Viral Marketing- This IS Something You Want to Catch

December 11th, 2006 by John Herman, under marketing, viral marketing. No Comments

Viral marketing is when customers promote a product or service by recommending or sending it to friends, family and co-workers. It spreads like a virus. It’s a wonderfully inexpensive marketing tool for many small businesses and it requires very little effort.

A successful viral campaign requires a few basic elements. David Cotriss does a good job of explaining these elements in his article Viral Marketing. A good viral marketing campaign, according to Cotriss:

• Spreads itself. You only put out a small initial effort. Attach your marketing message to a product or a service, and if customers like your product, they’ll pass it, and your message, on. Viral marketing relies on good experiences. If a company doesn’t satisfy customers, they won’t recommend its product or service.
• Sells through existing communication networks. This can take the form of articles or press releases to get your message displayed on others’ Web pages or e-zines. Or you can place your message into existing relationships between people. Many online greeting card companies exploit communication networks by providing electronic cards people can e-mail to friends and family. Recipients are then invited to send their own cards.

Attach a short marketing message to a free product or service to encourage effortless transfer of information between customers. E-mail, graphics, and software downloads are ideal examples. Hotmail struck gold with this strategy by including a brief note in every e-mail message that read: “Get your private, free e-mail at http://www.hotmail.com.” Scads of people forwarded the message to their friends as a recommendation for a free e-mail account. Read the entire article at http://www.inc.com/articles/2001/01/21879.html.

To discover ways to use viral marketing in your business, stay tuned to our blog. Future entries will examine viral marketing in greater detail including how write press releases and articles and how to use them in your own viral campaigns. Taking steps to incorporate viral marketing into your overall business strategy will increase your chances of succeeding.