What Is Viral Marketing?
Viral marketing can be defined as a marketing strategy that will basically rely on the efforts of individual people as opposed to more traditional marketing campaigns. The hope is that individuals will pass along a particular message or marketing piece. Viral marketing gets its name due to the fact that these messages use a host to basically spread out extremely rapidly, quite like a virus.
There are a few basic principles when it comes to viral marketing to ensure that it is successful. The first one would be that it needs to elicit a specific reaction or emotion. When an individual gets excited, happy or compassionate about something they will then usually take some form of action.
Another trick with viral marketing would be that the marketing piece should be unexpected. Shock value will get the attention of the viewer and is generally quite effective. As long as it is something that has not been done before and is done in relatively good taste, it will certainly be effective.
Finally, there should be something worthwhile for the customer. Giving away something for free or offering a special or limited-time service will get the attention of the person and they will hopefully take action and pass the marketing piece along.
As long as the viral marketing is interesting and gets passed along, it will certainly have a good amount of longevity. Otherwise, it can easily fizzle out and not work well.
