[nochance]

Viral marketing, Such a simple element of marketing but such a hard nut to crack...

Interesting post as usual by Seth Godin.

Viral marketing [does not equal] word of mouth. Here's why:

Word of mouth is a decaying function. A marketer does something and a consumer tells five or ten friends. And that's it. It amplifies the marketing action and then fades, usually quickly. A lousy flight on United Airlines is word of mouth. A great meal at Momofuku is word of mouth.

Viral marketing is a compounding function. A marketer does something and then a consumer tells five or ten people. Then then they tell five or ten people. And it repeats. And grows and grows. Like a virus spreading through a population. The marketer doesn't have... click here to continue.

[teabenny]

This Seth Godin does not explain what viral marketing is at all. He talks about the results, but not what it is or how to do it.

The ideavirus link didn't work either.

[nochance]

Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy

Accept this fact. Some viral marketing strategies work better than others, and few work as well as the simple Hotmail.com strategy. But below are the six basic elements you hope to include in your strategy. A viral marketing strategy need not contain ALL these elements, but the more elements it embraces, the more powerful the results are likely to be. An effective viral marketing strategy:

1. Gives away products or services
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
3. Scales easily from small to very large
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilizes existing communication networks
6. Takes advantage of others' resources

The Seth Godin Idea Virus Book Link

[john82]

Word of mouth are most of the time are non intentional since the customers spread good word for your service to others and that work great. Viral marketing are intentional to create linkbait that may go waste.

[richkid]

Viral marketing is huge, I read an article about this band that bought a rubber stamp and stamped the band name onto pegs and went out and pegged the whole city.

They started a face book group called have you been pegged and had 500 members in the first week.

[Josephian]

i always thought they were the same

[deep_impression777]

From the way I see it, viral marketing is word of mouth harnessing existing social webs or functions. Saying that wom is a decaying function and vm a grwing one is a contradiction; viral marketing has its roots in word of mouth. The effectivity of viral marketing after all is seeded in its voluntary propagation.

Wom as unproductive and passe? How do you think all the business existing before the net prospered?

[nochance]

Touching on the peg trend, this happened to me down in newquay, cornwall.

Great campaigns are simple.

[sarathy]

I guess it is like network marketing.

[consumertreehouse]

I think it really depends on what kind of product or service you have to offer. I own a consumer review website and viral marketing is working great.

To be honest I think any type of marketing to get your product and services out to the public is good.

[Hooman]

Originally Posted by deep_impression777

From the way I see it, viral marketing is word of mouth harnessing existing social webs or functions. Saying that wom is a decaying function and vm a grwing one is a contradiction; viral marketing has its roots in word of mouth. The effectivity of viral marketing after all is seeded in its voluntary propagation.

Wom as unproductive and passe? How do you think all the business existing before the net prospered?

Yeah, I can't see how Wom is unproductive or decaying to be honest. Wom is not even something that you do anyway, so it can't be decaying, it will always exist. In fact, if anything, I think it's one of the most effective ways to market a product or service.

I'm sure you've heard of eBay right? They only relied on Wom until about 1-2 years ago. Same with Half.com...built primarily on buzz and Wom. What about Craigslist? ...eBay has bought them out partly. There are plenty of services and products that I can think of that are marketed primarily on Wom. So I can't really see how you would would compare Wom to viral marketing. They're like apples and oranges. Neither is better than the other.