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  • 8/2/2019 What is Viral Marketing & Product

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    What is viral marketing?

    Viral marketing is an idea that spreads--and an idea that while it is spreading actually helps

    market your business or cause.

    Two kinds of viral marketing: The original classic sort in which the marketing is the product andwhich a self-amplifying cycle occurs. Hotmail, for example, or YouTube. The more people use

    them, the more people see them. The more people see them, the more people use them. Theproduct or service must be something that improves once more people use it.

    A second kind has evolved over the last few years, and that's a marketing campaign that spreadsbut isn't the product itself.Shepard Fairey's poster of Barack Obama was everywhere, because

    people chose to spread it. It was viral (it spread) and it was marketing (because it made an

    argument--a visual one--for a candidate.)

    Something being viral is not, in an of itself, viral marketing. Who cares that 32,000,000 people

    saw your stupid video? It didn't market you or your business in a tangible, useful way.

    Marketers are obsessed with free media, and, as is often the case, we blow it in our rush to get

    our share. We create content that is hampered or selfish or boring. Or we create somethingcompletely viral that doesn't do any marketing at all.

    Definition of 'Viral Marketing'

    Internet advertising or marketing that spreads exponentially whenever a new user is added. Viral

    marketing assumes that as each new user starts using the service or product, the advertising will go to

    everyone with whom that user interact

    Another definition of viral marketing is offered by Love to Know Business: a marketing strategy that

    encourages people to spread the word by sharing information with people they know.

    The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing

    . The term "viral marketing" is offensive. Call yourself a Viral Marketer and people will take twosteps back. I would. "Do they have a vaccine for that yet?" you wonder. A sinister thing, the

    simple virus is fraught with doom, not quite dead yet not fully alive, it exists in that nether genre

    somewhere between disaster movies and horror flicks.

    But you have to admire the virus. He has a way of living in secrecy until he is so numerous that

    he wins by sheer weight of numbers. He piggybacks on other hosts and uses their resources toincrease his tribe. And in the right environment, he grows exponentially. A virus doesn't even

    have to mate -- he just replicates, again and again with geometrically increasing power, doubling

    with each iteration:

    http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=ZK9&q=Shepard+Fairey+obama&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=7&ct=titlehttp://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=ZK9&q=Shepard+Fairey+obama&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=7&ct=titlehttp://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=ZK9&q=Shepard+Fairey+obama&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=7&ct=titlehttp://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=ZK9&q=Shepard+Fairey+obama&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=7&ct=title
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    Viral Marketing Defined

    What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that

    encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential forexponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies

    take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

    Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as "word-of-mouth," "creating a buzz,"

    "leveraging the media," "network marketing." But on the Internet, for better or worse, it's called"viral marketing." While others smarter than I have attempted to rename it, to somehow

    domesticate and tame it, I won't try. The term "viral marketing" has stuck.

    Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy

    Accept this fact. Some viral marketing strategies work better than others, and few work as wellas the simple Hotmail.com strategy. But below are the six basic elements you hope to include inyour strategy. A viral marketing strategy need not contain ALL these elements, but the more

    elements it embraces, the more powerful the results are likely to be. An effective viral marketing

    strategy:

    1. Gives away products or services2. Provides for effortless transfer to others3. Scales easily from small to very large4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors5. Utilizes existing communication networks6. Takes advantage of others' resources

    1. Gives away valuable products or services

    "Free" is the most powerful word in a marketer's vocabulary. Most viral marketing programs

    give away valuable products or services to attract attention. Free e-mail services, free

    information, free "cool" buttons, free software programs that perform powerful functions but not

    as much as you get in the "pro" version. Wilson's Second Law of Web Marketing is "The Law ofGiving and Selling"

    2. Provides for effortless transfer to others

    Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: stay away from people who cough, wash

    your hands often, and don't touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they're

    easy to transmit. The medium that carries your marketing message must be easy to transfer andreplicate: e-mail, website, graphic, software download. Viral marketing works famously on the

    Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive.

    3. Scales easily from small to very large

    http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/basic-principles.htmhttp://www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/basic-principles.htmhttp://www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/basic-principles.htmhttp://www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/basic-principles.htmhttp://www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/basic-principles.htmhttp://www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/basic-principles.htm
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    To spread like wildfire the transmission method must be rapidly scalable from small to very

    large. The weakness of the Hotmail model is that a free e-mail service requires its ownmailservers to transmit the message. If the strategy is wildly successful, mailservers must be

    added very quickly or the rapid growth will bog down and die. If the virus multiplies only to kill

    the host before spreading, nothing is accomplished. So long as you have planned ahead of time

    how you can add mailservers rapidly you're okay. You must build in scalability to your viralmodel.

    4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors

    Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. What proliferated

    "Netscape Now" buttons in the early days of the Web? The desire to be cool. Greed drivespeople. So does the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The resulting urge to

    communicate produces millions of websites and billions of e-mail messages. Design a marketing

    strategy that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission, and you have a

    win

    5. Utilizes existing communication networks

    Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science grad students are the

    exception. Social scientists tell us that each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close

    network of friends, family, and associates. A person's broader network may consist of scores,hundreds, or thousands of people, depending upon their position in society

    6. Takes advantage of others' resources

    The most creative viral marketing plans use others' resources to get the word out. Affiliate

    programs, for example, place text or graphic links on others' websites. Authors who give awayfree articles, seek to position their articles on others' webpages. A news release can be picked upby hundreds of periodicals and form the basis of articles seen by hundreds of thousands of

    readers. Now someone else's newsprint or webpage is relaying your marketing message.

    Someone else's resources are depleted rather than your own.

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    How Audi Uses Viral Marketing

    byRae Hoffman-Dolanon November 7, 2008 inViral Marketing

    Seeing as how we are currently in a serious economic recession, more and more major

    companies are relying on what is known as word of mouth advertising to generate buzz for

    their products. These techniques are a cheap and effective way to gain consumer exposure andinterest.Audiis just the latest big name to use these non-traditional marketing methods toincrease their sales and draw in more potential customers.

    The latest Audi word of mouth campaign has been met with mixed reactions. The IPhone has

    become the phone of choice for wealthy, tech savvy consumers, and Audi took advantage of this

    by launching a free IPhone game, theA4 Driving Challenge 2.0. Using the phones motionsensors, players use their phone to steer a mini A4 through a series of courses.

    Reviews praise the games graphics, but say that the playability is difficult and the game is just

    not all that fun. But, even though not all reviews are glowing, it has still had an overall positive

    affect on the Audi brand. It has increased its exposure to an elite audience (it is estimated that

    370,000 IPhone users downloaded an earlier version of the game). Also, Audi is the first car

    manufacturer to take advantage of the IPhone applications, creating credibility with

    technologically inclined consumers. While there are still glitches to be worked out, Audi is

    pioneering new ways of attracting customers that have remained previously untouched in the

    industry.

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    Another viral campaign recently launched by Audi is Meet the Beckers, a web series about an

    affluent family of Audi owners. The series, which currently has 2 released episode, is extremely

    tongue-in-cheek and boldly pokes fun at Audis competitors.The first episode shows the

    Beckers driving to the train station, poking fun at the stereotypical owners of BMWs, Lexus,

    and some other of Audis competition. The second episode is spent making fun of a guy fordriving a purple Beemer. While it has yet to be seen how this viral campaign will affect Audis

    sales, it definitely has people talking and, more importantly, laughing.

    http://www.meetthebeckers.com/#/the-family-chaptershttp://www.meetthebeckers.com/#/the-family-chaptershttp://www.meetthebeckers.com/#/the-family-chaptershttp://www.meetthebeckers.com/#/the-family-chapters