David Dalka mentioned on his blog that folks at SES Chicago 2007 were discussing video marketing’s potential for marketing boring products (today!). I was immediately reminded of the Howie Hard Drive videos. Even though data security is not the sexiest of topics, the video is a solid example of creating buzz for boring products.
I wrote short list of (what I consider) success factors for businesses creating viral videos as sales tools. Please feel free to debate these or add your own in the comments.
Viral Videos as Sales Tools
- The product must offer a legitimate value.
Nothing spoils viral marketing faster than customers who have been duped into buying a useless product. - The market has a need for the product.
This is important because blatant commercial messages only go viral when viewers are mocking them (not ideal for sales). Instead, viral video marketing works best when it utilizes soft-sell tactics that indirectly pique the viewer’s desire for a product by demonstrating a solution to an existing problem. An otherwise great video (hilarious, shocking, brilliant, etc.) will fail to convert into sales if it attempts to demonstrate solutions to fabricated problems that viewers don’t actually experience. - The video keeps the viewer’s attention.
If viewers won’t even watch it, they won’t share it with others and they most likely won’t be motivated to buy. - The video must trigger an emotional response.
To drive a call-to-action, the video should effectively communicate the product’s value proposition to the viewer on an emotional level. If the viral video triggers an emotional response, it is very likely that the viewers will now “get it” - even if they were unmoved by previous exposure to a similar message elsewhere. If they “get it”, they’ll connect to the message personally, even playback memories of their own experiences that align with the viral video’s message. Emotional responses lead to to action - either sharing the video with friends or deciding to purchase.
As you watch the Howie Hard Drive video, you’ll see that it doesn’t use hard-selling to shove the benefits of data backup at you. In fact, there is no actually no selling - it’s just a short film about a young, misguided hard drive.
But as I watched it, I thought about how dependent I am professionally to data I’m my laptop and other hard drives. Relating the video to myself, I realized that my own hard drives & data are vulnerable to an array of various mishaps that would create huge setbacks for me professionally and otherwise.
Howie Hard Drive was more effective at communicating to me my own need for data backup than any data backup / recovery sales pitch I’ve seen.
Here’s the most recent episode:
