Viral Marketing ideas....

[SaucyRossy]

I know there is a similar topic but I wanted to make this one as more of a action oriented topic and the other one as the ideas.....
First off I would love if a mod or some one affiliated with Rifftrax would let me and everyone else know if what I am about to suggest us doing is ok with them.

1. Use the internets. You tube, myspace, facebook, all of those lovely free advertising havens.

2. You tube! Here is what needs to be done either the Rifftrax team or the fans here on the boards can take scenes from different rifftrax movies and synch the rifftrax up and put it on youtube as a rifftrax trailer. Basically you do the same thing that is done on the front page but put it on you tube where it can spread and catch fire like 50 year old businessman's crotch after sleeping with a hooker in the pacific.

3. Myspace rifftrax. Yes Myspace is internet crack and yes it is quite horrible.....but it is usefull. For one thing it can get the word out and spread news faster than Fox news spreads propoganda! Seriously though make a myspace rifftrax page, maybe have the page themed for each upcoming movie have the video clips on there etc.

4. Release a rifftrax for free. Thats right...let people get a real taste of why they should buy it maybe wait another six months or so and then do it.

5. There is no reason that Mike has to only riff on movies....if he and the rest of his crew wanted to he could easily set up a blog where he riffs on news of the week etc.
Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert have become extremely famous and rich for basically riffing on the news...why not let Mike have a crack at it?



Those are my top five things that can be done to start a viral marketing campaign for rifftrax. Not sure if any of the rifftrax crew will read this...I hope they do but either way most of this us the fans can start doing now.....so why not?

[Tarantulas]

Neat ideas, but...

1) The word has been rung to the farthest reaches of MSTie-dom via Digg / Slashdot / Fark / Others

2) They have promos on YouTube already aka "Mike's first day" type stuff

3) I'm doubting that 13 year old girls w/ boy-band addictions are the core people that Rifftrax is going for

4) There are free samples on the main Rifftrax page.  The product sells itself.

5) Neat idea, what you want to create already exists in the very source you listed (Daily Show).  Plus there are a ton of other shows that do the same type of thing (Best Week Ever / VH1's billions of "I love the" things / Showbiz Show with David Spade).  Plus Mike does have a personal website where he does that very sort of thing.

"Every party needs a pooper!" - Dr. Clayton Deborah Susan Forester

The best thing that every fan can do to help the effort are...

1) Buy Rifftrax (4 copies of each release wouldn't hurt)

2) Spread the word to fellow MST / Comedy fans however you can.  Standing on A soapbox at bus station and screaming at the riders untill the police come and chase you off seems like a good place to start.

3) Report piracy.  If you see a site that is hosting the mp3s or offering combined audio with the soundtrack from the movie, report it. 
(If the person trying to peddle these wares on you is wearing and eye patch and has a hook for a hand, back away slowly, and find an adult)

Hopefully these helpful tips will be of use to someone, and remember, repeat to yourself "its just a side project to Mike's active comedic writing career", I should really just relax!

[Conor]

SaucyRossy, we here at RiffTrax are always looking for new ways to spread the word, and I think that the forum is the best way to organize a collected effort.  Myspace is probably a good idea, I think that having an image of DisembAudio in your top 8 would result in people clicking on it to see what the hell it was.  We'll look into what we'd want to have on the myspace page.

As far as youtube clips go,  use discretion as far as those go.  I probably just have to say that.

I think that other things that are worth doing every time a new movie is released is submitting it to Digg, writing an amazon review for the movie advertising that RiffTrax is available for it, posting on the IMDB board as well as something awful or any other boards you belong to.  The more places that people are likely to stumble across RiffTrax the better.  Though it may seem like the idea has reached as many people as possible through slashdot, etc, it is foolish to assume that just becuase those people read about it one time that that's all they need to know about the product.  For many people, that initial wave of RiffTrax mania that came with the release of Road House has probably been forgotten, and if they were to stumble across the page again now, they'd probably be more impressed with the amount of movies being riffed, as well as the guest riffers etc.

So yeah, please do any of the above, and post whatever else you think of.  If there's anythings like Digg that require a group effort to vote on or popularlize, please let your fellow riffaholics know so we can help out. 

[SmilinJackRoss]

Neat ideas, but...

1) The word has been rung to the farthest reaches of MSTie-dom via Digg / Slashdot / Fark / Others

Believe it or not, there are people out there who do not look at these websites at all (like me).  I don't venture too far away from a few staple websites I visit daily, basically because I don't have the time. 

[Tarantulas]

I don't venture too far away from a few staple websites I visit daily, basically because I don't have the time.

And those are the people you will practicaly never reach anyway.

I still like my idea #1...  then you can legaly send some to buddys and get them hooked

First one's free, kid.

[MrTorso]

How about some underground stickering? Print up a nice looking color sticker advertising www.rifftrax.com and stick on the DVDs that have been riffed at Best Buy / Wally World etc.

[Pak-Man]

I like stickers, but don't want to be kicked out of Best Buy. Are there laws against stickering DVDs?

[SaucyRossy]

Yeah no need to do the stickering thing. I really think using the free tools that are available on the web to your advantage. I mean some one like Lonley Girl 13 or whatever her name is now famous because you tube....how hard would it be to put up some clips from roadhouse, star trek v, and crossroads on you tube with the rifftrax playing under it and with a Rifftrax.com logo at the end and beginning of each clip.

Also having those on you tube makes it much easier to spread the word. you can post the video on your blog and or myspace, you can link to it in other forums when you post about rifftrax and you can email it to everyone on your list.

Another way to get some free marketing....which may take some time, effort, and money is to have Mike riff on Access Hollywood, E! news, etc. any of those holly wood shows.....this may seem weird but say he does that and posts it on you tube then some one contacts Access Hollywood and says hey check this out they may want to have Mike on there show to talk about what he did and to talk about Rifftrax.com
Besides using a tv show and stuff like that is another good way to provide a sneak peek at what you will get with rifftrax with out giving away some of the movie stuff.

Also....personalized riffs that you can send to your friends.

There are these my space generators that after you answer some questions about your self it supplys you with a response on how close you come to being buffy or angel (For example) so i think it would be funny to have mike do something where you input info about your self and then generic riffs come out .....wouldnt be to hard to do.

Last thing for now. All this talk about guest riffers has got me thinking...why not do a fan submitted riff contest? Where after the next movie is announced fans can watch that movie and submit some riffs, maybe a maximum of three or five. You have a basic feedback system set up on the site where you put the time code and all the information needed about the riff and include the full riff you want to submit. Then the fan who gets there riff or riff's used maybe gets that rifftrax for free or a tshirt or a box of cheerios....
Then maybe once a year Mike can do a major contest where people submit audio riff's and the best person gets to do a rifftrax with Mike....that may be tough to do but I am sure would get A TON of attention for the site.

Thats all I have right now.....hope some one likes my idears.

[Tarantulas]

Another way to get some free marketing....which may take some time, effort, and money is to have Mike riff on Access Hollywood, E! news, etc. any of those holly wood shows.....this may seem weird but say he does that and posts it on you tube then some one contacts Access Hollywood and says hey check this out they may want to have Mike on there show to talk about what he did and to talk about Rifftrax.com
Besides using a tv show and stuff like that is another good way to provide a sneak peek at what you will get with rifftrax with out giving away some of the movie stuff.

Problem being that you are infringing on Rifftrax and the studio's copyrights. 

Email your buddies.. tell people at the video store..  leave the marketing to Legend.

why not do a fan submitted riff contest?

Well there is the Grand Ole' Fantrax List for fan riffs.  Have a different take on ST:V? Post it there.

http://rifftrax.com/smf/index.php?topic=13.0

[SaucyRossy]

Another way to get some free marketing....which may take some time, effort, and money is to have Mike riff on Access Hollywood, E! news, etc. any of those holly wood shows.....this may seem weird but say he does that and posts it on you tube then some one contacts Access Hollywood and says hey check this out they may want to have Mike on there show to talk about what he did and to talk about Rifftrax.com
Besides using a tv show and stuff like that is another good way to provide a sneak peek at what you will get with rifftrax with out giving away some of the movie stuff.

Problem being that you are infringing on Rifftrax and the studio's copyrights. 

Email your buddies.. tell people at the video store..  leave the marketing to Legend.

why not do a fan submitted riff contest?

Well there is the Grand Ole' Fantrax List for fan riffs.  Have a different take on ST:V? Post it there.

http://rifftrax.com/smf/index.php?topic=13.0

No....you dont understand...your not infringing on copy right's by doing a rifftrax of a tv show or else no one would be aloud to post television show clips on you tube.

As for leaving the marketing to Legends. No. This is the feedback forum and these are feedback ideas and suggestion for marketing. If you dont like it dont participate in the discussion but dont tell me that I cant post feed back, thanks. 

Also the fan riffs are good and all but it isn't a contest....

[Tarantulas]

No....you dont understand...your not infringing on copy right's by doing a rifftrax of a tv show or else no one would be aloud to post television show clips on you tube.

Ahh but I do understand.  ts the reason Warner is pulling a giant legal wedge on YouTube currently due to all the unauthorised usage of copyrighted Warner owned material on the site.

I'm sure they had to sell at least 3/4 of their soul to make it work Warner's time.

If people want to give up some killer marketing ideas to Legend, thats fine.  But to suggest stuff like going into Better Buy and putting stickers on their DVDs to promote Rifftrax is shakey ground.  It couldn't have any effect than to come back negatively on Rifftrax and Legend.

The simplest and most effective thing that Rifftrax could do is crank out some shirts (tons of ideas over in the t-shirt thread).

For spreading the word to an even larger audience, Mike has been making the rounds on radio and TV promoting the project (plus his website, and about a billion MST sites).  So word is getting out.

How can fans help?

1) Buy Rifftrax (buy 2 copies and send one to a friend)
2) Buy a t-shirt (assuming they get some done in star trek fan sizes)
3) Help announce new Rifftrax on the various MST boards around the net.. submit it to Digg/Slashdot/Fark/Uncle Joe's Turtle Site
4) Don't do anything dumb that might have legal reprocussions for Legend or Rifftrax

See, I'm contributing..

And yes, some manner of riffing contest would be awesome.. some clips off archive.org could be used to avoid any legal hangups.

Also,  ? Are you coming on to me, Mrs. Robinson?

[SaucyRossy]

Tarantula first I didnt suggest the sticker idea and I even said that was a bad idea.


As for you tube, i really think you could use it in the same manner that they do the clips on the site here. Or is that copy right infringement?

As for T-shirts....ehhh not that great of an idea imo. Tshirts are expensive and you cant guarantee that it will sufficently get the word out. Why be afraid of using the free resources that are available to them on the web?

And yes T i cant get enough of your DAP if you know what i mean.

[Tarantulas]

I know you didn't suggest the stickers.. just bringing it up as an example of "fan marketing" that has the potential of having a negative effect on Rifftrax and Legend.

Who knows... Legend may have gotten permission for those clips on the website.  Thats a lot safer ground than a fan produced clip plastered with Rifftrax logos made without Legends permission.  The YouTube idea is a gnats wing away from "I added the mp3 to a video of the movie and put it on bittorent to help spread the love of rifftrax".  5 mins? 2 hours? whats the difference?

t-shirts are a great idea...  it seems to have worked pretty well pretty well for Coke (the general public didn't wear shirts with slogans advertising things before those coke shirts in the 80's unless you worked for the place that had the slogan or trademark).  Also, a drawer full of cancer walk / Pink Floyd t-shirts tells me its a good idea.

Pink Floyd Cancer Walk... hmmm...

And yes T i cant get enough of your DAP if you know what i mean.

I think I do know what you mean, and lets wait untill my wife is out of town.

[SaucyRossy]

Well all i am suggesting for you tube is putting the clips that are available here on there, with a www.rifftrax.com logo before and after the clip.

[Tarantulas]

But if they are already here, why do we need them there?  For people to randomly put the right words together to accidentaly find them?  For ease of sharing?

Maybe Legend's agreement dosen't extend to hosting the video on other sites?

They do have those clips of Mike over there... which is really a better advertisement to MSTies anyway...