subject: This Is Why You Need To Consider Viral Marketing [print this page] Youve been hearing about it everywhere theres a buzz going around about it, and apparently, its revolutionizing the way people do business on the internet. Youve read articles, youve been told success stories, but somehow, youre still uncertain as to whether or not you should apply it to your business.
If you need some convincing about viral marketing, this article might help.
Viral marketing is a relatively new form of advertising in which brand awareness and product promotion are enhanced and increased through the use of various forms of media over the internet. Using the principle of word-of-mouth but enhancing its reach and strength a thousand times over, viral marketing takes advantage of the network effect of the internet.
So, why use viral marketing?
Viral marketing campaigns are relatively inexpensive compared to other forms.
The real investment needed to jumpstart a viral marketing campaign is not necessarily money rather, viral marketing leverages on the talent, time, and effort required to develop first, a unique and effective brand, and second, creative and memorable material which the business will use to spread the word around. Such materials include blogs, websites, interactive Flash games, humorous video clips, emails (that are not spam) and other similar forms of media that are really word of mouth in its internet form.
With viral marketing, you will need a fairly small amount of money to be able to reach a vast number of people that is, provided that your viral marketing campaign is deemed worth passing around to others.
Viral marketing almost always uses solicited material, and never spam.
A major strength of viral marketing is its use of already established social networks among friends, colleagues, chatmates, and so on, to spread around the marketing message. A viral marketing tool is sent to one person, and if that person finds it interesting and worth sharing, he will then in turn pass it on to his friends and acquaintances. This way, viral marketing is not unsolicited it comes from someone whom the recipient knows and trusts, so there is a higher possibility of the recipient opening the material, reading it, and passing it on to the people in his social network.
Viral marketing campaigns are easy to execute.
A whole viral marketing campaign can be executed entirely through a computer from the design of the material to actually sending the material off to potential consumers. And the campaign pretty much takes care of itself after its send-off, as the task of sending the viral marketing material to others now falls on the hands of the materials recipients. There is really only one major point that must be addressed by the marketer, which is the creativity of the material, and the relevance that it will have for the recipient. The materials recipient must find it interesting enough and entertaining enough to be considered worth sending to others.
Viral marketing campaigns provide efficient targeting.
A viral marketing campaign material is usually sent to recipients who belong to the products or the brands target market. These recipients, should they decide to pass on the material, will most likely do so to like-minded individuals who more or less will also fit the target market profile. In this way, viral marketing campaigns are highly targeted, and will efficiently reach the right people you want to attract and pay attention to your brand.
A viral marketing campaign is measurable and accountable.
If properly tracked down, the results of a viral marketing campaign can be accurately measured, so that the number of people to whom the material has been sent, the response rate among the recipients, and so on, can be determined.
A viral marketing campaign can help a business build a consumer database.
A consumer database can be an important tool of ones business, as it allows the business to constantly communicate directly with its consumers on a one-to-one basis. Through viral marketing campaigns, a business can gather relevant information about its consumers which can then be stored on the database.
A viral marketing campaign is an effective support system for other marketing efforts.
If youve got a big enough budget for advertising and have some other marketing campaigns running, a supplementary viral marketing campaign can boost the effectivity of your marketing efforts. Although it can work well on its own, viral marketing is even more effective when coupled with other forms of advertising.
Still not convinced about viral marketing? Why not give it a try on your business, and see the results for yourself perhaps then, youll be convinced about the powers of viral marketing.
