Re: Viral Marketing

From: Brian Shepherd <bshepherd_at_Lycos.com>
Date: Wed 22 Dec 1999 08:25:46 -0500

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

TO WHICH KIM BROOKS REPLIED:
> Viral marketing is new little buzz, but it's an old
> concept and very broad. Here's a laundry list:
>
> - Hotmail, their sigline approach being oft-cited
> - Those old "Top 5%" badges that showed off how cool
> your site was & linked back to pointcom.com (remember
> that?)
> - Any of those email-a-card or share-this-Flash-movie
> things
> - "Send this recipe to a friend" at Epicurious
> - "Send this article to a friend" at ZDNet, cnet,
> others
> - In a more money-driven, high-admin way, Amazon's
> affiliate program is a kick-back viral plan.
> - c|net's new content-sharing program, where anyone can
> use articles if the logo and link are in tact.
> - Search engines letting anyone put a search box on
> their site.

In addition to Kim's example list, I would like to add
one that is right under all of our noses. In my mind,
the best kind of viral marketing is the kind where it's
not intended to be marketing. Let the quality of the
product speak for itself, create the buzz and let the
people market it for you. What's the example under our
noses? Well, it's THIS LIST you all are reading. How
many of you came here because someone sent you a piece
that may interest you? How many came because you heard
a colleague refer to the online-ads digest? How many
times have you forwarded a topic to a friend or
colleague? My guess is that you all have been part of
the viral marketing efforts of online-ads digest
whether you were brought here because of it, or brought
others here. Why does it happen? Because this is a
quality discussion list that provides value to all of
us. We want to share it! Viral marketing is nothing
new. In it's simplest form, it's testimonials. It's
caught fire because with e-mail, it takes only a second
to forward something to someone, whereas, pre e-mail,
we had to write down something to share with someone,
or try and call them right away. Many times we forgot
the book or name of the product we wanted to recommend.
That goes away in the online world. So, viral
marketing hasn't been invented because of the internet,
it's been revolutionized and re-invented because of it.

Happy holidays,

Brian Shepherd
Lycos
bshepherd_at_lycos.com






Received on Wed Dec 22 1999 - 07:25:46 CST