May 18, 2009

Heath Brothers on Going Viral

Their monthly column in Fast Company is always a great read, and this month is no exception when the Made to Stick brothers Dan Heath and Chip Heath give us a few tips for making messages viral.

Viral marketing has become a hip, low-cost way to reach a lot of people very quickly--with little effort. But as marketers ... slash ad budgets, "viral" needs to mean more than "free" and "fueled by prayer." Making an idea contagious isn't a mysterious marketing art. It boils down to a couple of simple rules.

The rules, suggest the Heaths, are as easy as one, two three:

1. Make it emotional
The more intense someone's response is to your message, the more likely people will be to talk about it. "Come to our potluck" has about as much emotion as a turtle on race day. Consider instead messages like "Mabel's chili has been known to make grown men cry. Try it this Sunday."

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Posted by Brad Abare at 7:08 AM
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June 27, 2008

Word of Mouth Marketing

Have you heard about Dave Balter? He's the CEO and founder of the word of mouth organization BzzAgent and has just released the Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II. It's a primer on word of mouth marketing with plenty of insight for church communicators.

Getting people talking is what the church is all about. The whole Great Commission is based around spreading the word and creating buzz. But most churches are hardly buzzing, and that's where the Word of Mouth Manual can help. It's a cover-to-cover look at word of mouth marketing, starting with whether it can actually be manufactured, continuing through its history and examining how you can put it to work for you (and your church). And we're all about that.

So we're happy to be able to give away free downloads:

Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II (PDF, 119 pages, 2.4 MB). You can also visit Amazon and buy a print copy (maybe not, looks like the limited print run is sold out).

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Posted by Joshua Cody at 12:04 PM
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