Can Viral Videos Grow Your List?

Viral videos are watched by millions of people. While many are created purely for fun, interest in their use as a marketing tool is alive and growing.

The question is, can viral videos work for marketers? And if so, how well do they perform compared to other list building tactics?

The team over at Marketing Experiments put viral videos to the test. They created 28 videos, published them to YouTube and Google Video, and measured views, clickthroughs and subscribers generated.

Take a look at the report.

They also give a couple examples of videos that they created for the test.

The testers conclude that viral videos can be an effective addition to marketing efforts, and provide some guidelines for implementing viral videos in your marketing mix.

Thoughts on the Test and Report

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By: Justin Premick
Director of Education Marketing

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22 Comments

  1. Tony

    Hi Justin,

    Another super post, and the report is a real
    eye-opener. I’m planning on utilising a number
    of ideas given in the report as I can see real
    value here.

    11/21/2006 11:25 am
  2. Ranko Magami

    We’ve been planning on doing this a lot but it’s been more on the back burner. Now that we see this we will get videos up much faster than normal.

    Thanks for another great post.

    11/21/2006 9:05 pm
  3. Bill

    I’m not sure how effective this is given that in two months there were 324,190 views, but only 62 subscribers. And, one wonders how qualified/interested these subscribers were. Maybe this technique could be fine-tuned and optimized, but it doesn’t seem like an instant winner to me.

    11/22/2006 2:43 pm
  4. Stacey Robyn

    Greetings folks!

    We launched a program November 21, 2005 called The Go Gratitude Experiment, that opens with a flash video. Here is the link to view our flash presenttation: http://www.GoGratitude/masterkey.

    Since launching we’ve had over one million views and our list blossomed from 100 subscribers to over 160,000 within a years time.
    so yes! Viral videos are an awesome way to draw attention to your services. Now, I believe our group grew at such a phenomenal rate due to a number of factors. To list a few:

    1) timing – we launched The Go Gratitude Experiment just before Thanksgiving so the collective focus was on the subject of our presentation.

    2) content – we offered a follow-up series of no less 42 messages. This created an intimate relationship with our subscribers, and it was something of value they felt comfortable passing along.

    3) unique-ness – you will find lots of videos out there that are inspirational, float messages across the screen at a relaxing pace, etc … these are great, unless you really want to stand out. When moving forward with a video production, ask yourself ‘what’s the message?’ then step away and consider a few knew ways you might view this topic and go from there. Lastly, ask ‘would i forward this??’ As so, you’ll have a greater chance of drawing together a community that’s interested in what your up to and will pass along the good word (or video, as the case may be!)

    Hopefully this gives a bit of insight for those out there ready to create the next wave of viral videos!

    many blessings and much success!

    11/22/2006 6:49 pm
  5. Stacey Robyn

    AHHHH … a correction to the above post.

    here’s the correct address for the flash video:

    http://www.GoGratitude.com/masterkey

    in Gratitude,

    Stacey Robyn

    11/22/2006 8:13 pm
  6. Kevin R. Guthrie

    Excellent work guys and gals, I
    honestly hadn’t given video that
    much thought, however the numbers you
    have received through the video’s
    are staggering and low cost.
    Thanks you got my attention!

    11/25/2006 1:12 pm
  7. Julie Wolf

    I LOVE Stacys post… been there watched the lovely video and am now passing it to along people I meet who need more blessings in there lives… viral list building at it’s best.

    I am a relationaship & List Building Coach. And will most definately be making viral videos to build my lists and add this to my system & coaching. Check out my new niche list building methods free. Come meet me – Im always looking for new affiliates and JV partner opportunitys.

    Remember … Be Grateful … it WILL increase your blessings.

    Gratitude to You All

    11/25/2006 3:52 pm
  8. Malcolm Christie

    Excellent report guys and re-enforces the fact that the latest ‘trend’ in online communication is indeed streaming video. For marketers, it’s an incredible time to get the message over.

    If any of you would like an extremely simple yet effective way of getting video onto your websites and into your emails, bloggs, newsletters etc, just visit my site for details.

    11/27/2006 10:56 am
  9. Dave Boufford

    Do viral videos work? Here’s the results a test I launched this June for one of my clients. To date we’ve had over 25 million views! Over 160,000 new subscribers added to our list and record breaking sales days.

    Take a look and pass it along! http://www.TheDashMovie.com

    Enjoy Your Dash!

    Dave Boufford
    “Mr. Positive”

    11/27/2006 12:08 pm
  10. Bill

    Dave and others…

    TheDashMovie seems to have had extraordinary success. How does one go about putting something like that together so that you’re able to get that extraordinary number of views and huge number of subscribers?

    Can you put something like this together yourself?

    Are there services out there that can do this for an affordable price?

    Has anyone produced a "how to" book or video on how you’d do this?

    Thanks!

    11/27/2006 1:05 pm
  11. Linda Ellis

    Bill,

    Maybe folks should just start with a poem by Linda Ellis! (This is Linda Ellis…ha ha!) But seriously, The Dash poem is special and people like to share it with others. It was around for ten years making fans before the movie came along. It’s a message people want to share, almost feel compelled to share. If you don’t have that foundation initially, how could your project be a success? A feel good sentiment isn’t passed on to begin the viral chain if it doesn’t make that WOW impression initially. My two cents…

    11/30/2006 5:35 pm
  12. Bill

    Linda – I agree that, as you mention with the Dash poem, the message must be powerful and grabbing so that people will be compelled to share it with friends and family.

    I would love to learn how to do one of these myself, technically, from the creative start to the development of the video, captioning, and finally leading up to a webpage that collects emails from interested people.

    Of course, there is still aways the challenge of how to get the viral video "kicked off," even when you have a super video and all the technical aspects in place!

    Bill

    11/30/2006 6:30 pm
  13. Linda Ellis

    Hi Bill,

    I had left that part up to the expert, Dave Boufford. Before I knew it, he had the beautiful movie made and millions were coming to visit. I had made a FLASH movie of The Dash previously, before it was done professionally and I did get quite a return on my investment as far as forwarding the site and the folks joining the mail list. Once I’d sent it to the initial mail list, it took off from there and that was a small list. Wish I could be more helpful! (I’m just the poet!) Good luck if you venture into it…

    Live Your Dash!

    Linda Ellis

    12/2/2006 11:06 pm
  14. Sharon Vaz

    Linda,

    I would be interested to know which services you used to submit your viral video. I am curently working on a feature story about Social Media for an Asian business paper and am reviewing success stories to highlight. You may also reach me at sharon@webexplosion.biz.

    Thanks

    12/6/2006 6:34 am
  15. George Levy

    Very interesting posting. I spend quite a large amount of time on MySpace and use it extensively for marketing. I’ve been exploring the use of viral videos and their role in building a list of subscribers – thanks for this excellent information.

    12/20/2006 11:07 pm
  16. David Beaver

    Am I the only person who read the article?

    To believe that their cost per subscriber was "Zero" using video compared to $20.00 for each "pay per click" subscriber is ridiculous.

    Just a few paragraphs above their comparison chart they clearly state: "We purchased off-the-shelf video-editing software for a PC, started filming, and edited all of the videos ourselves.  The total estimated investment for this project (all 28 videos) was $9,600."

    I think they need to divide the number of new subscribers into the $9,600 in order to come up with an actual cost per subscriber and it will be a lot more than $20.

    David

    2/1/2007 3:02 pm
  17. Justin Premick

    David,

    I think the argument they’re making in the article has to do with the variable cost associated with video views vs. PPC impressions.

    You’re right in stating that if you include the $9600 in video creation costs, the cost of acquiring a subscriber by video will increase.

    However, it’s worth noting that there are certainly fixed costs in that $9600 figure. Those shouldn’t be treated the same way as the ongoing costs associated with PPC campaigns.

    As I’m no accountant, and the report didn’t say what portion of those costs were fixed, I can’t say to what extent the cost per video subscriber might be adjusted.

    2/1/2007 5:07 pm | Follow me on Twitter
  18. Scott Patterson

    Justin-

    Great post!

    I’ve had some incredible results from Viral Videos, specifically YouTube. From just a few videos I’ve created during the past month, I’ve had a 30% increase to my opt-in list.

    What’s really interesting is all of this traffic is all "type in" traffic. These are people that have seen my video and take the time to write my URL into the browser just to check out my site.

    Pretty powerful stuff…

    Scott

    4/9/2007 7:03 pm
  19. Julie Wolf

    Thanks for adding to this thread Scott. I would love to see what you’ve done. Contact me. I finally joined YouTube and Myspace… i’m a bit slow on the uptake. But I have made a load of audios and videos on my blogs. And I have started to explore Web 2.0. this is the way the internet marketing is going… and videos are a big part of that.

    I should put a video on my site here don’t you think?

    4/12/2007 11:33 pm
  20. Charlie

    I recently had made a few videos and posted them to youtube.com as lead generators for my site. Within a few days my first one started getting views and is now at the top of youtube for "Marketing Ideas" and "Small Business Marketing. You can see it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol_Nmh0sDH0

    It’s getting about a 100 views a week on youtube.com and even more at metacafe.com

    The real surprise to me was how popular the video I thought was the dumbest is. Almost 600 views on Metacafe in 4 days. See what you think – http://www.metacafe.com/watch/718987/marketing_ideas_4_the_broken_car/

    7/18/2007 9:10 am

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