VIRAL MARKETING ON INTERNET : VIRAL MARKETING ON INTERNET
Viral Marketing - Defined : Viral Marketing - Defined - Viral ads are online promotional campaigns that(hopefully) spread like a ‘Virus’.One minute nobody’s heard of it and the next minute, it’s everywhere.
- These are marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives
- self-replicating viral processes
- analogous to the spread of pathological and
computer viruses.
History : History - 1995-2000
Hotmail went from zero to 30 million users with the then revolutionary viral email ad -‘ Get your own free email at hotmail.com’
- 2001-2003
During the worst days of dot- com-bust when no one could afford any other kind of online advertising
- 2004-2005
Advertisers wanted to break through increasing clutter while appealing to ‘cool’ customers who otherwise hate ads.
Goal Of Viral Marketing Programs : Goal Of Viral Marketing Programs To identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential (SNP) and create Viral Messages that appeal to this segment of the population and have a high probability of being passed along.
Characteristics : Characteristics Facilitates and encourage people to pass along a marketing message
Depends on a high pass along rate of a person to person. if a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the over all growth snowballs very quickly. if the pass along growth is too low the over all growth frizzles.
If successful it spreads like a ‘virus’ and grows exponentionally.
Viral Marketing-Why? : Viral Marketing-Why? Because Consumers Growing tired with
advertising
-it’s a way to put your brand in a
context that consumer feel good about.
Standing out in a cluttered world
-uniqueness catches the eye
The possibility of outrageous reach
-if your campaign is a viral hit then u can
reach to far more people than you ever
dreamed possible.
Forms of Viral Marketing : Forms of Viral Marketing Video clips
Interactive Flash games
Advergames
E-books
Brand able software
Images
Text messages
Example of Viral Marketing : Example of Viral Marketing Viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free Web-based e-mail services. The strategy is simple:
Give away free e-mail addresses and services,
Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com" and,
Then stand back while people e-mail to their own network of friends and associates,
Who see the message,
Sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then
Propel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.
Techniques : Techniques Encourage Links to Your Site
-Write articles and encourage other to post them free as content for their site
-Set up an affiliate program to encourage links to your products
-Send out news releases concerning a free service or product available on your
site.
Encourage Word-of-Mouth Recommendations
- Make it easy to e-mail or fax your webpage to a friend.
-Encourage people to forward your newsletter to friends.
Offer Desirable Products or Services that Spread Your Message
- Enable visitors to e-mail post cards or greeting cards from your
website
- Offer a digital game or utility for free download that carries your
marketing message
Principles of a Viral Marketing Strategy : Principles of a Viral Marketing Strategy Six Principles of Viral Marketing which are:
- Gives away products or services
- Provides for effortless transfer to others
- Scales easily from small to very large
- Exploits common motivations and behaviors
- Utilizes existing communication networks
- Takes advantage of others' resources
-Gives away products or services : -Gives away products or services ‘Give away something, sell something’
Most viral marketing programs give away valuable products or services to attract attention, for Example:
- Free e-mail services
- Free information
- Free "cool" buttons
- Free software programs
-Provides for effortless transfer to others : -Provides for effortless transfer to others ‘Short is better’
To simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation.
Example:
To make copying simple through digital format.
- Scales easily from small to very large : - Scales easily from small to very large Transmission method must be rapidly scalable from small to very large
-Exploits common motivations and behaviors : -Exploits common motivations and behaviors ‘Greed drives people’
Designing a marketing strategy that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission.
- To take advantage of common human motivations, desire to be cool, hunger to be popular, loved, and understood.
-Utilizes existing communication networks : -Utilizes existing communication networks To place your message into existing communications between people to multiply its dispersion.
- A person's broader network may consist of scores, hundreds, or thousands of people, depending upon her position in society .To design programs to exploit such People on the Internet who have developed networks of relationships, and collect e-mail addresses and their favorite website URLs.
-Takes advantage of others' resources : -Takes advantage of others' resources Marketing plans use others' resources to get the
word out. This way some one else's resources
are depleted rather than your own
- For example: To place text or graphic links on others' websites. A news release can be picked up by hundreds of periodicals and form the basis of articles seen by hundreds of thousands of readers
Viral Marketing Checklist : Viral Marketing Checklist Plan the Campaign
Define the Objectives
Research and Audience-Where and how to stimulate
Timing and Planning
Spreading the viral seed
How to stimulate e-influencers and drivers
Measure and Monitor
Attachment sizes and forwarding mechanisms
Incentives and Legalities
Follow up and campaign
7 Tactics of Viral Marketing : 7 Tactics of Viral Marketing Make people feel something
To create very strong emotions and to have an opinion, to express an idea with commitment and dedication. To want people to:
be filled with love or hate.
be very happy or insanely angry
be an idiot or a genius
To want people's blood to be pumping of excitement.
Slide 20 : 2: Do something unexpected
To get your campaign noticed, it requires doing something different - something unexpected
3:Do not try to make advertisements (that sucks)
To Forget about one’s product or company and Focus exclusively in creating a good and interesting story. Product can also be added into the mix, but it must not be the most important thing
Slide 21 : 4: Make sequels
Never leave people standing with nothing. To get people's attention one needs to act, and one of the best ways of doing that is to give them more - make sequels. This can be many things;
It can be extra movies similar in concept to the first one .
It can be a behind the scenes look
Bloopers
Extra material, goodies etc.
...or all of the above
Slide 22 : 5: Allow Sharing, downloading and embedding
Sharing is what viral marketing is all about that is going to improve your campaign. That means that you need allow people to:
Download the content, in a usable format (videos in MPG, pictures in JPG etc.)
Allowing them to easily embed the content on their own sites
Sending it to friends, either using a link or by sending the content directly.
Publishing it on varies social networks - Digg, YouTube etc.
Allow people to add it the bookmarking sites
Slide 23 : 6: Connect with comments
Another important element is to connect with your audience. In order to get their attention, they are excited and now they want to talk. Comments is one of the most effective ways to do this. Both opinions negative as well as positive should be welcome.
7:Never restrict access
Restrictions should never be added to the mix.
Do not require people to register
-to become members
-to download special software
- to enter "unlock" codes
- or to do something in order to get the right link.
Viral Marketing : Viral Marketing PROBLEM’S SOLUTION’S
Guidelines for Effective Viral Marketing : Guidelines for Effective Viral Marketing Appropriate wow factor material that users want to seek out, talk out and to pass along on their own free will.
Appropriate specialist seeding to places where users already gather.
Strategically planned use of the technique as a means to the end.
References : References Internet:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-deploy.htm
http://www.slideshare.net/emakina/viral-marketing-theory
Slide 27 : THANK YOU