• Viral Marketing – Catching The Marketing Bug

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Viral Marketing | Tags:

    The term viral marketing is offensive. Call yourself a viral marketer and, people will often take two steps back. I know I would do. It is a sinister thing, the simple virus is fraught with doom, not quite dead yet not fully alive, it exists in that nether region somewhere between horror movies and disaster films.

    That said however, you have to admire the skills of the viral marketer. They have a way of winning by sheer weight of numbers alone. They piggy back on everyone else and use their resources to grow their own. In the right circumstances the viral marketer can grow exponentially. A virus doesn’t have to mate, it just replicates itself again and, again and, again increasing its power, doubling its effect with each replication.

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    In a few short generations, a viral marketing population can boom as seen in the diagram above.

    Viral marketing defined.

    What does a virus have to do with viral marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for mass growth in the messages exposure and influence.

    Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to hundreds, even thousands in a relatively short period of time.

    Before the advent of the internet viral marketing was often referred to as ‘word of mouth’. However, for better or for worse, the term viral marketing has infected.

    One classic example of this marketing technique is Hotmail.com one of the first free web based email services. Their strategy was simple.

    Give away free email addresses and services.
    Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out.
    Watch people email their friends, colleagues and family.
    Watch these same friends colleagues and family join up to their service.
    See the message propelled to an ever increasing audience, all for free.

    In closing viral marketing is like watching the tiny ripples of a single pebble dropped pond, one small splash can create ever increasing circles which in turn could create ever increasing revenues.

    Article Written By Lee