Re: Viral Marketing

From: Erik Dafforn <erik_at_intrapromote.com>
Date: Fri 17 Dec 1999 14:35:40 -0500

RICHARD PESTES WROTE:
> Can anyone offer examples or case studies of viral
> marketing campaigns that have worked, or even not
> worked?

Viral marketing is tough to do well, and a lot of that
has to do with the poor definitions out there. To a lot
of people, "good old-fashioned word of mouth" means
blanket spamming of newsgroups, and that's why a lot of
people shy away from it. And if that's what it was, we
would shy away too.

We often use the term "seeding" because it has a less
ominous connotation. The metaphor works, too, because
if it's done well, nature takes its course and the
mindshare grows nicely, as long as you check back now
and then to make sure that weeds aren't overtaking your
plant.

[It's true. We were very successful at placing the most
recent product of www.1on1mail.com in several different
software sites for download. But we often had to check
the bulletin board areas of those sites because several
"experts" were spreading incorrect information about
the product's security. We had to set the record
straight several times; that's what I mean by "tending
the garden."]

So, to get back on track, viral marketing has worked
best for us when we could piggyback the message on top
of a product. Some of our best successes have come from
combining the efforts of viral marketing and desktop
branding. We've created several downloadable
applications for our clients, including
screensavers/games, along with Java applets for Web
content. The app(let)s are small, topical, informative
and/or fun, sit on the user's desktop, and are promoted
by word-of-mouth because of the above reasons, instead
of by a lot of "selling." But most of all, they keep
the client's name in the front of the customer's mind.

A couple examples of what I'm describing:
http://www.beveridgeinc.com/wallball.htm
http://www.beveridgeinc.com/bizquote.htm

When people download these applications and applets,
they become your opt-in evangelists.

(Also, if you've seen NVision Design's Elf Bowling game
that's blowing around, you know what I'm talking
about.)

Tools like these have enabled us to shift the emphasis
away from wooing and seducing visitors to stay, to
instead focusing on how to keep the site (or more
importantly, the content) alive in the customers' heads
when they're going about their day.

Best regards,
Erik
___________________________
Erik Dafforn
IntraPromote.com
http://www.intrapromote.com





Received on Fri Dec 17 1999 - 13:35:40 CST