You might well ask whatever does marketing have to do with a virus?
Put very simply viral marketing can be described in this way-- It is any marketing strategy that encourages the recipient of any message to pass it on to other individuals. This increases exponentially the message’s influence and exposure and, as with viruses, there is an explosion of the message to first thousands and then millions as these strategies take advantage of the rapid multiplication,
An example of how it works can be seen within the health sector during the ‘flu season’ as public health nurses give the sound advice to ‘avoid being in the company of people who have a cough, don’t touch your nose, mouth or eyes and be diligent in washing your hands often. They give this advice because it is only when viruses are easy to transmit that they spread.
It is the same with viral e-mail marketing. Internet communication is so easy these days and has become so inexpensive that viral marketing via e-mail has tremendous potential and works extremely well especially as copying is so simple in digital format.
It is important, from a marketing viewpoint, to design that your marketing message is simple. This ensures that your message is not degraded and that transmission is easy. Do you remember K.I.S.S (Keep it Simples Stupid) That standard relays the idea that ‘short is better’. The shorter the message the easier it is to remember and that is far more effective than a long and complicated message which no-one can understand or remember.
It is a sad but true fact that human motivations are driven by the ‘desire to be cool’ and ‘greed’. Other factors include the desire to be loved and understood and the hunger to be popular. Astute viral marketing strategies embrace these common human motivations which themselves induce an urge to communicate. The result is millions of web-sites and billions of e-mail messages. It is an unwise marketer who ignores this potential
We know that most people are social beings. According to the Social scientists each of us have 8 to 12 people in our network of family, friends and associates. The Internet has grown to be no different. Individuals build networks of relation-ships on the Internet by gathering favorite web-site URLS and collecting e-mail addresses.
Opt-in e-mail lists and Affiliate programs have learned to exploit such networks. You can learn this strategy too. Discover how to get your message placed into existing communications that people have between each other and you multiply its dispersion extremely rapidly.
Design a marketing strategy that builds its transmission on common human behavior and motivation and you have a Winner.
