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by Dustan Harless - Date: 2007-11-16 - Word Count: 1161 Share This!

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 doesn'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
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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 Google Example
Gmail-Google; didn't market, they spent no money. They created scarcity by giving out Gmail accounts only to a handful of "power users." Other users who aspired to be like these power users "lusted" for a Gmail account and this manifested itself in their bidding for Gmail invites on eBay. Demand was created by limited supply; the cachet of having a Gmail account caused the word of mouth, rather than any marketing activities by Google.
Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy
Accept this fact. Some viral marketing strategies work better than others, and little 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 arsenal. Most viral marketing campaigns give away valuable products or services to attract interest. 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. "Cheap" or "inexpensive" may generate interest, "free" will usually do it much faster. Viral marketers practice delayed gratification. They may not profit immediately, 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"). Practice 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 value to be able to, 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 pass along. The medium that carries your marketing message must be easy to transfer and duplicate: e-mail, website, graphic, software download. Viral marketing works famously on the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital format makes duplication simple. From a marketing viewpoint, 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, short, 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 mail servers to transmit the message. If the strategy is wildly successful, mail servers 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 mail servers rapidly you're okay. You must have built in scalability in your viral model.
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. What drove "Netscape Now" buttons in the early days of the Web? The perception that you were "cool" if you had one of those buttons on your site was the driver. Greed drives people. So does the desire 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 emotional behaviors for its transmission, and you will 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 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 connections, 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 leverage resources to get the word out. Affiliate programs, for example, place text or graphic links on others' pages. Authors give away free articles; seek to position their articles on others' web pages. A news release can be picked up by hundreds of periodicals and form the basis of articles seen by hundreds of thousands of eyeballs. Now someone else's media is relaying your marketing message. Someone else's resources are being leveraged rather than your own.

Dustan is the owner of Asset Creation Ideas, an internet marketing tools firm. His blog can be found at http://www.1infotip.com. You may want to check out this cool word of mouth tool for your website. http://www.1infotip.com/recommends/ultrarefer

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