Chatmaster
04-26-2007, 06:40 AM
Hi guys
One of my customers asked me yesterday, "What benefits can a viral campaign give to their company" This triggered my thoughts and I think having a response from my friends on this board to add to the list will result in a very strong fact sheet on Viral Marketing.
QUESTION
If the average person knows a 100 people and each of the 100 people they know, knows a 100 people how many sales can we generate if they are willing to share us with the 100x100x100 people? Yes that is the logic of a viral campaign, shocking if you think about it... Especially if I think back to my first marketing course I went to, back in 1994, where I learned that the average person knows more than 500 people!
I am sure we all remember the story of Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith who started their own web based email system in 1996. They did this for personal use and they ended up with Hotmail with more than 12mil subscribers after 18 months without spending one dollar on marketing.
The cost of constant brand awareness can be very high and a solid viral campaign every now and then can be a very cost effective way to replace the expensive advertising and sponsorship methods. I can't help but to think of my favorites, Budweiser and Nike (Terry Tate). These guys did well building their brands in the online environment using viral marketing. You also get entire sites that are designed around a viral marketing concept. If you take Richjerk for example. How many people link to this idiot just because he is so arrogant or maybe a new picture of this anonymous guy and some celebrity or his constant swearing and just plain shocking behaviour.
What is the definition of Viral Marketing?
Marketing terms (http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/viral_marketing/) is a very useful site in obtaining definitions, I quote...
"Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message."
Initially I would think the decision should be taken on the objective of the campaign.
For example:
Is it to build brand awareness?
Is it designed to obtain information like email addresses for further marketing?
Is it designed to get customer feedback or maybe for an opinion poll?
Perhaps the objective is to create awareness of a future promotion...
What ever the objective, it is crucial to the design of the dynamics as well as the storyline or theme of the campaign.
One of the most successful viral campaigns I have been involved in was a game that was designed around challenging your friends. It was embedded in Flash and was only available on the site. The user had to register and play the game with both points and speed playing a roll. After the the play a screen came up where you could challenge several of your buddies to beat your score. Even from an SEO perspective the benefits was phenomenal. We obtained natural back links from all over the place, blogs, forums etc. Our direct hits also increased as we got allot of referrals from our forwarded mails as well. But the true benefit was the database we built for future email marketing campaigns and the list simply multiplied by the day.
One of my customers asked me yesterday, "What benefits can a viral campaign give to their company" This triggered my thoughts and I think having a response from my friends on this board to add to the list will result in a very strong fact sheet on Viral Marketing.
QUESTION
If the average person knows a 100 people and each of the 100 people they know, knows a 100 people how many sales can we generate if they are willing to share us with the 100x100x100 people? Yes that is the logic of a viral campaign, shocking if you think about it... Especially if I think back to my first marketing course I went to, back in 1994, where I learned that the average person knows more than 500 people!
I am sure we all remember the story of Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith who started their own web based email system in 1996. They did this for personal use and they ended up with Hotmail with more than 12mil subscribers after 18 months without spending one dollar on marketing.
The cost of constant brand awareness can be very high and a solid viral campaign every now and then can be a very cost effective way to replace the expensive advertising and sponsorship methods. I can't help but to think of my favorites, Budweiser and Nike (Terry Tate). These guys did well building their brands in the online environment using viral marketing. You also get entire sites that are designed around a viral marketing concept. If you take Richjerk for example. How many people link to this idiot just because he is so arrogant or maybe a new picture of this anonymous guy and some celebrity or his constant swearing and just plain shocking behaviour.
What is the definition of Viral Marketing?
Marketing terms (http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/viral_marketing/) is a very useful site in obtaining definitions, I quote...
"Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message."
Initially I would think the decision should be taken on the objective of the campaign.
For example:
Is it to build brand awareness?
Is it designed to obtain information like email addresses for further marketing?
Is it designed to get customer feedback or maybe for an opinion poll?
Perhaps the objective is to create awareness of a future promotion...
What ever the objective, it is crucial to the design of the dynamics as well as the storyline or theme of the campaign.
One of the most successful viral campaigns I have been involved in was a game that was designed around challenging your friends. It was embedded in Flash and was only available on the site. The user had to register and play the game with both points and speed playing a roll. After the the play a screen came up where you could challenge several of your buddies to beat your score. Even from an SEO perspective the benefits was phenomenal. We obtained natural back links from all over the place, blogs, forums etc. Our direct hits also increased as we got allot of referrals from our forwarded mails as well. But the true benefit was the database we built for future email marketing campaigns and the list simply multiplied by the day.