It’s been 10 years since the first viral online marketing campaign. It’s still going and just about everyone who’s ever used the internet has been exposed to the virus.
In July 1996, Hotmail founders Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia added a signature line to all messages from their email service, alerting anyone who received one that they could get a free email account with Hotmail. Nearly 250 million Hotmail members later, the campaign is still running.
However, MarketingSherpa reckons viral marketing has settled into a rut, despite the fact that creativity is the essence of a successful viral campaign. In its report, based on a survey of 790 viral marketers, MarketingSherpa said, “it’s getting hideously same-old, same-old boring. Which spells trouble, because viral’s all about not being boring.”
Compared to when the survey was first conducted last year, there are some striking differences in viral marketing activity, and indications that marketers are now starting to focus on the quality of their email lists, rather than just the size.
The report found social networking-related activities (driven by sites such as MySpace and YouTube) have had the most explosive impact on the growth in viral marketing during the past year.
While MarketingSherpa warns of viral marketing being in a rut, marketing consultants Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden argue that the viral revolution has just matured.
Kirby and Marsden are editors of the book Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution, in which experts discuss a range of “scalable, predictable and measurable solutions for driving business growth by stimulating positive brand talk between clients, customers and consumers.”
Kirby highlights the crisis in advertising effectiveness which has helped fuel the viral revolution. A 2004 Deutsche Bank study in the US consumer packaged goods sector found only 18% of TV advertising campaigns generate a positive return on annual investment, while the Harvard Business Review reported that for every dollar invested in traditional advertising for consumer packaged goods, the short-term return on investment is just 54 cents.
One response to the problem has been reducing media costs by using free (and influential) media—word of mouth connections—to deliver marketing messages. Kirby cites a 2004 UK survey by Mediaedge:cia which found 76% of people cite word of mouth as the main influence on their purchasing decisions, compared to only 15% for traditional advertising.
Kirby writes, “Many brands are now finally realising that the most powerful selling of products and ideas takes place not marketer-to-consumer but consumer-to-consumer.”
Integrating the viral, buzz, and word of mouth techniques with the whole mix of marketing—advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, PR etc.—is essential for successful campaigns.
According to Kirby, successful integration starts with listening to what customers are already saying about your brand, and identifying and involving your most influential customers.
He recommends developing ongoing, two-way relationships with influencers, doing things such as letting them trial your product before it is released, or getting them involved back in the research and development process.
Kirby wisely recommends that traditional CPM measures and recommendation rates should not be relied on to measure the success of viral campaigns. However, he doesn’t offer an iron-clad solution for measurement techniques – he simply says that further research is needed to help marketers be more scientific about success measures.
The MarketingSherpa report, while it also doesn’t solve the measurement problem, includes some useful tips for successful viral campaigns in today’s social networking-driven online environment.
Suggestions include: building a campaign specifically with a networking site like MySpace in mind; adding secrets or codes to your campaign that only insiders of your demographic might notice; get celebrities involved, even if it’s a parody or imitation of a celebrity; brand your creative in such a way that cutting your offer or logo out of it is next to impossible; and always add hotlinks such as ‘forward to a friend’, ‘add a permanent link’ or ‘add to my favourites’.
Simon van Wyk is founder and managing director of strategic online solutions company HotHouse Interactive. Email simonvw@hothouse.com.au .
