8 July 2024 | By - Sudha Mariappan

We often undermine word of mouth marketing. When you talk to your friends excitedly about a product and they get interested, the power your words hold is insurmountable.

Creating buzz around your brand can be a game changer!

The excitement and curiosity among your product is enough to gear up your sales to perfection.
Your word of mouth can range anywhere from said words to posting to television advertisements on social media.

For example, Lays India launched a creative and humorous campaign named 'Smile Deke Dekho' that lasted for weeks. It is a brand that is loved and tasted by everyone, mention a potato chip and even a small kid would say Lays.

So in order to connect more with the consumers, Lays launched a new packaging. Their normal packaging included a smile of well-known celebrities in the end, which sparked a contest among consumers to take a selfie with the smile in the packaging.

This type of clever campaign increased sales, as non-consumers were also curious to try the product just to participate in the contest.

Source: Mini Me Insights

Therefore, in order to create a memorable buzz worthy campaign, you need to follow the following steps:

Step 1: Know Your Audience

Any successful marketing strategy rests on the cornerstone of understanding one's target audience. Audience segmentation puts the communication in the right track, your message should fit on to the right people who are segregated into various groups in the marketplace, resonating the buzz marketing efforts with the right people. The segregation includes:

Demographic Segmentation: In this type of segmentation, the market is divided based on age, gender, income, education, and occupation. For example, the target group for any luxury brand would be an elite or upper-middle-class category falling between the ages of 30 and 50.

Psychographic Segmentation: This considers the lifestyles, values, and interests of people. For instance, a fitness brand would target health-conscious people for whom wellness and an active lifestyle would be important values.

Behavioural Segmentation: This refers to a segmentation of the market based on customer operational variables such as purchase behaviour, brand loyalty, and usage rate. For example, a high-technology company would serve early adopters. Such as Samsung company uses the following behavioural pattern for segregating their customers.

Soure: pdfagile

This means the utilisation of tools such as surveys, social media analysis, and customer feedback that can provide you with data on where to create the perfect profile of your audiences.

Such an approach is data driven, through which one can very well consider that the buzz marketing campaigns are set for the best relevance scale and are likely to be very effective.

Read also: Things you should know about customer-centric marketing

Step 2: A Sneak Peek: Create Curiosity

Creating curiosity is one of the most important steps in buzz marketing. Sneak peeks can really help in building anticipation and excitement about a product or campaign.

Teaser Campaigns: These are basically small, entertainment-rich ads that provide an audience with glimpses of exciting stuff to come. For example, Apple always releases teaser videos before the launch of any new product that creates so much buzz and speculation.

Teaser Social Media Posts: Surprise the audience with cryptic messages or visuals that will be shared on the social media platform. For example, a fashion brand can blog about a close-up fabric and write, "Something exciting is coming..." or “Coming soon”.

Influencer Partnerships: Influencer marketing cannot be stressed enough. Tease your product through influencers. Influencers can create a teaser video about your product that builds curiosity among their followers.

The idea is to get your consumers excited for more, waiting on the blockbuster of your campaign.

Read also: Has influencer marketing become the newest obsession for reaching new audiences?

Step 3: Building Trust: The Foundation of Buzz

At the very center of any successful buzz marketing campaign is the necessity to build some amount of trust with an audience. You cannot possibly continue without at least a bit of trust from your consumers to continue engagement, let them share your content.

Authenticity: The marketing messages are relevant and mirror the values of your brand. Audiences very easily turn their backs on inauthenticity, which is bound to harm your brand.

Transparency: Be open and honest about the product or service that you are going to provide. If there are any flaws, then rectify those problems quickly and in full openness and transparency. This will help build trust and make the customers feel valued.

Engage your audience in social media, respond to their comments, and address their concerns. It simply means you care about your buyers and whatever they say.

Now, building trust takes much time, and these are very important steps toward creating a loyal customer base that will eventually spread the buzz regarding your brand.

Step 4: The Big Reveal of Your Campaign

The timing of the revelation of your campaign is very important. This is the place where all your work converges, and you have to make it big.

Launch Event: Organize a major event, live in kind or virtual, which initiates your campaign. For example, technology companies like Samsung usually have live demos and presentations during product launches that get wide coverage by the media.

Social Media Blitz: Launch your campaign across all social media at once. Hashtags, videos, and engaging visuals enhance its reach. Coca-Cola used personalised bottles and a social media push in their "Share a Coke" campaign to carry out global buzz.

Source: Mint

Exclusive Offers: Provide early access or special offers to a select group of people. Not only will this reward your loyal customer, but it also builds an air of inaccessibility and urgency.

The big reveal should be dramatic, leaving a lasting impression on your audience.

Step 5: Spreading the Buzz: Different Marketing Channels

In order to really get the most buzz out of your marketing campaign, you can utilise various marketing channels to spread the word.

Social Media: What is best for buzz germination on social media is on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Organise organic posts, paid ads, and collaborations with influencers for an even greater reach.

Email Marketing: Engage your subscribers and keep them close with personalised mails on selected or priority access over your product. This would rid them of the feeling of being an outsider, basically instilling a sense of belonging and loyalty in all using your services.

Content Marketing: Create instructional blog posts, videos, and infographics that will provide value within your campaign. A good example is the tutorial videos from a beauty brand on using their new line of products.

Through using multiple channels, you will ensure your buzz marketing campaign reaches as far and wide and diverse as possible.

Step 6: Track Your Results and Adapt

Tracking your results is crucial in building an understanding of whether this buzz marketing campaign you have implemented is working or if it needs some adjustments.

Analytics Tools: You can use Google Analytics to track your audience behaviour, social media insight, email marketing analytics track key metrics like engagement, reach, conversion.

Customer Feedback: Surveys, reviews, social media comments are all good sources to collect feedback from customers that show what is working and what doesn't.

Adapt and Improve: Guided by your analysis, make relevant adjustments to your campaign. This may mean fine-tuning your messaging or changing other marketing channels, or possibly just fixing some issues that come to the surface.

By continued monitoring, adjusting the strategy will help in keeping your buzz marketing effective and relevant.

Why You Should Consider Buzz Marketing:

Creating a buzz around your brand not only amplifies your sales but also helps you create a positive product development through consumer feedback. Positive reviews always encourage businesses to create more quality products.

Several benefits of buzz marketing can dramatically affect your business.

Cost-Effective: Buzz marketing could be more cost-effective compared to conventional advertising techniques. This is where word-of-mouth and organic reach help kill the dependency on expensive ad campaigns, as it would cost way less.

Better Brand Awareness: A little excitement and curiosity can work wonders for a brand. When people begin to talk about your brand, it is almost a ripple effect that reaches a lot of other people.

Higher Customer Loyalty: Since buzz marketing engages audiences by developing trust among the target customers, it enhances their loyalty. An eternal customer can and will always go all out to recommend your brand, further spreading the buzz.

These benefits make up a forceful tool in buzz marketing for the business to bring about an everlasting impact.

Read also: The Buzz About Buzz Marketing: How to Make Your Brand the Latest Gossip

Real-World Buzz Examples in Action:

There have been quite a few brands that have been able to create a sensation, through buzz marketing.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: One of the very popular examples of buzz marketing would be the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. This campaign was so widely able to create awareness and generate funds for research on ALS, with its viral nature across social media. It showcased most effectively how user-generated content and sharing on social media could work in the context of creating a buzz.

Old Spice "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like": This Old Spice advertisement garnered much talk because it was funny and people could interact with it a lot through different media.

Tesla Cybertruck Launch: Tesla launched its Cybertruck with an extremely unconventional, out-of-the-box design in an event that quickly stirred a fury. The live event and such an improbable design made the media frenzy even more real among people who had an immense conversation online.

These examples mentioned above show how a powerful campaign is still talked about to this day. These portray the potential of buzz marketing to have long term and sustainable effects.

Importance of Buzz Marketing in Marketing:

We live in a world where the importance of buzz marketing as a marketing tool has been more significant than it has ever been. With the advent of social media and digital platforms, information and knowledge can be spread even more quickly.

The purchasing behaviour of the potential target customers can be negatively or positively influenced by word of mouth to a great extent.

Buzz marketing allows brands to take part in the phenomenon that they have created, building spontaneous and genuine conversations around products or services. Actually, it helps to establish a community of loyal consumers who become advocates of the brand and pass on the word, driving new levels of further engagement.

More than that, the strategy can create a differentiation factor when customers are bombarded with similar products, services, and advertisements at all times. When you have a few unique campaigns up your marketing sleeve, it clearly distinguishes you from the rest, making your campaign and brand difficult to forget.

Key takeaways:
Understand the Target Group: The segmentation of the target audience allows the company to customise buzz campaigns.
Tease: Start with small teasers, mysterious social media statuses.
Building Trust: Develop trust through high levels of authenticity being clear and engaged with your customer.
Big Reveal: Make the unveiling a big deal through launch events, social media blitzes, and enticing exclusive offers.
Marketing Channels: Use social media, email marketing, and content marketing to create visibility.
Track and Adapt: Keep measuring your results while continuously making changes where necessary to improve the outcome of the campaign.
That way, you could build an efficient Buzz Marketing Strategy that brings with it excitement, engagement, and loyalty.