Viral marketing depends on a high level of person-to-person information exchange. If this form of information distribution expands i.e. a large volume of recipients forward your message to a large number of friends, it will affect a tremendous overall growth very quickly. On the other hand, if the numbers passing the message on dwindles, the overall growth will slow dramatically. At the peak of business to Customer (B2C) it looked as if every startup company had a viral component to its strategy, or at least claimed to have one. However,few marketing viruses enjoyed the same level of success as Hotmail, widely known as the first example of viral marketing.
A report published by the ORCI (Opinion Research Corporation International) shows that users tell an average of 12 other people about an online shopping experience. On the same token if that person has a bad experience 12 others will get to know about that as well. This is the engine that powers viral marketing. Viral marketing has become the blueprint for Internet marketers looking to copy the success of Hotmail or ICQ. Almost everybody wants to take his or her product and "make it viral." It's important though that you give some thought in to what underlies viral marketing. When talking about viral marketing, people may not realize that they're really talking about not one but of several variations of viral marketing. Different variations of viral marketing operate for different reasons, following different mechanisms and produce different effects. However, it seems that most have the same core mechanism being that they provide the user with quality products or experiences.
What: Information exchange about quality experiences amongst friends How: Bill had a great experience-using product X and recommend Charlie should try it too.
What: Guile Viral is people trying to forward viral marketing mails in exchange for incentives. How: Bill tries convincing Charlie to try product X simply because Bill will get rewarded if he is successful with Charlie.
What: People want to share experiences with others, which requires the use of certain other products. How: Bill wants to share the experience he had with product X, but Charlie needs to have Product Y to do so.
What: People needing to share funny, dirty or interesting experiences with others. How: Bill wants to share the same experiences he had as above with Charlie because he assumes Charlie might like it too.
What:People warning others of the negative experiences they had. How: Bill has a nasty experience with product X and tells Charlie not to buy it.
Viral marketing, or "refer-a-friend," email campaigns have attracted a lot of attention from the media recently. These campaigns persuade recipients of promotional emails to forward the messages to their friends. This type of marketing has attracted both positive and negative reviews from consumers, privacy advocates, and industry pundits At the core of the issue are concerns over sending unsolicited email. The tactful use of viral marketing can help marketers avoid negative reactions, and gain an increased reach for a targeted marketing message beyond its original audience.
1) Offer an incentive Viral marketing will yield its best results if a valuable and tangible incentive is offered that will entice individuals to forward an email message to their friends. However, marketers should limit the incentive to a specific quantity to avoid spam-like distribution of the message. For example, giving a 20 percent discount to any person on his or her next purchase if the message is forwarded to five friends. On the other hand an open-ended incentive, offering a $5 credit for every five friends referred, can lead to causing a marketer Customer service, financial, and privacy-related problems. 2) Don't consider the referral as already in When a Customer refers a friend, the referral should not be considered an opt-in. A name and email address provided by a person's friend does not automatically make the referral a Customer. That individual should be asked if he or she is willing to receive any future viral marketing mailings. Only after winning the consent of the relevant individual can they be counted as an opt-in. 3) Personalize Your Viral Marketing Email Response rates increase considerably when users can see that a message is coming from a friend, therefore it is best to tone your viral marketing email message to show that it's coming from a familiar source. The subject line is the main component in a viral marketing email, because this is what helps identify the email as friendly. A good subject line may read: "ADV: Hi John, thought You'd Like 20% Off at ABC.com," thereby identifying it as a message sent by a friend about a special offer in an advertisement. 4) Track and Analyze the Results As with any marketing campaign, tracking the results and constant performance improvements over time are an absolute necessity in viral marketing. Viral marketers now have access to insightful and helpful data that can be used to evaluate performance. Important figures to keep track of are pass-along, click-through, and conversion rates. Marketers should split the click-through and conversion rates of original Customers from referrals and evaluate their performances individually. These figures will alert a marketer to which offers and Customers drive the highest ROI. 5) Continuous Promotion of Friendly Referrals Viral Marketers who need frequent forwarding of their message should place an enticing offer in every relevant outgoing email message. Viral marketing, though ideal as a one-off campaign, can also be effectively used to continuously expand the reach of your marketing message over time. Though there is no sure-fire way to halt negative Customer reactions, the following five concepts will help marketers make their viral marketing campaigns highly effective.