WHAT VIRAL MARKETING IS

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 for exponential 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.

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The term “computer virus” was coined to describe a harmful computer program that replicates itself to spread from computer to computer, much like a real human virus. Viral marketing is a similar concept. It is an online idea, whether it be a game, a site or a message, that becomes popular due to being passed from person to person, normally very quickly. Often time internet viral marketing happens unintentionally. A viral marketing example is that a person finds a previously unknown website and sends the URL to 5 of their friends. Those friends, in turn send the URL to 5 of their friends. And so on after that.



Viral marketing takes a marketing concept directly or indirectly related to a product, service or company and passes it on to the public. People then distribute the viral marketing message exponentially. This attention-getting viral marketing concept is growing in popularity.

The easiest forum for viral marketing is the Internet using e-mail, websites or blogs. Aside from consulting or development fees, some of the most successful viral marketing campaigns are low to no cost.

Viral marketing can be broken down into two basic concepts: incentive based and attention getting. The simplest incentive based viral marketing is making a referral to a friend; if they purchase or join, you get a premium of either money, product or a discount. Attention getting viral marketing gives away a free product or service then markets other services. Before launching a viral campaign, decide if you can develop the campaign in-house or need to outsource for outside expertise. Viral marketing is trackable and ever evolving. New styles and methods of delivery are constantly being developed. If you put together an offer that is exciting, fresh and appealing, your campaign will more likely be a success!

One example of successful viral marketing is Hotmail, a company, now owned by Microsoft, that promotes its service and its own advertisers’ messages in every user’s e-mail notes. This is one of the first free Web-based e-mail services. The strategy is simple:
1. Give away free e-mail addresses and services,
2. Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com" and,
3. Then stand back while people e-mail to their own network of friends and associates,
4. Who see the message,
5. Sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then
6. Propel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.

The other example is YouTube. Videos that visitors to the site consider funny or striking in some way become popular and are featured on the site.

Therefore, defining in a simple way, viral marketing is a marketing strategy that encourages people to spread the word by sharing information with people they know. It is a relatively new term for a very old-fashioned form of advertising: word of mouth.