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Spread the Infection

Viral marketing campaigns are a subtle and interesting way of sharing your message

By LaShell Stratton

In June several mysterious people from an organization called “The Society of the Ancients” started to appear on the streets of New York, San Francisco, Vancouver and London, handing out flyers with the cryptic message, “We are not alone.” Those who were intrigued enough to go to the Society’s website found very disconcerting material: supposed evidence of an ancient alien race, along with a timer that purported to count down to the day that the aliens would return.

Elsewhere, in Richmond, Va., area residents started to receive text messages on their mobile phones to attend “Parfait Parties.” The messages said if they showed up at one of their local ice cream parlors, they’d receive a free delicious treat.

These two events are related, though not in a way one would think. (No, there is no impending invasion of aliens who want to lure their victims with the promise of free parfaits.) Both were sophisticated viral marketing campaigns. The first was executed by Microsoft. The company wanted to promote the release of Halo 3, a sci-fi video game where a space marine battles aliens bent on humanity’s destruction. The second viral campaign was the joint effort of Bridgewater, Pa.-based Bruster’s Real Ice Cream franchise and Ripple Effects Interactive, a Pittsburgh online marketing firm. Bruster’s sent bimonthly coupons to its customers via text message that could then be forwarded to friends. Bruster’s even encouraged customers to start a parfait party. “Buy 3 Parfaits, Get a 4th Free,” the text message said.

Boosting Word-of-Mouth
Though word-of-mouth advertising has been around as long as salesmen have existed, technology has helped old-fashioned referrals explode in scale, spreading quickly from person to person much like a virus (to which viral marketing owes its name). Thanks to television, the internet and wireless phones, any advertising message can circle the globe in merely days, maybe even hours, if it’s a message “worth talking about.”

“Technology has increased the speed and potential of viral marketing, and given advertisers a much better way to initiate and measure viral marketing campaigns,” says David Reeve, marketing manager for WebVisible, a search marketing and online advertising firm in Irvine, Calif. “As a marketing executive, all that I ultimately can really control is the spark, not the burn. I can introduce an idea (a PR stunt or product claim) or experience into the atmosphere, but without a good product or experience, people are unlikely to hear and spread my message, and it will die. What’s exciting about viral marketing is that you can predict what you think makes a message interesting, but it also may be what you least expect and it may never cost you a dime.”

And because viral marketing has such low start-up costs, it is not limited to the Fortune 500 companies or the high-concept marketing firms. “Any company can use viral marketing to promote its brand as a whole or one of its product or services,” says Matt Myers, general manager of Internet Strategy Group, an online marketing and website building agency in Baltimore. “The nature of the viral campaigns depends on the industry and the product or service being promoted.”

Viral Marketing and the Internet
Viral marketing campaigns can be large or small in scale. They can have a business-to-consumer focus or be adapted by companies with business-to-business sales models.

“Viral is not specific to consumers,” Reeve says. “In business-to-business situations, especially where the potential customers do not view your product or service as a competitive differentiator, campaigns can be just as viral. If you are a great accountant or attorney or printer, you can definitely harness viral marketing through your local or vertical business community. Businesses in the same community or similar business in different communities such as auto dealers talk to each other often and word-of-mouth marketing persists.”

Essentially, viral marketing has no boundaries, regionally or by medium. “It can include but is not limited to both word-of-mouth marketing and online marketing,” Myers explains.

But research conducted by WebVisible shows that the internet can definitely exert its influence.

“In 2006, we partnered with Nielsen/NetRatings—the world leader in the internet and media research— to gauge the effectiveness of online advertising for local businesses,” Reeve says. “We learned that consumers use search engines like Yahoo! and Google to find local businesses from which to shop. Consumers were 90 percent satisfied with the results when searching online for a business in their local area. In addition, we saw that viral marketing had a large and previously unmeasured impact on the value that search engine marketing presents to small business advertisers.”

The findings showed that 38 percent of people emailed a business’ website link to a friend or a family member and 54 percent verbally recommended a service vendor to a friend or family member.

“We also saw that while people were interested in consumer reviews of local businesses, most were not actively writing those reviews,” Reeve says. “Our research has led us to recognize that the key ingredients to success of local businesses online are to quickly establish that you are credible, that what you do is clearly explained and that you make yourself easy to contact. Those items also make it easer for consumers to talk about your business and build local viral goodwill.”
Also, website visitors are more likely to spread your online message if there is an incentive to do so.

“As with any marketing, knowing your audience is essential,” Myers says. “Marketers must ask the question, ‘What is the motivation for my audience to pass this message along?’ This can be entertainment value or useful functionality that is an incentive to the readers. Special offers are a great way to spread the word—many campaigns offer a reward to consumers who get a friend to purchase a product or service.”

But one thing remains essential: The audience must not feel as if they have the marketing message blasted at them.

“Honestly, I believe that most consumers know an ad when they see it,” Reeve says. “In order to succeed with a great viral marketing campaign, respect your audience by not selfishly advertising product promotion. ‘Sincere,’ ‘genuine’ and ‘value’ are probably the three most important words to describe elements of good viral marketing. Make it more subtle than pure promotion. Speak honestly about your business in terms to which people can relate. You may be surprised at the positive word of mouth that is created.”

LaShell Stratton is a former assistant editor at Print Solutions magazine. Email comments to bholt@printsolutionsmag.com.