Marketing with Mike Volpe

Let's say you are a B2B company that sells to marketers and small businesses and want to attract new prospects to your website, as well as spread your thought leadership message about inbound marketing.

What do you do?  Lots of things.  You blog, make videos, podcast, do webinars, write ebooks, be active in social media and just generally leverage inbound marketing.  As part of this, you can also try to create a viral video on YouTube.

Here is our latest attempt at making something remarkable and viral for YouTube.  And some thoughts of mine below about it.

1. A rap song is a good choice because the lyrics are usually easier to understand, so you can make your point more easily.  Rap songs are also easier to parody than normal songs, I think.
2. The song is popular, and old.  New songs might be a big hit, but the recall you get with an old song really works.  It also helps you get an older demographic (usually better for B2B), rather than just people in their early 20's.  This song was chosen after we realized it is now being played at weddings - meaning it is broadly popular.
3. Get a bit crazy.  The more uncomfortable you are during filming, the more likely it will be that your video is funny and remarkable and worth sharing.  Find the line, and then go over it.  I'm not sure we went far enough in this one.
4. Try a call to action.  You usually get very few click throughs from YouTube to your website.  You can drive more traffic by adding a call to action at the end of the video. But don't just put your logo or"visit my website".  Try somethign more subtle, we just encouraged people to Google "inbound marketing" (and we were darn sure we dominated the first page of results...)