysis and detailed storyboarding, the team was able to visualize what we thought to be a recipe for taking the client viral; since the video campaign was seen by 21 new people a second at its viral peak, I’d say we hit a home run. Here are some deeper takeaways we have after applying this type of storytelling technique.
Laughter Really is Good Medicine
By leaning heavily on humor and parody, our campaign enabled prospective clients to envision the experiences they would have when interacting with the client’s team. Understanding the relaxing effect that this has on a prospect, we pushed for our video to be relevant and funny, while telling a simple story that viewers would ascertain a few specific conclusions from. The comments have been mostly PG, although a few had to be removed, and nearly everyone who saw the video campaign was emotionally moved by the unity, diversity, and “dance dance revolution” going on.
Word of Mouth Marketing is still a Major Player
The predominance of comments that weren’t actually comments but Facebook users @tagging other Facebook users in the comments section was mind-blowing. Our preset budget suggested we would saturate the target market in 27 days; due to the rocket ship of organic growth we hit that mark in 41 hours. Our organic reach pushed paid reach 12 to 1 and viral reach was 17 to 1. People loved the humor, dancing, and story within the story, and now the client is reaping the benefits. What unique selling point about your business is a story worth telling or a dance worth dancing?
Never Saddle Up A Rocket Ship without a GPS
While the rush of a viral campaign creates a ton of success, the truth is that the aftermath can create problems without the right succession plan. For this campaign, we had a Gameplan, a Process, and Success steps. Our gameplan was to go viral using humor, story, memes, videos, etc. Our process was to do it on social media only with a preset frequency, content map, and audience type. Our success steps were fan growth, video consumption, phone calls, and new customers. And now we have landed the ship with 15,000 new connections to monetize, and tens of thousands more conversations and chuckles to share.
In the end, understanding the internal impact of a campaign proves to be the igniting factor behind not only going viral but winning in the attraction stage. If you ever need someone to help you tell a more visually compelling story, or to consult with you to identify a stronger unique selling point centered on emotion, then please give us a call.