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THE SIX SIMPLE PRINCIPLES OF VIRAL MARKETING
by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm
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I admit it. The term "viral marketing" is offensive. Call yourself
a Viral Marketer and people will take two steps back. I would. "Do
they have a vaccine for that yet?" you wonder. A sinister thing,
the simple virus is fraught with doom, not quite dead yet not
fully alive, it exists in that nether genre somewhere between
disaster movies and horror flicks.
But you have to admire the virus. He has a way of living in
secrecy until he is so numerous that he wins by sheer weight of
numbers. He piggybacks on other hosts and uses their resources to
increase his tribe. And in the right environment, he grows
exponentially. A virus don't even have to mate -- he just
replicates, again and again with geometrically increasing power,
doubling with each iteration:
1
11
1111
11111111
1111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
In a few short generations, a virus population can explode.
VIRAL MARKETING DEFINED
What does a virus have to do with 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 thousands, to millions.
Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as "word-
of-mouth," "creating a buzz," "leveraging the media," "network
marketing." But on the Internet, for better or worse, it's called
"viral marketing." While others smarter than I have attempted to
rename it, to somehow domesticate and tame it, I won't try. The
term "viral marketing" has stuck.
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 is 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"
and,
3. Then stand back while people e-mail to their own network of
friends and associates,
4. Who see the message,
5. Sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then
6. 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
Accept this fact. Some viral marketing strategies work better than
others, and few work as well as the simple Hotmail.com strategy.
But below are the six basic elements you hope to include in your
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. An effective viral marketing strategy:
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
Let's examine at each of these elements briefly.
1. GIVES AWAY VALUABLE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES
"Free" is the most powerful word in a marketer's vocabulary. Most
viral marketing programs give away valuable products or services
to attract attention. Free e-mail services, free information, free
"cool" buttons, free software programs that perform powerful
functions but not as much as you get in the "pro" version.
Wilson's Second Law of Web Marketing is "The Law of Giving and
Selling" (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/basic-principles.htm).
"Cheap" or "inexpensive" may generate a wave of interest, but
"free" will usually do it much faster. Viral marketers practice
delayed gratification. They may not profit today, or tomorrow, but
if they can generate a groundswell of interest from something
free, they know they will profit "soon and for the rest of their
lives" (with apologies to "Casablanca"). Patience, my friends.
Free attracts eyeballs. Eyeballs then see other desirable things
that you are selling, and, presto! you earn money. Eyeballs bring
valuable e-mail addresses, advertising revenue, and e-commerce
sales opportunities. Give away something, sell something.
2. PROVIDES FOR EFFORTLESS TRANSFER TO OTHERS
Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: stay away
from people who cough, wash your hands often, and don't touch your
eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they're easy to
transmit. The medium that carries your marketing message must be
easy to transfer and replicate: e-mail, website, graphic, software
download. Viral marketing works famously on the Internet because
instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital
format make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must
simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily
and without degradation. Short is better. The classic is: "Get
your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com." The message
is compelling, compressed, and copied at the bottom of every free
e-mail message.
3. SCALES EASILY FROM SMALL TO VERY LARGE
To spread like wildfire the transmission method must be rapidly
scalable from small to very large. The weakness of the Hotmail
model is that a free e-mail service requires its own mailservers
to transmit the message. If the strategy is wildly successful,
mailservers must be added very quickly or the rapid growth will
bog down and die. If the virus multiplies only to kill the host
before spreading, nothing is accomplished. So long as you have
planned ahead of time how you can add mailservers rapidly you're
okay. You must build in scalability to your viral model.
4. EXPLOITS COMMON MOTIVATIONS AND BEHAVIORS
Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human
motivations. What proliferated "Netscape Now" buttons in the early
days of the Web? The desire to be cool. Greed drives people. So
does the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The
resulting urge to communicate produces millions of websites and
billions of e-mail messages. Design a marketing strategy that
builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission,
and you have a winner.
5. UTILIZES EXISTING COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science
grad students are the exception. Social scientists tell us that
each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network
of friends, family, and associates. A person's broader network may
consist of scores, hundreds, or thousands of people, depending
upon her position in society. A waitress, for example, may
communicate regularly with hundreds of customers in a given week.
Network marketers have long understood the power of these human
networks, both the strong, close networks as well as the weaker
networked relationships. People on the Internet develop networks
of relationships, too. They collect e-mail addresses and favorite
website URLs. Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do
permission e-mail lists. Learn to place your message into existing
communications between people, and you rapidly multiply its
dispersion.
6. TAKES ADVANTAGE OF OTHERS' RESOURCES
The most creative viral marketing plans use others' resources to
get the word out. Affiliate programs, for example, place text or
graphic links on others' websites. Authors who give away free
articles, seek to position their articles on others' webpages. A
news release can be picked up by hundreds of periodicals and form
the basis of articles seen by hundreds of thousands of readers.
Now someone else's newsprint or webpage is relaying your marketing
message. Someone else's resources are depleted rather than your
own.
AN ELEMENTARY EXERCISE
Let's put this into practice. I am seeking to promote my newest
FREE e-mail marketing newsletter, Doctor Ebiz
(http://doctorebiz.com), which discusses Web marketing and e-
commerce trends and strategies. I'm using two viral marketing
strategies and I'd appreciate your help in testing them, if you're
up to an interesting challenge. I'll report results shortly to
give you feedback on the effectiveness of these techniques.
FIRST, I've placed a Recommend-It button on every page of the
DoctorEbiz.com site to encourage visitors to tell a friend about
the site. When you go to http://doctorebiz.com please try the
Recommend-It button, and then report at
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/ri-report.htm on how effective you
think this strategy is. I'll share some of the results and your
comments in a subsequent article: "Review: Recommend-It"
(http://wilsonweb.com/reviews/recommend-it.htm).
SECOND, I grant permission for every reader to reproduce on your
website the article you are now reading -- "The Six Simple
Principles of Viral Marketing" (see
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm for an HTML
version you can copy). But copy this article ONLY, without any
alteration whatsoever. Include the copyright statement, too,
please. If you have a marketing or small business website, it'll
provide great content and help your visitors learn important
strategies. When you've placed the article on your website, please
tell me at http://wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-reprint.htm I'll tally
the results and report them shortly, so to be included in the
count, please do this quickly. (NOTE: I am giving permission to
host on your website this article AND NO OTHERS. Reprinting or
hosting my articles without express written permission is illegal,
immoral, and a violation of my copyright.)
Thank you for helping me carry out and then track this marketing
exercise.
To one degree or another, all successful viral marketing
strategies use most of the six principles outlined above. In the
next article in this series, "Viral Marketing Techniques the
Typical Business Website Can Deploy Now"
(http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-deploy.htm), we'll move from
theory to practice. But first learn these six foundational
principles of viral marketing. Master them and wealth will flow
your direction.
"Copyright (c) 2000, Ralph F. Wilson. All rights reserved.
Permission granted to reprint this article on your website without
alteration if you include this copyright statement."
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