What to Do
Offer Incentives
Some viral marketing campaigns use an incentive-based approach. This approach involves rewarding people if they perform specified actions, such as completing a questionnaire, informing their friends (of whom a certain percentage subsequently purchase the product), and so on. It is important to set a cap on the number of people that the person is asked to inform. If the process is open-ended, then it’s easy for spamming to occur, that is, someone sending out thousands of e-mails in order to increase his or her own rewards.
Create Useful Information That Can be Passed Along
The Internet is an information resource, so a powerful way of building a brand is to publish information that you allow people to quote and redistribute. There is no better way to enhance your reputation than for someone to pass your newsletter to a friend, recommending that they read it. Your objective is to be seen as an expert on a particular subject that is directly related to a product or service you offer. To facilitate such a process, create an “e-mail-to-a-friend” function on your web site, which allows someone to easily e-mail information on what they have just read.
Make Use of Linking
Linking can be thought of as embedded word-of-mouth: It is the process of including hyperlinks to a Web site in the text of another Web site, article, or weblog. It’s one thing for someone to send an e-mail praising your product or information, but the effect is stronger and longer-lasting if that person publishes a positive review on their web site and links back to you. Linking is strongly connected with affiliate marketing, whereby rewards are delivered to web sites that bring custom to other web sites as a result of hyperlinks.
Offer Something Free
People love to tell their friends about a great new service that is free. The Hotmail free e-mail service and the Geocities free web site service grew quickly with little or no marketing expense. The appeal of a free service may be losing some of its luster as the Internet matures, but it is still a powerful driver of behavior.
Consider Using the Hotmail Approach
Hotmail was a pioneer of viral marketing. Its success was not simply based on the fact that it was free; rather, it embedded viral marketing into the product itself. Every time a Hotmail user sent an e-mail, a compelling message appeared at the bottom: “Get your private, free e-mail at http://www.hotmail.com.” With Hotmail and other communications services such as Skype, the very use of the product became a vehicle for marketing and promotion.
What to Avoid
Your E-mails Seem Like Spam
Conducted badly, viral marketing can be seen as a pyramid sales scheme, chain letter, or spam. Each e-mail sent by your organization needs to make clear that you do not approve of and are not involved in spamming or other unethical practices. People complaining of spam can become extremely irate, and it is important to respond to these people in a calm and reasoned manner.
Some viral marketing campaigns ask people to send e-mail addresses of their friends to the organization, which then carries out the actual communication. Use these e-mail addresses only for a one-time mailing, and do not add them to a database for ongoing communication. Also, when contacting the friend, make clear the name of the person who referred the recipient.
Where to Learn More
Books:
Gladwell, Malcolm.
Scott, David Meerman.
Web Site:
“99 Links To Information about Viral Marketing”: www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=mm_Viral
