Buzz marketing is the name given to a marketing strategy that aims to create a viral advert using word of mouth to spread. It is done correctly vastly increases online traffic, social followings, sales, and leads generated. This type of marketing can be online or offline due to its goals of creating hype around the advert.
Buzz marketing focuses on generating a ‘buzz’ around the target of its advertisement. The main goal is to get people talking about it as much as possible. It works by getting people emotional about the ad, enough so that they share it with other people. Marketing companies take great care when choosing the emotion to elicit with the advert. Sometimes making people angry is a highly effective way to increase the ads word of mouth appeal.
What Are the Types of Buzz Marketing?
There are a few different types of buzz marketing, such as:
- Online campaigning: Digital marketing campaigns focused on generating word of mouth around the product or service beings advertised.
- Buzz campaigning: Sponsoring events and buying prime advertisement space to create excitement about a new product.
- Social media influencers: The use of influencers to kick start a buzz marketing campaign can boost the likelihood of going viral and becoming a success.
- Offline campaigns: Providing good service and customer care to all customers, so they recommend your company to people they know.
- Using rumors: Many companies start dropping hints and teasers on social media to generate a buzz before anyone knows what will be advertised.
- Create enhanced demand: Where companies deliberately don’t meet the demand from their customer. For example, they create limited edition products with low production numbers. Increasing the customer’s perceived value of the product and making them feel special.
How to generate Buzz Marketing?
There are a lot of different ways to generate a buzz around a product or service. One popular method of generating buzz marketing is to create mystery around your new product or advert. Creating a positive surprise for your customers will produce a lot of word-of-mouth advertisements as they tell their peers about the positive experience and surprise they received. Another method for generating buzz is to engage with social media influencers early and allow them to market their own story as an exclusive or world first, building up the buzz for you. Inviting loyal customers to an invite-only promotion will get them bragging to all of their friends about your customer engagement even before they know what it is they have the chance to purchase. Buzz marketing works best when customers feel they are receiving special treatment and getting a product or service with a value above their expectations.
Why Is It Effective?
Buzz marketing is effective because it encourages a response from its audience, whether excitement or anger. The response subtly convinces viewers to show other people the advert that gave them such strong feelings. Increasing the amount of word-of-mouth activity surrounding the advert indicates just how powerful this method of advertising is. Using emotions to boost advertisement works because our nature as human beings is to share our intense feelings with others. We gauge ourselves based on how the people we show react. If they react the same, we are validated in our emotions. If they respond differently, then there is even more discussion about the advert for the benefit of the marketers because others will be shown to decide who is correct. The constant sharing and debating are what makes this type of marketing so effective as an advertisement strategy.
Buzz Marketing Examples
One of the most prominent examples found each year for buzz marketing is the exclusive 30-second advertisements created for the Superbowl in America. These adverts get a great deal of attention before they even air, and the businesses promoting the adverts’ one-of-a-kind nature, helping to build the buzz surrounding them. The amount spent on the ads is also heavily discussed and publicized before the event to get as many people excited about the Superbowl adverts as possible. This excitement is the goal of buzz marketing. Growing the target audience with word of mouth and sharing the adverts with others helps the advert become a viral success.
Another example of a buzz campaign is from Coca-Cola. They used honesty to take responsibility for being part of the obesity problem worldwide. This honesty, whilst sounding negative, actually increased the goodwill towards their brand.
Briefly Buzz Marketing
Overall, it can be a highly effective form of marketing. It uses people’s emotions to spark a need to share the experience with other people. Whether that is anger or excitement doesn’t matter much, as long as word-of-mouth increases for the advert. Buzz marketing advertisements are very good at eliciting emotion from the audience, increasing the chance of going viral. Some companies strive for good business practices and customer services, which on their own create buzz marketing as people share the positive stories from their experience with the business. Hopefully, you have enjoyed reading this article on buzz marketing and have learned something new.
If you liked our article, please be sure to check out our other articles about marketing, digital in particular.
Frequently Asked Questions About
It is a viral marketing technique. It works by generating a vast amount of viral buzz about an advert, leading to large numbers of people providing free word-of-mouth advertising for the advert. The increased interest in the advert provides increases in sales, online traffic and leads generated.
A ‘buzz’ is slang for when there is a lot of excitement among people for something.
Viral marketing is when an advert spreads incredibly quickly and has an audience of many millions of people.
Any marketing strategist will be aware of and often try to use some types of buzz marketing strategies. Many businesses use this type of marketing without knowing they are using it.
Recently it has seen an increased uptake by digital marketers aiming for viral advertising campaigns. However, buzz marketing campaigns can easily be used by anybody.
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