Friday, August 25, 2006
Marketing: What's Viral Marketing?
Viral marketing is a fancy name for a marketing technique that is derived from the classic "word of mouth" marketing approach. It was noticed that the way product information spreads when the marketing system is set up in a certain way is similar to the way a biological virus, like the common cold, the flu etc, spreads in a population.
As an example, my friend sends me an email. I open it and it contains a really funny joke. I like the joke and forward it on to my other friends. If they like it then they spread it further. The joke email in this case is our viral agent.
So what does a biological virus do? well, on its own it is inactive, its basically just a list of instructions and a delivery mechanism. The virus will find its way to a potential host. Once there, it will cut a hole in the cell's wall and inject its instructions (DNA/RNA) in amongst the cell's own (DNA). These new instructions will hijack the cell and change the way it operates. The new instructions will tell the cell to:
- Keep doing what you're doing (don't die, carry on being an active living cell)
- Start making copies of the virus
- Something else. The something else could be to make a cold sore, as in the case of the herpes virus or to attack the immune system as in the HIV virus, etc.
Viral marketing uses the biological virus as a metaphor. In viral marketing you have three things: 1) Delivery mechanism 2) Viral mechanism 3) Message.
- The delivery mechanism is how the "virus" is spread. This could be word of mouth. You see a product that is funny, sexy, unusual or exceptional in some way and you tell your friends. The "virus" has spread from you to them. The delivery mechanism could be email, hand written cards or a whole variety of things. The key point about the delivery mechanism is that it determines how fast the "virus" can spread. It is obviously easier to send out 1000 emails than 1000 hand written cards.
- The viral mechanism is the part that makes the person want to spread the "virus". In a biological virus this is the new set of instructions that the virus inserts into the host cell. In viral marketing this must be something about the message. Things that make a viral marketing piece spreadable are: it's funny, it's sexy, it's shocking, it's exceptional in someway. We'll discuss what makes a message spreadable more in another post.
- The message is what you are actually trying to spread, e.g. details about a product or brand etc.
