Viral Marketing

“What was freely given to me, I freely give.”

Lauryn Hill

Viral Marketing is a free way to generate leads

Let’s start with a definition:

A viral marketing campaign encourages people to voluntarily communicate your message to a plurality of others.

The awareness can be spread by word-of-mouth (slower) or accelerated by the network effects of the internet.

Most businesses rely on word-of-mouth and are often constrained by geographies. I find this mind boggling in the age of internet marketing.

Viral messages are typically thought of as funny emails, videos, texts or images, however, at a more sustainable level, they are becoming items of high value such as free information products, samples, software or trial services.

The Power of Free

The promise of the internet has always been a price of ‘free’ and online users expect to start a new relationship without paying for it.

Studies have shown that satisfied customers tell an average of three other people about products or services they like, and eleven people about a product or service they didn’t like.

By providing a valuable giveaway (ethical bribe), there is a higher likelihood of customer satisfaction and no financial risk in telling others. The “giveaway” becomes the cost of building an ongoing a relationship with a user and the opportunity to get a sale.

If the initial viral message creates the right motivation, it may exponentially spread to other users who also start a relationship with your business.

Although there is sometimes a cost to building the viral message components, they should support the consumption of your primary product or service and can be re-purposed in many ways to drive sales.

Here are the 3 key benefits of Viral Marketing:

1.  Fast – At the speed of the internet

2.  Consumer Driven – Penetrate targeted groups with similar interests

3.  Free to the business owner – Spreads by network effects, not paid advertising

In the business world, viral marketing is the Holy Grail

A small seed can grow into a fast moving message that multiplies exponentially without additional cost.

One of my favorite viral marketing campaigns was Burger Kings’ “Subordinate Chicken”. It created a wildly entertaining experience for visitors and was laced with a bit of controversy…the perfect recipe for rapid awareness.

If we inspect the success factors of viral marketing campaigns, they can be broken into four key ingredients:

1.  Access – The internet is the perfect medium for a viral marketing campaign. Things travel at the speed of light, cost per impression is essentially zero and the opportunity to provide a free experience for the user is possible. The campaign can be designed to have no barrier to entry.

2.  Ease of transfer – Through email, communication and transfer of the virus is simple and rapid. Blogs and social networking sights increase the distribution points for the message.

3.  Targeted “bait” – The value of the content is measured by the perception of the people subjected to the virus. If the bait being used is of high value, the more proud the user will be to pass it along to others in their network.

4.  Favorable emotional response – A negative response can also create a viral effect, however, as learned by the “Subordinate Chicken” website, enough negative responses can stop the spread.

By including these key ingredients into the design of a viral marketing campaign, a very low cost sales message can be spread all over the world.

The design of a viral marketing campaign should cover the life-cycle of the relationship with the future client. This includes the initial viral message, an ethical bribe used to get permission to continue the relationship and ultimately converting the prospect into a paying customer.

Here is are the major steps in a viral marketing campaign that can be automated by building an online marketing system:

Anatomy of a Viral Marketing Campaign

To learn more about implementing a viral marketing campaign for your business, contact Halo Effects, an Arizona online marketing firm, for a free consultation.