Equally, what just appears to you as a ‘good news’ about a certain product or service might not necessarily invoke the same emotions when your mom looks at the same advert. Chances are, your mom will never even come across the same trailer for that must-watch flick, or that deep-discounted smart phone. There is a conscious, tested formula behind all this – getting the message across to the target audience in a way that the audience doesn’t even realize that they are being exposed to product marketing on the internet. Welcome to the world of Viral Marketing.

 

 

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to hundreds of thousands or millions. Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as “word-of-mouth”, “creating a buzz”, “leveraging the media”, “network marketing” etc.

 

Take this for example: in 2008, Paramount pictures advertised an unnamed, unknown movie without any title or the producer’s logo in cinemas and on the internet in major movie markets. Several footages of the following kind were anonymously uploaded on Youtube and publicized by seemingly amateur guys on major social media platforms. Within days of releasing these footages, the whole social media community was abuzz with intrigue and mystery on the origins of these clips. Internet forums were busy discussing whether there were leaked US governmental footages, or some terrorist plots, or simply an upcoming movie.

 

 

 

 

The Classic Hotmail.com Example:

The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free Web-based e-mail services. The strategy was simple:

 

1. Give away free e-mail addresses and services.

2. Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com”.

3. Stand back while people e-mail to their own network of friends and associates who see the message.

4. They then sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then

5. Propel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.

 

Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, a carefully designed viral marketing strategy ripples outward extremely rapidly.

 

Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy

Some viral marketing strategies work better than others, and few work as well as the simple Hotmail.com strategy. Following are some of the basic elements that one should have on their viral marketing strategy. A viral marketing strategy need not contain ALL these elements, but the more elements it embraces, the more powerful the results are likely to be. A successful viral campaign:

 

1. Gives away products or services

2. Provides for effortless transfer to others

3. Scales easily from small to very large 

4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors

5, Utilizes existing communication networks

6. Takes advantage of others’ resources

I hope you liked the tips from this article and will use them in your next viral campaign!