Viral Marketing:
A Plague or a Cure?
"I think there's a lot of misconception about what makes a good
viral marketing program," Stefan Pollard, director of consulting
services at EmailLabs, told the E-Commerce Times. "People think
they can slap a 'Forward to a Friend' button on every
promotional thing they put out there and it will generate
tremendous results with no effort," he said. "But it's not that
easy."
Viral marketing may be relatively new on the Internet, having
emerged roughly a decade ago in its high-tech form. However,
it's by no means a novel promotional technique, and it certainly
doesn't depend on technology.
"Viral marketing Email Marketing Software - Free Demo is about
generating buzz," Orvel Ray Wilson, coauthor of the legendary
Guerrilla Marketing series of books, told the E-Commerce Times.
"It's not just about the Internet -- the same things can happen
without technology."
To wit: "Go to Home Depot (NYSE: HD) Latest News about Home
Depot, and you'll find a box of 'Home Depot'-emblazoned pencils
for sale near the cash register," he said. "Let's say they cost
89 cents."
Free Love
Go to a viral marketing competitor, on the other hand, "and
you'll find a similar box of branded pencils," Wilson explained.
"But instead of charging for them, the clerk gives you one for
free."
The result: Customers feel they got something extra; they tell
their friends; and eventually, the pencils find their way into
the hands of other potential customers.
"That's the essence of viral marketing," Wilson explained. "It's
about putting something into the hands of consumers that they'll
value and see and remember and tell their friends about."
'Word of Mouse'
With the arrival of the Internet, of course, technology has
picked up this basic concept and given it a new spin. "Instead
of word of mouth, now it's word of mouse," Wilson said. "But
it's still essentially the same thing."
Viral techniques on the Web today include encouraging users to
forward not just e-mails, but also links to blogs, YouTube
Latest News about YouTube videos or MySpace Latest News about
MySpace posts.
As with most Internet communications, the costs are low and the
speed and ease factor are high. Unfortunately, those very
advantages can lull marketers into thinking that viral marketing
success will come just as easily.
"I think there's a lot of misconception about what makes a good
viral marketing program," Stefan Pollard, director of consulting
services at EmailLabs, told the E-Commerce Times.
"People think they can slap a 'Forward to a Friend' button on
every promotional thing they put out there and it will generate
tremendous results with no effort," he said. "But it's not that
easy. We see some very disappointed marketers trying to
understand why their promotion didn't work."
Three Types
There are three key types of viral marketing, Pollard explained.
First are efforts aimed at branding rather than selling
particular products or services. Currently, one of the most
successful ways to achieve this goal is through interactive
mini-sites that encourage user-generated content, he said, such
as the one Doritos set up last year that led to a user-created
commercial getting aired during the Super Bowl.
The second type of viral marketing efforts involve giveaways,
such as free samples or entry into a sweepstakes. "This type is
challenging, because consumers want the free thing, but not
necessarily to sign up for anything else," Pollard explained.
"Often they will bail off your list. There are a lot of
downsides to giveaways -- you have to work to find one that
makes sense."
Finally, there is the type in which content publishers have
information of value that they hope will be passed along to
others who might be interested. Ease of forwarding is critical
to this technique, and it tends to be less far-reaching;
nevertheless, "done well, it can be powerful," Pollard said.
Invitation Only
A newer twist on the viral marketing concept is one in which
companies such as Coca-Cola and MySpace set up Web environments
for a select group of customers who have a particular affinity
for their company or brand. Participation is by invitation only,
and members must maintain set minimum levels of involvement to
stay in the group, Justin Cooper, chief innovation and marketing
officer at Passenger, told the E-Commerce Times.
The environments offer social networking, community building and
collaboration tools, allowing users to generate content or
otherwise participate in the brand, while the company gains a
deeper understanding of its most influential customers and,
through their influence, a way to acquire new customers, Cooper
said.
Keys to Success
What leads to viral marketing success? "You have to understand
your brand and whether or not people want to be involved with
you," Pollard said. "Let's be honest: If you're a mortgage
lender, even if you offer a coupon for US$250 off, you're
probably not going to generate a lot of buzz."
A successful viral program, on the other hand, means that
"people are talking about you, they like what they're getting,
and they want to share it," he added. Humor and entertainment
value are often key ingredients, whether delivered through
e-mail or another medium, Pollard noted.
A good illustration is the famous "Mentos and Diet Coke" recipe
for creating a small (and sticky) eruption, which has likely
secured a spot in the viral marketing hall of fame for its
popularity on the Web. "The marketing people in Atlanta must be
having a field day with that," Wilson exclaimed. "It was totally
out of their control, and yet it's probably led to their selling
more bottles of Diet Coke than they ever planned."
Risky Business
Indeed, it's in that unpredictability that one of the principal
frustrations of viral marketing resides.
"Viral marketing is like movie production: You never know if
you'll have a blockbuster or a flop, and spending more doesn't
guarantee success," Kevin Lee, executive chairman and cofounder
of Did-it.com, told the E-Commerce Times.
After launching an attempt to get users to come up with new
slogans for Chevrolet, the company was flooded with negative
ones, and had to dismantle the effort, Pollard noted.
"It's kind of like the weather -- everybody talks about it, but
it's not something over which we really have control," Wilson
agreed.
Greasing the Wheels
The best marketers can do is try to facilitate the viral spread
of their marketing messages. "Viral marketing should be part of
an overall marketing strategy," Wilson said. "You can hope and
pray it happens, and you can do everything you can to facilitate
and encourage it, but you shouldn't depend on it."
Quicken did a good job of encouraging a viral success, and it
worked.
In its efforts to sell its QuickBooks software product online,
it offered a "you've got to be kidding" guarantee whereby
customers who weren't satisfied could get their money back
without even returning the product, Wilson explained.
"Word spread, and suddenly the product was selling off the
Internet like hotcakes," he said. "In one year, it totally
swamped the accounting software category."
Ethical Concerns
Yet however alluring the potential for success might be,
marketers must also realize that there can be ethical concerns
when encouraging users to market to one another.
First, in some eyes, "it's a marketing model that's essentially
built on deception," Robert Weissman, managing director of
Commercial Alert, told the E-Commerce Times. Viral marketing
depends on convincing people to do something by leading them to
believe in the authenticity of something that is not, in fact,
authentic, he contends.
For example, there has been a "proliferation" of videos on
YouTube portraying young women smoking cigarettes, Weissman
notes -- suspiciously, their sponsorship is frequently not
disclosed.
Those most easily convinced are often children, and Commercial
Alert filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission Latest
News about Federal Trade Commission in 2005, citing the
deceptiveness of the practice.
Second, viral marketing "is a commercial interference in
authentic relationships between everyday people, so that they no
longer relate to each other as one friend to another, or one
classmate to another, but as marketer to consumer," he said.
Inflated Expectations
Viral marketers can also pay dearly if their efforts lead to
falsely inflated customer expectations. "Viral marketing can
make your product take off, but it can also shut down your
business," Wilson said.
"Vendors have to become much more disciplined."
Looking forward, the technique seems unlikely to fade away, and
new technologies will just continue to refine the way it's done.
In the end, the Internet will likely remain a central repository
that everyone accesses for one purpose or another, so "in a way,
it's like 17th century London," Wilson concluded. "The sewers
and water supplies run together, so everybody catches
everything."
That, marketers can only hope, will continue to include viruses
of the promotional kind.
By
Katherine Noyes
E-Commerce Times
06/26/07 4:00 AM PT
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