What is it?

No, it’s not a bad thing! Simply put, Viral Marketing (VM) describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for growth in message’s exposure and influence. Super important? You bet.

Viral marketing in action.

For example, you might send out a newsletter once/month that reaches your subscriber, who then forwards that message to someone else you haven’t directly sent it to. Voila! Viral marketing.

These messages also builds brand awareness, moving through social networks (like a virus, hence the name). It may take the form of video, an e-newsletter, word-of-mouth, ebooks, almost anything that is sent along from your direct target to another that hasn’t met you yet.

Practical applications (The Application)

• Enhance quality and quantity of distribution of a marketing message
• Builds brand awareness

Why it’s so important (The Result)

• More customers for free (if written properly)
• Increases trust of messages reception (suggestions from friends vs. unknown company)
• Increases the chance of successful target demographic reached when sent (message qualified before sending)

Conclusion: VM is stellar at socially distributing messages to qualified and interested secondary targets, whether to buy something, learn something. This leads to increased sales or social expansion for you.

Example:

Click on the button above for complete example.

Let’s work off an example: Let’s say you receive a newsletter (or browsing a site) that you signed up for in the past, and see an add for shoes, but they’re not men’s shoes (working from he writer’s personal perspective). They would, however, look great on your girlfriend. Then you see the button on the right. You click, you type in her email, and BAM! Viral marketing. Note that if this was a newsletter that landed in an email, they could just forward it. But why not make it really easy? How about a popup that allows them to send it to three, five, or ten people?

Now, why is this important, beyond the obvious? 3 things:

1. You never met the writer’s girlfriend, nor has she been to your site
2. It comes from a trusted source (the boyfriend)
3. She probably likes shoes. A lot.

Repeat, duplicate, expand the dimensions, create multiple newsletters or distributions, or ads, or ad incentives, but it’s essentially the same principle. And it’s incredibly powerful.

How we help

Think Around Corners has run over 700 viral marketing campaigns over the past 10 years. We know what we’re doing. We can build them for you, teach you how to run them, and set you up with various tools that are inexpensive. Rely upon our vast experience with this principle of marketing, and boost your sales and leads!

What to do next:

Call us for more information.