Viral marketing

Viral marketing development

Viral marketing is any strategy that encourages people to pass along a marketing message, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect.

Simply, viral marketing is the same as word of mouth.

Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly.

Referrals are the most powerful form of marketing that you can use and also the least expensive. Before the Internet viral marketing has long been known as word of mouth, recommend a friend, MGM or network marketing.

On the Internet it's called viral marketing though other terms have been suggested - avalanche, buzz, cascading style, centrifugal, exponential, fission, grass roots, organic, propagation, ripple, self-perpetuation, wildfire and 'word of mouse' (sic) marketing amongst others.

Examples of viral marketing include: rumours, chain letters with warnings, "leaked" information, gossip, urban myths and secondhand versions of official reports.

Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy:

• Easy to replicate or pass on

• Becomes personalised by referral

• Offers an 'incentive'

• Contains humour, greed, sex or fear and taps into the zeitgeist.

• Can track and analyze click thru

In summary - the idea is what counts, that's what makes it viral.