Zen And The Art of Viral Marketing

Let's begin with some simple tenets we can agree on. Free is better than paying. Cheap is better than expensive. An invitation is better than a command. A smile attached to the eyeballs you want scanning your site is better than a disappointed scowl.

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These concepts make up everything that is viral marketing, or as it is referred to outside cyberspace-word of mouth advertising. Now lets look at how AOL and Juno got schooled by Hotmail and NetZero. Hotmail is a key beginning as it is considered the progenitor of online viral marketing. While Juno was spending $20 million on traditional advertising channels, it didn't come close to the success of Hotmail's email service that began with a modest $50,000. Hotmail's subscriber base grew from zero to 12 million users in 18 months, spreading over the globe (even countries where no marketing was done), in the words of Steve Jurvetson, as if Zeus sneezed over the planet. The concept was simple. Offer a free subscriber email and let subscribers tell their friends about it by providing a sign-up link. Recently, Google has launched a similar initiative with originally invitation only G-Mail accounts. At around the same time, while millions were using AOL Free Trial CDs as drink coasters and Frisbees, NetZero launched its own, completely free Internet service. The result: NetZero grew ten times faster than AOL. AOL continues to learn this lesson, recently noted in a New York Times article, as it attempts to combat a huge drop in renewal rates. No doubt they noticed Google's tripled share prices and $1.3 billion first quarter returns, and adjusted accordingly by launching its own free portal. The big lesson here is that while traditional real world marketing is valuable, it's getting killed by creative, less budget-pinching initiatives due to a resurgence of the ancient and fundamental principle of word-of-mouth. Consumers have come full circle by being able to spot a salesman a mile away. Worse, they've got their shotguns loaded and cocked. While Hotmail's method was a precursor to a spam epidemic (all good ideas are perverted by opportunists), it illustrated the importance of likeability, believability, and the Dr. Ralph Wilson, consultant to E-Commerce, put forth six elements of a successful viral marketing strategy. The successful campaign: 1. Gives away products or services 2. Provides for effortless transfer to others (i.e., easily emailed, linked, or downloaded) 3. Scales easily from small to very large (popularity drives success) 4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors (i.e., funny content motivates people to share with others) 5. Utilizes existing communication networks 6. Takes advantage of others' resources (people become the medium, free of charge) Examples Of Others Using Viral Marketing Budweiser Anheuser-Busch hired The Blair Witch Project All the buzz around the famous motion picture "The Blair Witch Project" orignated from a simple Internet rumor that the movie was not fiction, it was actual footage of college film students who were killed in the woods by the Blair Witch ghost. The return on investment was huge. Forget-Me-Not-Panties What turned out to be a contest entry for sponsor

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