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Have you ever visited a Web site and found an article, a coupon, a
special, or something else that impressed you so much that you immediately
sent an e-mail to your friends about it? If you have, you’ve already
been bitten by the viral marketing bug! Viral marketing, which is often
referred to as “word-of-mouse” marketing, is a low-cost, highly effective
way to market your product or service using the Internet. Just like a
flu virus in humans, viral marketing replicates and propagates itself online.
Viral marketing enables you to capitalize on referrals from an unbiased
third party—the consumer! The power that peers and reference
groups have over the purchasing decision is phenomenal. Similar to how
a positive testimonial from a reliable source can add credibility to a
product or service, the opinions of friends, business associates, and family
can also help influence a consumer’s purchasing decision. By implementing
various viral marketing techniques on your Web site, you are provided
with a dynamite opportunity to leverage the opinions of the
consumers’ reference groups.
- • How you can use viral marketing to increase traffic
- Word-of-mouth viral marketing
- Pass-it-on viral marketing
- Tell a Friend scripts
- • Various ways to leverage your viral marketing campaigns
- • Incentives to encourage viral marketing.
Capitalizing on Viral Marketing Opportunities
Viral marketing can be one of your most powerful online marketing techniques,
using the power of associations to spread the word. Viral marketing
is still evolving, but today we see three common forms being used:
- 1. Word of mouth, such as “Tell a friend,” “Send this coupon to a
friend,” or “Recommend this to a friend”
- 2. Pass it on, when we receive an e-book, cool tool, or funny video,
and then forward it to friends
- 3. Product or service based, when a free tool is used online and
that tool includes an embedded marketing message, such as
Hotmail.
Word of Mouth
You can use viral marketing techniques in a number of different ways
throughout your Web site. By placing a “Tell a friend about this product”
or “Share this page with a friend” button on your site, you enable users
to quickly and easily spread the word about your site and your products.
Visitors can click on the button, provide appropriate information in the
“To” and “From” fields (including name and e-mail address of both the
recipient and the sender), and a brief message. Although the message is
personalized, your business can include additional information about the
product, including features, benefits, the price, and a link directly to the
page where the recipient can purchase the item. Because the message is
personalized from a friend, the recipient is more apt to visit the site to
find out more about the product than he or she would be if the e-mail
came from a traditional corporate e-mail campaign.
Amazon.com is a prime example of a company that
has implemented viral marketing features throughout its site. When visitors
browse through Amazon.com’s 3 million plus product listings, they
are always presented with the opportunity to “Tell a friend about this
product.” Providing this feature leverages the effectiveness of the
Amazon.com Web site and ultimately results in increased sales for the
company.
In addition to the aforementioned techniques, there are many different
ways that you can implement viral marketing techniques on your
Web site. If you have a newsletter on your site, you can add a “Tell a
friend about this newsletter” button on the site. You can also incorporate
a message in the body of your e-mail newsletter encouraging readers
to forward a copy to friends they think would benefit from the
information included in the newsletter. You should also include information
in the message on how to subscribe to the newsletter. The recipients will then be able to send a copy of the newsletter to their friends,
who will in turn be presented with the opportunity to subscribe and
regularly receive the newsletter. The opportunities for
viral marketing are endless.
A good word-of-mouth viral marketing strategy enables a visitor to
your site or a recipient of your e-mail to share your site or e-mail content
with others with just one click of a button or link. The design and placement
of that link or button is critical to the success of the campaign.
First of all, you should look to every repeat-traffic generator you
have on your site for viral marketing opportunities. Repeat-traffic generators
like coupons, newsletters, e-specials, and contests all provide
ideal opportunities for “Tell a friend” or “Send a copy to a friend” links
and buttons. Once you have determined the viral marketing techniques
you are going to use, you want to make it easy for the site visitor or
e-mail recipient to spread the word.
To be effective, you have to make it obvious what you want your
visitors to do. Use a call to action to get them to do it. A button with
“Send this coupon to a friend” or “Tell a friend about this e-special”
works well. Don’t assume that people will take the time to open
their e-mail program and send an e-mail to a friend about your
e-special or coupon or include the URL to the page on your Web site
just because you have a great offer—it doesn’t happen! You have to
make it easy.
Here are some tips to make your word-of-mouth campaign effective:
• Have a fantastic button or graphic that grabs their attention.
• Provide a call to action telling the visitors what you want them
to do.
• Place the button in the appropriate place away from clutter.
• Have the button link to an easy-to-use “Tell a friend” script. The “Tell a friend” script accepts the name and e-mail address(es)
of the friend(s) and the name and e-mail address of your site
visitor that is sending the message to a friend. You need to provide
a section for a message. You might provide clickable options
for this, such as “Thought this might be of interest” or
“Knew you’d be interested in this.”
• Give clear instructions on how to participate; make it simple,
intuitive, and easy.
• Offer an incentive to encourage them to do what you want them
to do: “Tell a friend and be included in a drawing for (something
of interest to the target market).”
• Leverage, leverage, leverage: “Tell five friends and be included
in a drawing for (something of interest to the target market).”
• Avoid using attachments in the message you want spread. This
will avoid any potential technical problems with the attachments
being opened as well as allaying any fears related to viruses.
• Have your privacy policy posted. If the user is going to pass
along a friend’s e-mail address, she wants to be assured that you
will not abuse the contact information.
Viral marketing will only be successful if the content is good enough
or valuable enough to be passed along.
Pass-It-On Viral Marketing
When we find a great resource, a funny video, or a cool game, we usually
forward it to our colleagues or friends who we know will be interested
in it. This old “they tell two friends and they in turn tell two
friends” formula works very effectively on-line to enable you (with the
right content) to reach a tremendous number of your target market.
For this type of viral marketing to be successful, you have to start
with great content that recipients will want to share with others. It can
take many forms:
- • E-books
- • Small utility programs
- • Fun videos
- • Digital games
- • Checklists
- • A sound bite or audiozine
- • Articles.
The pass-it-on viral marketing methodology works best using
small files that can easily be spread around.
E-Books
E-books are very big these days. If you have great content that clearly
shows your depth of knowledge on a particular topic, an e-book can do
wonders to create great exposure for you, your site, and your products
and/or services. Ensure that you have clear references to you and links
to your Web site that provide a reason for people to click through. You
might provide additional resources on your site or encourage people to
visit for copies of other e-books you have developed. Then market,
market, market that e-book. Encourage e-zine and newsletter providers
to send a copy to their subscribers, and promote it through your sig file,
in newsgroups, and in publicly accessible mail lists.
You can provide a shareware or freeware program that might be
of interest to your target market. Of course, you want to ensure that
you reference your site throughout the program and give them a reason
to visit.
Small Utility Programs
You can offer small utility programs for your target market which
include your logo. For example, if you own a speaker bureau you can
offer a small program that helps speakers organize their speaking engagement
dates. If you are a car dealer you can offer a small program
that reminds car owners of safety inspections, license renewals, and
scheduled tune ups. If you are a real estate agent you can offer a
program that allows the user to calculate amortization on a mortgage.
Think of your target market and what might be handy and helpful
for them.
Fun Videos
Nothing seems to spread faster on the Web than funny video clips. We’ve
all seen the enraged employee attacking his computer and the bear taking
salmon from the fisherman. Sometimes these video clips are cartoons,
seen one slide at a time with embedded audio, and other times
they seem to be full-scale productions.
Digital Games
If your organization can develop a digital game or you have access to
the rights to use a game, incorporate your logo and link back to your
Web site within the game. A good game spreads very quickly.
Checklists
If you have a checklist that others might find useful, why not include
links to your site in it and then provide it to your target market for use?
For example, you might have a great checklist for making your site
search engine friendly, or if you are a travel agent you might provide a
handy checklist for travel planning. Think about your target market
and what they might find useful. Always remember to encourage them
to pass it on through viral marketing.
Sound Byte or Audiozine
New technology can send sound bytes. As long as the sound byte is
relevant, pertinent, and of value to your target market or people in the
industry you serve, people will pass it on.
Articles
Writing articles that can be distributed as content for newsletters or
e-zines is another form of viral marketing. These articles can also be
distributed to be used as Web site content as well. Just make sure that
you have clearly stated that others are free to use your article as long as
they include it in its entirety verbatim and include the Source box. The
article should contain links to your site. The Source box should include
information on you, your company, and your Web site.
You should track your viral marketing rate of infection. You want
to know what is working and how fast it is working. You can always
include a graphic in the article or e-book or digital game that is accessed
from your site. Then you can use your Web traffic analysis to
find information on the effectiveness of your pass-it-on viral marketing
campaigns.
Product- or Service-Based Viral Marketing
Two of the most prominent service-based viral marketing campaigns
are Hotmail and Blue Mountain.
The Hotmail Example
MSN.com (http://www.msn.com) has capitalized on viral marketing to
the fullest extent with its Hotmail service. Hotmail is a free e-mail service
that is provided by MSN.com and is used by millions of people around
the world. Why is a free e-mail account a viral marketing technique?
Because whenever a message is sent from a Hotmail account, a tagline is
automatically inserted into the body of the e-mail message that tells the
user about Hotmail’s e-mail service. The message reads as follows:
Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail
http://www.hotmail.com.
This small message results in hundreds of new e-mail accounts being
opened daily on the Hotmail Web site. Although Hotmail doesn’t
provide any commercial services (i.e., they don’t sell anything), this viral
marketing technique creates mass exposure for the MSN.com Web
site. Visitors typically log in to their Hotmail account on the MSN.com
Web site, which creates exposure for the other product and service offerings
available on MSN.com.
Blue Mountain— Taking Viral Marketing to the Next Level
Blue Mountain is a site that is synonymous with electronic
greeting cards or e-cards. Initially Blue Mountain received thousands
of visitors daily who all sent free electronic greeting cards to friends
all over the world. Today Blue Mountain still offers this service to the
public, although a nominal annual fee is now charged if you want to be
a member.
Initially when you visit the Blue Mountain Web site, you are presented
with an array of different options such as e-cards, gifts, paper
greeting cards, and downloadable screensavers. When you decide to
send a friend an electronic greeting card and finally select a greeting
card from the thousands of cards available on the site, you are asked to
fill out the contact information for the individual who will be receiving
the card.
Blue Mountain encourages the recipient to visit the Blue Mountain
Web site to reply to the sender with another electronic greeting card.
This again provides Blue Mountain with the opportunity to sell a membership.
Through viral marketing, Blue Mountain is able to spread the
word about its business quickly and in a cost-effective manner.
Virtual Postcards
Today a large number of businesses, especially those that are tourism
oriented, are increasing traffic to their sites by offering virtual postcards
on their Web site, which enables them to capitalize on viral marketing
opportunities. Visitors can send virtual postcards to their family and
friends. The postcard should not actually be sent as an attachment, but
rather, an e-mail notice is sent saying that a postcard is waiting for the
recipient at a particular Web address. By clicking on the Web address,
the recipient is sent to the Web site to view the personalized postcard.
An example of this is Carlson Wagonlit Travel (http://www.
carlsonwagonlit.ca), a site that gives visitors the opportunity to send
their friends colorful postcards via e-mail from different locations around
the world. When you send a postcard to your friend, he
or she receives an e-mail containing a link to the page where the postcard
can be viewed. When your friend clicks through to view the postcard,
there is also a Carlson Wagonlit Travel logo and links to other
sections of the Web site. Offering electronic postcards is a great way to
generate repeat visitors to your site and to spread the word about your
site through the use of viral marketing. | 
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