ANOTHER
VERY USEFUL ARTICLE ON STRATEGY OF
VIRAL MARKETING
The term "viral marketing" seems
to have infected many e-commerce debates of
late. However, this term is just another addition
to the long list of new-age terms whose implications
are far less threatening than the names might
suggest. Viral marketing essentially means
creating messages that contain concepts within
them that are absorbed by the people that
come into contact with the messages. And making
these messages compelling enough so that people
pass them on. In effect, viral marketing is
any marketing technique that induces Web sites
or users to pass on a marketing message to
other sites or users, creating a potentially
exponential growth in the message's visibility
and effect. One example of successful viral
marketing is Hotmail, that promotes its service
and its own advertisers' messages in every
user's e-mail notes. Hotmail signed up over
12 million subscribers by spending less than
US$500K on marketing, advertising and promotion.
It is now signing up more than 150,000 subscribers
every day, seven days a week...while a traditional
print publication would only hope to reach
a total of 100,000 subscribers within a few
years of launch.
Sites that serve an immediate need when they
are first launched seem to get the kind of
viral marketing known as buzz marketing. Everyone
simply tells everyone else. Both Netscape
and Internet Explorer provide buttons that
Web sites can put on their site to tell users
which browser they have specially coded for.
ICQ, a service that tells you when selected
friends or colleagues are also online, is
an example of a service that can be made an
adjunctive part of your Web experience; you
can set it up so that it's always there. And
it's the kind of service that is viral by
its nature. Its users want to tell their friends
about it so that it will be more useful for
them. Another good example of Viral Marketing
is Blue Marble's marketing for Scope mouthwash.
Creating advertising units that allowed consumers
to send a customized & animated email
"kiss" to their friends, the message
reinforced the branding premise that Scope
brought people "Kissably close."
When people received a kiss, they had the
option to send an email themselves and soon
people were sending Scope kisses all over
the world.
Supporters of Viral Marketing call it a Digital
Word-of-Mouth. It is accurate in replication,
fast, cheap, allows detailed tracking and
opinion-leaders identification, can use multimedia
and encourages feedback. The spread of the
message is targeted in a good viral marketing
campaign. The viewers only pass the 'virus'
to people they think will be interested in
it. This, ultimately, pre-qualifies people
for the message. Good Viral Marketing makes
every customer a salesperson. More importantly,
it can be more powerful than many other marketing
techniques as it implies endorsement from
a friend. However, in spite of potentially
strong benefits, Viral Marketing can be tricky
because the marketer has to let others take
over his PR work, share his products, services,
information and brand, yet at the same time,
he still needs to somehow control the brand
and bring all that marketing back to his site.
The balance between the value provided to
users and the concerns surrounding privacy
is also a delicate one.
What a good viral marketing strategy does:
- Gives give-away s
- Enables a no-pain transfer to others
- Taps communication networks
- Can encompass the small to huge
- Focuses on basic human actions and motivation
ONE MORE VERY USEFUL ARTICLE ON VIRAL
MARKETING IS FOLLOWING
viral
marketing
- viral
marketing
- Marketing
phenomenon that facilitates and encourages
people to pass along a marketing message.
Viral
marketing depends on a high pass-along rate
from person to person. If a large percentage
of recipients forward something to a large
number of friends, the overall growth snowballs
very quickly. If the pass-along numbers
get too low, the overall growth quickly
fizzles.
At
the height of B2C it seemed as if every
startup had a viral component to its strategy,
or at least claimed to have one. However,
relatively few marketing viruses achieve
success on a scale similar to Hotmail, widely
cited as the first example of viral marketing.
word-of-mouth
marketing
email
marketing, pass-along
rate, permission
marketing
10
Steps to E-Business on a Shoestring
(e-book)
Draper
Fisher Jurvetson : Files : Viral Marketing
Tips
for Optimizing Viral Marketing Campaigns
ClickZ (February 22, 2001)
How
to Catch on to Viral Marketing
ClickZ (February 16, 2001)
I
Think I Caught Something: Viral Marketing
ClickZ (January 30, 2001)
The
Power of Viral Marketing
ClickZ (November 8, 2000)
Leveraging
the Power of Viral Marketing
ClickZ (November 2, 2000)
Getting
Viral
ClickZ (October 10, 2000)
The
Viral Component in Online Creative
ClickZ (October 3, 2000)
What
Makes it Viral?
ClickZ (July 6, 2000)
Is
Viral Marketing All It’s Cracked Up To Be?
ClickZ (May 9, 2000)
The
Care and Feeding of Marketing Viruses
ClickZ (April 17, 2000)
Viral
Marketing: Pitfall or Windfall?
ClickZ (February 24, 2000)
The
Basics Of Viral Marketing
ClickZ (November 19, 2000)
What
Does Viral Marketing Really Mean?
ClickZ (October 11, 1999)
Articles
- Viral Marketing & the
Internet |
Viral
marketing increases online sales! That concept
seems to pop up everywhere on Internet marketing
resources. So what exactly is viral marketing?
The simplest way to explain viral marketing
is to think in terms of mainstream networking.
Your contacts know about you and your site
and you hope to that they pass that information
on to someone else. But hoping is not a
good way to approach web marketing, you
need to be pro-active in promotion.
By
implementing viral marketing strategies,
you provide an incentive for web site visitors
to carry a sales message. This incentive
is usually a free "carrier" tool
for that marketing message or a means by
which it is easier for people to spread
the word about your products and services.
The idea is not to push your visitors into
delivering your sales message to others,
but as a side effect of them gaining benefit
from a utility or service that you offer.
Free
email services = free advertising
A
good example of viral marketing is many
of the free email services available on
the internet. The messages that you send
from these free services invariably contain
promotion for the company providing the
service.
This form of Internet marketing is extremely
effective. In the above example, if someone
utilizes the mail service on average only
twice a day, in the period of a year the
service is advertised approximately 730
times. Multiply this number by the number
of registered users, in the case of Hotmail
approximately 30 000 000, and you have 2,1900,000,000
advertisements per year. How much would
you pay for that type of coverage using
banners? - ball park figure, approximately
$438 million.
OK, so those are pretty huge figures that
most of us can only dream of achieving,
so how does the little guy utilize the viral
marketing concept on a budget of say....$0.
Articles
as a viral marketing tool
A
very successful strategy is the development
of articles and tutorials such as these.
You will notice that at the end of each
article and tutorial in the copyright info,
I request that if the content is going to
be reproduced that reference is made to
Taming the Beast. net. If I am fortunate
enough, a webmaster may place an article
on a high traffic web site (along with the
proper acknowledgement) and this will create
some traffic to our web site. Using this
strategy, you are relying on the honesty
of the user to acknowledge the origin of
the tool.
Once
you have published a number of articles,
you can also submit them to article directories
and archives. I am still a firm believer
that written content is king, and no matter
what subject you choose write about, there
will always be plenty of people wanting
the information, especially if it's for
free! If you do decide to publish
your own articles, ensure that the theme
is related to your web site, otherwise the
traffic you receive will be of little or
no value.
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Ezines
and viral marketing
Another
very popular method of viral marketing via
the Internet is through the use of ezines
and newsletters. If your newsletter contains
information of value, such as tips, hints,
news or tutorials, you'll find that subscribers
will forward it on to others.
The
use of newsletters can also help build content
for your web site which increases search
engine visibility. After we send out a plain
text newsletter, we also publish it in a
html version and add it to our online archive.
Our stats show a number of visits from people
who have hit the archive as a point of entry.
It's very important to inform subscribers
exactly what you will be doing with their
details as the Internet is rampant with
mailing lists being sold off by web masters.
Depending on the industry and quality of
list, an email address can be worth $1-$2.50,
so savvy surfers are becoming more selective
in what they'll subscribe to - they'll expect
some sort of commitment that you won't be
distributing, selling or renting their email
addresses.
Most importantly, a newsletter should contain
valuable information, not just sales copy
- otherwise interest will quickly drop off
and you'll be getting a number of unsubscribers.
Worse still, your e zone will be deleted
as soon as it arrives, leaving you with
a valueless list that only sucks up your
time, resources and bandwidth.
The
e zone industry has grown at an exponential
rate over the last year but the overall
quality of ezines has declined. This
is another good reason for publishing back
issues of your newsletter online, so that
prospective subscribers can view the quality
of the content.
If
you don't have content available for an
e zone and don't have time to develop articles
, there's a number of resources on the Internet
where you can gain industry specific articles
which are free for reproduction - just try
typing "free e zone articles for reproduction"
into any search engine. If you do have the
time, articles that you produce yourself
are the best strategy as it helps to build
up credibility with your subscribers.
Ensure
that you mention in your e zine that subscribers
are welcome to forward the e zine on to
others, but they must forward the newsletter
in it's entirety. Also include directions
for subscribing and unsubscribe functions.
Other
free viral marketing techniques include
e card plug in services, free software with
embedded banners, surveys, tell a friend
forms with incentives and some referral
programs. You can find some of these free
services by visiting our webmaster resources
section:
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/tools/
toolscontent.htm
Viral
marketing doesn't stop online
What
if you could turn all your online visitors
into willing offline marketers as well?
Read more about our info sheet strategy
here:
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles2/
online-marketing-pdf.htm
Stand-alone
E books are also an excellent strategy.
Learn more about E books here:
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/
articles/ebooksviralmarketing.htm
Viral
Marketing creates a win/win situation for
all parties. The user is provided a service
or valuable information for free and in
turn provides your site with free advertising.
Start turning your web site visitors into
part of your online sales force!
Further
learning resources:
Free
web polls and surveys
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/ articles/webpolls.htm
Build it and they will come
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/ articles/build.htm
Search
engine optimization tutorials
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/ articles2/optimization-tutorials.htm
Michael
Bloch
Taming the Beast
http://www.tamingthebeast.net
Tutorials, web content, tools and software.
Web Marketing, Internet Development &
E commerce Resources
____________________________
Copyright information....
This article is free for reproduction but
must be reproduced in its entirety &
this copyright statement must be included.
Visit http://www.tamingthebeast.net
for free Internet marketing and web development
articles, tutorials and tools! Subscribe
for free to our popular e commerce/web design
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