Are your marketing efforts burning a hole in your wallet? It's time to get creative. Here are 10 viral marketing campaigns that took off on a shoestring budget.

Did you know you can run a successful marketing campaign without having to spend your entire marketing budget?

Viral marketing campaigns are the best way to do more for less cost. Your business will become more visible, you'll generate more leads, and you'll convert more people into paying customers.

We're going to take a look at what makes up popular campaigns that go viral to inspire and give you ideas for your next campaign.

Viral Marketing Campaigns

Improving your digital marketing strategy includes implementing tactics that will allow your company to go viral. If you don't have these elements in pace, it will be difficult to see much progress.

Here are the top elements you must incorporate into your next digital campaign.

Mobile-Responsive Site

Having a mobile responsive website is super important in an age where most consumers have and use cell phones on a daily basis. If your site is not optimized for mobile viewing, you lose out on a large part of the market.

Having a site that is easy for customers to use, that they can actually see your site from and have full functionality will make their experience better.

By optimizing your website, you can rank higher in search engine rankings and have more people find your site in a search.

SEO

Search engine optimization is what allows search engines to find your site when users search for it on Google. When done correctly, your website is more visible to users and you have a higher conversion rate.

If you're using keywords that are relevant to your target audience in the content of your site, your traffic will get boosted. Other things that improve SEO are creating consistent high-quality content, using descriptions on all your pages, and tagging your photos appropriately.

Content Marketing

Another way to build the best viral marketing campaigns is to incorporate great content. Having content that is valuable for your users sets you up as a thought leader in your industry.

Users that find content to be relevant and interesting will return to your site again and again. Keep audience engagement in the forefront of your mind when creating content and your website traffic will see improvement.

Create a Blog

Having a blog is another great part of viral marketing campaigns. You can use your knowledge about a topic related to your business or your target audience to get people interested.

You can create an entire community of followers with your blog. It helps improve your online visibility and gives back to your industry by sharing thoughts on hot topics.

Email Marketing

Having a great email marketing strategy will help you reach customers you may not have been able to otherwise. Your first step is building a list that is reliable and accurate.

Once you have a list of potential customers and clients, personalization of emails will help you get in the door. You can send them coupons for your services, newsletters on the latest happenings, free samples, or industry news roundups.

If you are creating content as listed above, you can send out new content you create to keep your audience engaged with the information you're publishing.

SMS

One of the newest viral marketing campaigns implements SMS. You shouldn't spam people by sending SMS marketing to numbers that have not opted in. If people opt into your marketing messages, this can be a great way to send mobile coupons and remind people of your presence.

Samples and Coupons

Have you ever received an email from a company telling you they are having a 50% off sale? What about an extra coupon for 30% off for signing up for their newsletter or receiving a free sample on your birthday?

These are all phenomenal marketing tactics to keep people thinking about your business and wanting to come back. Free samples will allow people that didn't want to initially buy your product try it out. Once they try it, you can see an increase in sales.

Video

Video is on the rise. It's becoming a popular medium to market with. There are apps online and websites that allow you to create videos for free, or for a very low price.

In an age where smartphone technology is getting better, cameras are getting better, and they are now high enough quality they are considered professional.

You can use tags in videos, captions, and engage your audience in new and meaningful ways.

Social Media

Like cell phones, social media is something that most people use every day. If you aren't on social media, you're missing out on a huge number of the population. Billions of people to be exact.

Putting together great viral marketing campaigns for each social media channel will help you reach more potential clients. On social, they make it very easy to do paid advertising directly through their channels or you can build your own organic posts.

Forums

Lastly, forums like Reddit are a great place to become a trusted thought leader. Participating in discussions of like-minded people will help you get your brand name out in front of other people.

You can give other people advice and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Being a part of more and more conversations helps people to get to know you, and begin to trust you.

Once your relationships have developed with others, you can ask them to feature your business or a blog or product. For example, if you're an expert in the electrician industry, writing and sharing a blog on how to save on home energy is a great idea.

Forum sites require no monetary investment and are a really great way to have better human to human connections with less emphasis on selling something.

Develop Your Campaign

Now that you're aware of all the different things you can do to improve your viral marketing campaigns, it's time to get to work.

These tactics require a small amount, if any, of monetary investment and a little bit of time and care.

If you're interested in diving a little deeper into how to improve your site by using search engine optimization, take a look at this blog post.