Viral marketing is an aggressive strategy for marketing on the internet. This is a very important aspect of every website design project that website owners should seriously consider. Viral marketing stimulates individuals to pass on marketing messages to other and eventually it turns into chain dispersal of mail, videos, ebooks, or whatever it is that is being circulated. It is leveraging the effectiveness of exponential growth. Viral marketing is a similar trend at different places referred as ‘word of mouth, creating a buzz, leveraging the media and network marketing’. Usually it contains a controversial message or something that is worthy to be passed around.
Hotmail.com has proved the most classic and effective example of viral marketing. Basically, the triumph of viral marketing is prominently focused on individual’s marketing approach.
Savvy viral marketers understand the power of ‘free.’ Hence, they offer free e-mail services, free ‘cool’ buttons, free information, free software programs and so on. But open incentive proposals may direct your mail into spam box. So, marketers use to cap the incentive to a specific quantity.
On the internet copying anything in digital format has become very simple. So, one should use short and simple marketing message because such messages are easily transmitted without any degradation. For instance, check out classic hotmail message; “get your private free e-mail at http://www.hotmail.com.
In viral marketing, try to avoid the referral. In general practice, it has been experienced that verbiage might be effective. So, in referral mail, one should ask receiver’s choice whether he/she would like to receive such mails in future.
Instead of referral, viral marketers should prefer personalized e-mail message. This recently introduced trend, ‘a message from recognizable source’ is proved to be a very effective viral marketing strategy.
Ideally the work of viral marketers does not finish with the send button after composing mail. Result tracking and performance optimization are the next prime duties of viral marketers.
Often friends share emails, videos, web pages, or any kind of information with each other. The funnier or the more controversial the materials the better chance to be very effective viral marketing materials. Similarly, quizzes, personality tests and gaming materials are also good viral marketing methods.
At InixMedia, we install a tell-a-friend script on every website we develop to make sure all of our clients have the capability of launching viral marketing campaign on their websites.
Now, a very important aspect of viral marketing is yet to be precisely discussed. Whenever we speak about viral marketing, basically we speak about several forms of marketing simultaneously. Basically, your materials need tobe worthy enough to be passed on. The quality of your marketing materials will make or break your viral marketing campaign.
Also, you have to think about “What’s In It For Me?” question that visitors/viewers will ask. You have to give a reason for them to pass on your content.
There are several types of viral marketing that are currently used by big websites. Let’s explore one by one:
Value Viral Marketing: Finest samples are Amazon and Yahoo. The prime objective of this strategy is to share quality experiences with others.
Guile Viral Marketing: Quixtar and MyPoints are its good examples. Under this strategy, people try to sell in exchange of incentives.
Vital Viral Marketing: People prefer to share experiences pertaining to certain products. Few examples are ebay and AOL.
Spiral Viral Marketing: In this segment, shared experiences may be funny, dirty, or any interesting experiences for instance, ‘JenniCam’.
Vile Viral Marketing: This strategy is for the people who warn others of negative experiences, ex. Real.com.
Thus, the bottom line is, ‘one should be very particular about the form of viral marketing’. A crystal clear image of requirements will provide an edge in viral marketing.
