Viral Marketing

How do I use 'viral marketing'?

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First of all, let's dispel the myths. Viral marketing is not some new 21st century technique that has never been heard of before. It's a new term to describe a process that has existed since time immemorial.

Before 'viral', this activity was known as 'word of mouth' or 'referrals'. So what's different now?

The key elements are that person A hears about or uses service X. Person A tells person B and C about service X. That's means that a referral has taken place and there are now three people A, B and C who know about X.

Person B is a very talkative chappie with a wide circle of contacts - so he manages to tell a further 12 people whilst C tells a 3 more people about service X. Company Y which markets X has only spoken to one person A, but now the following know about their service X:- A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q and R.

And here's who told who:

• A > B & C
• B > D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N and O
• C > P, Q and R

We could continue this story - because it doesn't end there - it's just we don't have enough alphabet left to carry the story on!

You can imagine the above process taking place in a community where, in the space of just a few days, tens of people have heard about Y.

The difference with the Internet is that news travels very very fast - and literally hundreds of people can have heard about Y in just a few minutes. Why? Because an email can be passed onto a whole address book in just seconds - and be delivered to all addressees in just a few short minutes.

Do you see a snag?

Why would B & C bother to tell anyone at all? They don't go around promoting your products and services for you out of the kindness of their hearts do they?

And what's more - if this information is being passed on at lightening speed - even A probably hasn't tried service X - so why on earth would s/he bother to tell anyone at all?

'Viral' marketing usually relies on some gimmick or device which is unusual and possibly humourous that A would find entertaining and want to pass on to his address book of email contacts.

In effect, every email your company sends out is 'viral' because it could quite easily be passed on to someone else without you ever knowing - but it's unlikely that the emails you send out are 'entertaining'!

So coming back to how you use 'viral' marketing:

• You want to extend the awareness and impact of your business presence
• You want your limited number of contacts to do this for you
• You create a message that is targeted at your contacts
• You design it so that is linked to a web page for monitoring purposes

Then you offer some compelling value in your message or email that makes it impossible for the recipients to pass it on. What could this be:

• Humour or a joke
• Topical cartoon or animation
• Special gift offer
• Release otherwise unreleased - but valuable - information
• A competition that requires the help of others to be enlisted
• A time delimited opportunity - book now or lose it...
• Buy the pass on through some incentive or gift to the person passing on

If you want creative ideas that enable you to extend your email marketing with impact, email the WebCertain team on Ideas for Viral.

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