Buzz Marketing: How to Get People Talking About Your Brand

Main Buzz Marketing Takeaways:

Buzz marketing leverages creative content, interactive events, and community influencers to maximize word-of-mouth potential.
Brands primarily use buzz marketing to attract a lot of attention in a short time.
Viral marketing is online based, while buzz marketing is event-based.
Some buzz marketing tools include seeding, scarcity, referral program, to name a few.
For any buzz marketing campaign to be successful, you must give your audience something to talk about.
Creating buzz involves spreading awareness about a brand or its message.

What is Buzz Marketing

Buzz marketing is a strategy that leverages creative content, interactive events, as well as community influencers to maximize word-of-mouth potential. It’s a term that describes marketing campaigns that are managed in a brief period. Businesses use this tactic to create anticipation before launching a product or service. In buzz marketing, the goal is to get your brand in front of a vast number of people as soon as possible. This form of marketing doesn’t allow you to remain in front of the crowd for an extended period. As a result, the whole process is highly dynamic and exciting.

Brands primarily use this marketing tactic to attract a lot of attention in a short time. And it works.

Millennials ranked word-of-mouth as the primary influencer in their purchasing decisions about clothes, packaged goods, and financial products. Similarly, Baby Boomers select word-of-mouth as the most influential in their purchasing decisions about big-ticket items and financial products.

Later in the article, we’ll explore ways to leverage buzz marketing in your business. For now, Let’s talk about viral marketing.

Difference Between Buzz Marketing and Viral Marketing

Viral marketing refers to an attempt to deliver a marketing message that spreads quickly and exponentially among consumers. It usually involves the use of social media channels or email marketing to spread a word. Buzz marketing, on the other hand, could be an event or activity that generates publicity and excitement while providing information to consumers. It usually combines exciting, jaw-dropping event or experience with pure branding. Both forms of marketing apply the same principle to get noticed. However, unlike viral marketing, a buzz is more event-based. Today, advertisers combine buzz with elements of viral marketing to spread the word about a product or service.

Buzz Marketing is a great way to market and promote a specific product. It is easy to accomplish and does not take a lot of time. It is also one of the fastest ways to get your message out there to the masses.

If you are looking for a new way to promote a product, then you may want to give this a try. You can even use Buzz Marketing with other marketing strategies if you so choose. Just make sure that you are advertising to the correct demographic before you do so.

But how does it work?

How Does Buzz Marketing Works

As said earlier, buzz marketing focuses on maximizing the word-of-mouth strategy of a campaign. It often begins with the influencers or early adopters of a product that are eager to share their thoughts. These sets of people typically have a strong social media presence, and they proactively start conversations about a product or service. Since the opinion of these influencers can reach a broad audience quickly, marketers often rely on them when trying to build a buzz.

Other strategies include using influencer bloggers and website forums to create a stir.

Why is Buzz Marketing Effective?

Buzz marketing works because of the way it gets people interested in the brand. Imagine using press releases, free offers, and deals to spread information about your business. Not only will the target audience notice your brand, but they’ll also be quick to share the information with their family and friends. This would result in more interest in your brand from the moment they see it, and it would further expand your word-of-mouth campaign.

A report from HubSpot suggests that 75 percent of people don’t believe adverts. On the other hand, 90 percent trust suggestions from family and friends, and 70 percent trust consumer reviews.

What are the Buzz Marketing Tools?

Buzz marketing tools describes some methods that companies use to increase word-of-mouth. An example of such a tool that brands use is interpersonal communication networks. It involves using influential people within a specific network to accelerate the adoption of products. For instance, celebrities can spread information about new products to the public via word-of-mouth.

Other popular buzz marketing tools include:

1. Seeding

Seeding is one of the most effective buzz marketing tools that companies use today.

It involves handing out product or service samples at specific points in different networks. That way, people in multiple networks will be stimulated to discuss the brand’s offering at the same time.

Companies use samples to make strong impressions. And the reason is apparent.

We tend to remember things that engage our senses — things that we see, hear, feel, and touch. And the more people remember a product, the more likely they are to refer to others.

Studies suggest that creating a buzz by giving out samples only works for products that people are already talking about.

2. Using Scarcity and Mystery

The scarcity principle refers to a social-psychological phenomenon that causes people to assign high value to products that are hard to find.

Brands use such scarcity and mystery to maximize word-of-mouth about their product or service. It suggests that people will think that a product is more valuable because it’s scarce or hard to find.

One company that excels at using scarcity and mystery for buzz marketing is Nike. The sneaker giant uses a “Limited Edition” tactic to create scarcity and a sense of urgency.

In 2005, Nike released the militaristic collaboration Air Jordan IV’s at a retail price of $200. Since it was only about 72 pairs, the demand for the sneaker generated high demand and buzz.

Eleven years later, the sneaker sold for a whopping $18,500 at the resale market.

3. Taking People Behind the Scenes

Another quick way to generate buzz about a product or service is to take people behind the scenes. It taps into people’s curiosity about how things work and the effort that goes into creating a product.

With that said, “behind the scenes” doesn’t have to be taken literally. It could involve providing exclusive inside information to a specific set of customers. That way, they can share it with others.

4. Tell-a-Friend Promotion

Finally, brands use various tell-a-friend promotions and referral programs for buzz marketing.

As the name implies, a tell-a-friend promotion is a tool that encourages customers to tell other people about a product or service. In return, they receive some reward for their effort.

However, the incentive shouldn’t be so big that it seduces people to recommend a product. It’s essential to find a balance.

How to Apply Buzz Marketing Principle for Online Marketing

The most critical component when creating buzz around your business is word of mouth. You can do this using various ways, such as finding and using the services of a local SEO company. Another option is to write and submit articles to local newspapers and magazines. Note that the material can only go viral if you include valuable information or present a remarkable offer. When you can write an article that attracts readers, you will be able to generate a buzz around your business.

With that said, several factors can help create buzz around your business. Here are a few to consider.

1. There Must Be Something to Talk About

For any buzz marketing campaign to be successful, you must give your audience something to talk about. Whether it’s your brand, product, or service, you have to get people talking to spread the buzz.

For example, a Utah-based blender manufacturing company, Blendtec, wanted to get people to spread the word about its powerful blenders.

So, the company made a video that shows the blenders crushing marbles, iPhones, and golf balls into smoothies. It was an instant hit, getting over 12 million views on YouTube.

While the content was outrageous, it was connected to the brand and close to what it does.

2. Work With Influencers

Creating buzz involves spreading awareness about a brand or its message. And that’s where an influencer comes in.

The promoters of the Dettol brand, Reckitt Benckiser, wanted to reach a larger audience, so it came up with a smart idea.

The company distributed 48,000 samples of its product to 4,000 influencers. After trying the sample, the influencers had to share the remaining ten with other people.

And it worked! Not only did the company reach 46 percent of its audience, but sales also rose by a whopping 86 percent.

Reckitt Benckiser had successfully created a buzz around its brand.

3. Make the Offer Remarkable

Today, you’ll find tons of enticing offers on the internet, whether it’s “life-long warranty” or “buy one, get one free offer.” While these offers may generate sales, they are not as remarkable as you might imagine.

So, what makes an offer remarkable?

To stand out from its competition, clothing company, Zappos offered a “365-day” return policy as well as an unmatched customer service. The CEO, Tony Hseih, reportedly created a budget for this purpose.

As you may have guessed, the effort paid off in the long run. People soon started talking about Zappos’s impressive customer service, and this — among other things — helped the company achieve $2 billion.

To Wrap Up

You must use this marketing technique as sparingly as possible, and here’s why.

Early forms of online buzz such as pop-up ads, email marketing, and banner ads, to name a few, were initially successful. But consumers have gotten better at identifying buzz marketing over the years.

So, it no longer generates the excitement you need to create that buzz. Instead, consumers treat this form of marketing as a minor annoyance, while ignoring the marketer’s message.

Also, it’s essential to connect your campaign with the brand or product itself. It’s not enough to create a piece of content if your audience can’t identify your brand.