What Is Viral Marketing?

Viral marketing (viral marketing) can also be called

Besides the Internet, viral marketing is used to refer to word of mouth, manufacturing hotspots, integrated media and network marketing, but on the Internet, whether good or bad, it is called "viral marketing".

Viral marketing is not true.

Characteristics of viral marketing

Viral marketing is through the use of public enthusiasm and interpersonal networks, so that marketing information is spread and spread like viruses, marketing information is quickly copied to millions of people.

It has some distinguishing features from other marketing methods:

There are no free lunches for attractive pathogens, and any information dissemination must be paid for the use of channels.

The reason why viral marketing is cost free, mainly refers to the use of the enthusiasm of the target consumers, but the promotion cost of channel usage still exists. Only the target consumers are voluntarily involved in the subsequent communication process by the information incentives of the merchants, and the advertising cost that should be borne by the businessmen is pferred to the target consumers. Therefore, for the business, viral marketing is cost free.

The speed of propagation of geometric multiplier, the marketing way of mass media advertising is "one point to many points" radial pmission, in fact, it is not sure whether the advertisement information really reaches the target audience.

Viral marketing is a spontaneous and expansive information promotion. It is not balanced, simultaneous and undifferentiated to everyone in the society. Instead, it is pmitted to consumers who have some connection with them through the channels similar to interpersonal communication and group communication.

For example, if the target audience reads an interesting flash, his first reaction may be to pmit this flash to friends, colleagues, and countless participating "forwarding troops" to form the main force of geometric multiplier propagation.

The high efficiency of receiving mass media advertising has some insuperable defects, such as strong information interference, complex receiving environment, and serious resistance to the audience.

In the case of TV advertisements, there are all kinds of advertisements at the same time, and there are many similar products, which greatly reduce the audience's acceptance efficiency.

For those cute "viruses", the audience is obtained from the familiar people or active search. In the process of receiving, there will be a positive mentality. The channels of reception are also more personal, such as SMS, e-mail, closed forums and so on.

The above advantages make viral marketing overcome the noise impact of information dissemination as much as possible, and enhance the effect of communication.

The speed of update is fast. Network products have their own unique lifecycle. They usually come and go quickly. The pmission process of viral marketing is usually S curve, that is, at the very beginning, it is very slow, when it expands to half of the audience speed, and it slows down when it approaches the maximum saturation point.

In view of the attenuation of viral marketing communication, we must pform the pmission power into the purchasing power before the audience's immunity to information, so as to achieve the best sales effect.

The basic idea of viral marketing

The basic idea of viral marketing is described by Dr. Feng Yingjian in the five steps of successful implementation of viral marketing: "viral marketing is a kind of network marketing method (commonly used as a means of website promotion), that is, through the provision of valuable information and services, the use of active communication among users to achieve the purpose of network marketing information pmission; viral marketing is also a kind of network marketing idea, the meaning behind it is how to make full use of external network resources (especially free resources) to expand the network marketing information pmission channel."

This exposition fully expresses the basic idea of viral marketing and is the basic guiding principle for formulating and implementing the viral marketing plan.

It is precisely because of the huge advantages of viral marketing, so that it occupies a special position in the network marketing method system. More importantly, it has great attraction for the personnel of the market, thus attracting marketers to create various kinds of viral marketing plans and viral marketing programs, some of which have achieved great success, and of course, some viral marketing ideas are good, but they may not achieve the desired results in practical operation. Some may become real virus pmission and bring trouble to users, which can cause a great negative impact on the image of the website.

Therefore, after recognizing the basic idea of viral marketing, it is necessary to further understand the general rule of viral marketing so as to design a successful viral marketing plan.

General laws of viral marketing

First, viral marketing has certain limits. Viral marketing programs beyond this limit become real viruses.

Nobody likes viruses on their computers, so viruses are not popular.

The core word in viral marketing is "marketing". "Viral" is only a way of describing marketing information, but it has nothing to do with viruses.

The basic idea of viral marketing is only to learn from the way of virus pmission. It is not a virus itself. It not only does not have any destructive effect, but also brings benefits to the implementers of communicators and viral marketing. Therefore, there is no direct connection between viral marketing and viruses.

But in the actual operation of viral marketing, if we fail to realize that the essence of viral marketing is to provide users with free information and services, it may sometimes become a viral marketing mode that spreads virus, especially using some technical means, such as automatically installing plug-ins for users, modifying user browser's default home page, and automatically inserting promotional information in QQ chat tools (such as "QQ tail"). These can not be called viral marketing, but rather spread the virus.

Second, successful viral marketing is inseparable from six basic elements.

Ralph F Wilson, an American e-commerce consultant, summed up the basic elements of an effective viral marketing strategy into 6 aspects: providing valuable products or services; providing a way to convey information to others without effort; the scope of information pmission is easy to spread from small to large scale; the use of public initiatives and behaviors; the use of existing communication networks; and the use of other people's resources for information dissemination.

According to this basic rule, in the formulation and implementation of the viral marketing plan, the necessary preliminary investigation and targeted examination should be carried out to confirm whether the viral marketing plan satisfies these six basic elements.

Third, viral marketing is not easy to do, it needs to follow certain steps and processes.

Successful implementation of viral marketing requires five steps: the overall planning and design of viral marketing programs; viral marketing requires unique creativity; the attraction of viral marketing lies in its creativity; rational design of network marketing information sources and information dissemination channels so as to disseminate information through effective communication networks; release and disseminate the original information of viral marketing in a small range that is easy to disseminate; and track and manage the effect of viral marketing.

The above five steps of successful implementation of viral marketing have further explained the six basic elements of viral marketing from the perspective of practical application, making it more instructive, and fully illustrates the laws that should be followed in the practical application of viral marketing.

Fourth, the implementation process of viral marketing is usually free of charge, but the design of viral marketing plan requires cost.

Viral marketing usually does not require direct costs for information pmission, but viral marketing programs do not automatically generate and need to be carefully designed according to the basic idea of viral marketing. In this process, there is a certain need for resources to be invested. Therefore, viral marketing can not be understood as a completely unnecessary network marketing, especially when formulating a website promotion plan.

In addition, not all viral marketing programs can achieve the desired results, which can be understood as the hidden costs of viral marketing.

Fifth, network marketing information will not automatically spread, need to be promoted.

The fourth step in the five step of successful implementation of viral marketing is about the release and promotion of the viral marketing information source, because viral marketing information will not automatically propagate, and it needs to rely on certain external resources and the existing communication environment. This promotion may not require direct cost, but it needs reasonable selection and utilization of effective network marketing resources, so it needs to have professional knowledge of network marketing.

To sum up, viral marketing has its own basic rules. Successful viral marketing strategy must follow the basic idea of viral marketing and fully understand its general rule. It includes: providing users with valuable information and services free of coercion or destructive means; when designing viral marketing strategies, it is necessary to assess the available external network marketing resources; follow the steps and processes of viral marketing; do not expect the design and implementation of viral marketing programs to have no cost at all; lastly, it is unrealistic to expect viral marketing information to spread automatically in large areas, and it is necessary to design and promote information pmission channels.