Email a collegue.| Headline: | The contagious nature of viral marketing |
| Description: | ‘Virus’ and ‘marketing’ are nouns that don’t seem to go together. But ‘viral marketing’ is an important term in the business world and those who use it to greatest effect are moving their products off shelves as quickly as a virus can reproduce.
There’s nothing sinister about viral marketing. It’s a marketing strategy that uses people to pass a marketing message along to others and doesn’t rely on paying the media for its transmission. It’s a fast means of creating introductions to new customers, and because an ever-increasing number of people are involved in disseminating the message its spread is exponential. Three factors have created the optimum breeding conditions for viral marketing: 1. The internet has become a medium of communication that links large numbers of people within communities. 2. Using the internet is so close to free that people perceive it as being without cost. There are no postage costs or other distribution expenses when you pass on a message. 3. The structure of email makes forwarding a message simple and the recipient gets it almost instantaneously. The recognized classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com where you sign up for a free email account and every time you use it your message invites the recipient to also sign up for a free email account. Your recipients sign up for their free email accounts and when they send out messages the offer goes out to even more people. Before it had its second birthday Hotmail had signed up over 12 million subscribers. It’s now signing up more than 150,000 every day. Each of those subscribers has joined a giant database that now has members from 220 countries and is truly a marketer’s dream – a vast channel that can be accessed through a single medium - Hotmail. As viral marketing is currently being practiced it’s usually associated with something being given away. It’s simple to use, takes advantage of existing means of transmission, and systematically conveys the message to a growing number of people. Another important aspect, demonstrated by the Hotmail model, is that the spread of the message is done by people sending something to other people. Most of those who take up the offer of a free email account do so when they receive an email from someone they know, even though they could have done it simply by going to the Hotmail website and signing up there. When something’s given away there’s not necessarily a great cost involved but there’s got to be an expectation of an eventual return. So it is with most virally-marketed products or services. With Hotmail the benefit is ‘free’ but the person who receives it has joined a community that’s regularly targeted with offers of other products and services. The internet is ideal for viral marketing. You can offer free downloads, free emails, free text or graphics, and with every ‘free’ transmission you send along your message about something that can be purchased from you. There is one absolute requirement in that you have to keep the viral marketing channel functioning or else it ceases to operate – no server means no marketing. Something else the internet can do is to spread a commercial message by offering nothing more than a bit of entertainment. It works most effectively when a little humour or controversy is incorporated. In Australia, the Sydney Aquarium commissioned RAN ONE Website and IT partner Bullseye Internet Solutions, to produce a viral marketing clip called ‘Fishtycuffs’ – a game in which players choose two combatants from Paris Hilton, David Beckham, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition who then do battle using fish as weapons. The only identification with Bullseye’s client is the Sydney Aquarium’s logo at the bottom of the screen, faded until the mouse pointer is run across it. The site’s address is www.fishtycuffs.com. The feedback was both positive and immediate with over 15,000 hits on the site in the first week. Within two weeks of launch it also received media coverage in national television and the daily press. Fishtycuffs looks set to take its place in the history of viral marketing as yet another successful example of just how effective it can be. But viral marketing isn’t easy to get right and the metrics of viral marketing can be difficult to interpret. You might know that your site has had a million ‘hits’ but you have little or no information about who’s been visiting. There’s also the matter of knowing that your message has hit your target audience. This means that the product you’re providing has appeal to this segment of the total market. It also has to carry your branding but in such a way that this doesn’t interfere with the viral nature of the spread of the message. |
| Date: | 16.12.2004 |
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