Michael Hoffman over at See3 had a great blog post yesterday – Viral Video for Nonprofits – A Rethinking. You should read it. No really, you should. Ok, now that you’ve hopefully read it, think about what that means for your organization — have you fallen to the “siren song of viral?” As nonprofits are getting more and more excited about Digital Marketing and are willing to try things, the “siren song” is a very real risk as the hunt for viral often comes at the cost of foundational, basic strategy.
Periodically clients will tell me that their number one strategy for driving traffic and fundraising is viral marketing. A lofty idea for sure. But it’s generally unwise, particularly when the fact is that there are far more proven (and yes, possibly more mundane) things you should be doing — like having a good web content strategy, driving multi-channel integration, instituting a solid email marketing program, and using search engine optimization, among other things.
My advice – don’t forget the foundational basics you should be doing every day in your hunt for the big breakthrough.