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What are the things that come to your mind when you hear the word “virus”? Fear, illness, horror movies or your computer crashing may be a few of ideas surrounding your thoughts right now. But think of the characteristics of this infectious agent that make it work. The virus attaches itself to numerous hosts and utilizes their resources to increase in number and strength. It lives clandestinely until it finds the right environment to grow exponentially. The virus grows by the virtue of replication, unlike many other organisms which reproduce by mating. The rate of growth of viruses is so rapid that there can be a population explosion within a few generations’ time.
Now think of an ultimate marketing strategy which uses these properties of viruses to spread messages to millions of people in a short period. This technique in the marketing context is referred to as “Viral Marketing”, a term coined in 1996 by Harvard Business School professor, Jeffrey F. Rayport. Viral marketing, also known as viral advertising, refers to any marketing approach which relies on users or websites to voluntarily pass on a marketing message to others on the double, with the help of pre-existing social networks in a bid to promote a brand or achieve a business objective. As in the case of viruses, this strategy takes the help of “word-of-mouth” publicity leading to rapid multiplication which would explode the marketing message to a large number of people across the globe. These viral promotions can be in the form of images, text, videos, flash games and even software.
Viral marketing has caught up in a big way, especially with online marketers who are increasingly weaving viral strategies into their advertising plans. The best example of a successful viral marketing campaign would be that of Hotmail. The company grew its subscriber base faster than any other firm in the history of Internet and eventually became world’s largest email provider, with over 12 million users signing up for its services within its first 1.5 years.
Although it is difficult to get a specific measure of the amount of revenue spent on this kind of marketing, the overall spending on online publicity is rising steadily. According to TNS Media Intelligence, expenditure on web based marketing is expected to grow at the rate of 13.4% in 2008, much ahead of the advertising spending on TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. Marketers have been able to tap the hidden potential of viral advertising on the internet, which is not only relatively inexpensive but also more plausible than regular ads.
When we talk about viral advertising, we need to realize that there is not one but several types and variations of this marketing tool. Since every business works on a different model, its marketing strategy too should b customized to suit the needs of the company. So there are different viral mechanisms which produce varied effects, and it is at the marketer’s discretion which one should he use for his strategy. Some of these mechanisms are given below:
Quality Viral: This is one of the oldest and best examples of word-of-mouth advertising. Suppose I like a product and I refer it to my friend, simply because I find the quality of the product to be good and was satisfied with the result it delivered. This type of viral cannot be spread because it depends only, and only on the ‘quality’ of a product which should be good enough to be recommended to another person.
Trade Viral: If I convince another person to use or buy a product, just because I will get rewarded for doing so, it can be termed as trade viral marketing. But this strategy can work only if I find the reward to be good enough for me and the risk of displeasing my friend is not too much. Also, this strategy can backfire in the case of inferior quality products, which can lead to negative publicity.
Spiral Viral: I want to share my experiences of using a product with my friend, assuming that he might like it too. The success stories related to this technique were actually not started with an intention of publicity, but with the view of funny or engaging forms of entertainment.
Vital Viral: Suppose if I want to share my thoughts about a particular product with my friend, but I can do so only if my friend owns a certain other product. The marketing is based on the comparisons between the two products, with the purpose of convincing my friend that my product would work better than the one he currently uses.
Vile Viral: This is actually the easiest form of viral marketing, in which I make my friend and other people aware of my poor experiences with a bad quality product. This marketing also works for products which users think have been marketed underhandedly.
