by teamrecGoing through one of the networking sites (am a member of three such sites rated on my personal scale as professional, semi – professional and social) recently, I saw an update where one of my ‘Networks’ had asked for information related to “Viral Marketing” and options for the FMCG Sector. I thought what better subject to address particularly when enquired on a Viral Marketing ‘tool’ and provided by another Viral Marketing Tool a “Newsletter”.
“There is debate on the origination and popularization of the term Viral Marketing, though some of the earliest uses of the current term are attributed to Harvard Business School graduate, Tim Draper and faculty member Jeffrey Rayport. The term was later popularized in 1997 to describe Hotmail’s e-mail practice of appending advertising for itself in outgoing mail from their users.” Excerpts from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The catchphrase “Viral Marketing” and “Viral Advertising” refer to marketing techniques that use existing social networks to increase brand awareness or to achieve other objectives (such as product sales etc.) through self-replicating viral processes, comparable to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. The goal is in creating successful programs to identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential and create messages that appeal to this segment of the population and have a high probability of being passed along. It is assumed that if such an Ad reaches a “susceptible” user (a person open to new ideas), that user will become “infected” (i.e., accept the idea) and will then go on to share the idea with others “infecting them”.
The success stories…
• Multi-level marketing is essentially a form of viral marketing in which representatives gain income through their circle of influence and give their friends a chance to market products creating an exponentially growing network. Examples include Amway and Modicare among many others.
• Burger King’s The Subservient Chicken campaign, running from 2004 until 2007, was cited in ‘Wired magazine’ as a striking example of viral marketing.
• Cadbury’s Dairy Milk 2007 Gorilla advertising campaign was heavily popularised on YouTube and Facebook.
• However, a few marketing viruses achieved success on a scale similar to Hotmail, widely cited as the first example of Viral Marketing.
• At the height of B2C (ecommerce boom) every startup had a viral component to its strategy.
The concept depends on a high pass-along rate, if a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly and if the numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly fizzles. Most people are social and each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. A person’s broader network may consist of scores, hundreds, or thousands of people, depending upon her position in society.
An effective Viral Marketing strategy:
Free
“Free” is the most powerful word in a marketer’s vocabulary. Free e-mail services, info, “cool” buttons, software programs that perform powerful functions but not as much as you get in the “paid” version. “Cheap” or “inexpensive” may generate interest, but “free” will do it much faster. Free attracts eyeballs. Eyeballs then see other things that you are selling, and, you earn money. They bring e-mail addresses, ad revenue, and e-commerce sales opportunities.
Offer an incentive
Viral marketing works best when a valuable and tangible incentive is offered, encouraging individuals to forward an email message to their friends. However, they should cap the incentive to a specific quantity to avoid spam-like distribution of the message. Open-ended incentives can end up causing a marketer customer service, financial, and privacy-related problems.
Repeatedly promote friendly referrals
Marketers should place a viral marketing offer in every relevant outgoing email message. Viral marketing makes for a great one-time campaign, but it can also be a very effective tool for continuing to broaden the reach of your marketing messages over time.
Don’t consider the referral an opt-in
When a customer refers a friend, the referral should not be considered an opt-in rather it should be confirmed the referral email if the individual would like to receive future mailings, allowing her / him to opt in if they wish.
Personalize the referral email
It has been observed that response rates increase dramatically when users can see that a message is coming from a friend, so it is best to personalize the email message to show that it’s coming from a recognizable source. The subject line is the key component in a viral marketing email, because it can immediately identify the email as friendly.
Track and analyze the results
As with any marketing campaign, tracking the results and optimizing performance over time is absolutely necessary. The experts can track insightful and actionable data that can be used to evaluate performance.
Provides for effortless transfer to others
The medium that carries your marketing message must be easy to transfer and replicate: e-mail, website, graphic, software download. Viral marketing works famously on the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital format make copying simple.
Scales easily from small to very large
To spread like wildfire the transmission method must be rapidly scalable from small to very large. If the strategy is wildly successful, provision should be there to cater very quickly to the growing demand or the rapid growth will bog down and die.
Exploits common motivations and behaviors
Greed drives people, so does the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The resulting urge to communicate produces millions of websites and billions of e-mail messages. Design a marketing strategy that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission, and you get a winner.
Takes advantage of others’ resources
The most creative viral marketing plans use others’ resources to get the word out. Affiliate programs, for example, place text or graphic links on others’ websites.
ADDRESSING THE FMCG SECTOR: In Indian perspective
FMCG companies today need to take a close look at their multi-channel marketing and sales approach and ensure that they are exploiting all the channels consumers are using during the buying process. They also need to anticipate and respond to the consumers’ desire for convenience, immediacy and a compelling experience.
Viral marketing is an intelligent new way to directly engage with your customers using one-to-one interactive marketing techniques that allow you to by-pass the retailers. It can help to boost brand awareness, strengthen brand loyalty and increase sales. It is a unique channel that enables you to reach a specific target audience and generate customer information, whilst making your promotional fulfillment easier and more cost-effective. Most importantly it is the only medium that provides you with proof that your message has been received by the user, allows you to track consumer response and respond immediately, if it interests them.
Presentation
An attractive brochure or product detail has to be created which can grab eyeballs. The information should be simple, brief and should address the target segment catered to. An incentive or “Lure” has to be created for people to forward or refer and should be genuine enough to convince the individual of its authenticity. With so many ‘forwards’ doing the daily mail circuit the authenticity is key to the success of any Viral Marketing scheme.
USP
The USP needs to be created keeping in mind the target segment. In today’s time, ease of availability, delivery, quality and pricing are the four most crucial issues to be addressed. So a strategy has to be developed keeping in mind the product and its usage.
Persistence
The marketer needs to be persistent in his offerings and should come out with new offerings from time to time to keep the interest of the “Network” it has created. Sending frequent updates on products, new launches, and promotional offers, allowing consumers to request catalogues, brochures and product samples, providing access to information which is easy to find, easy to use, and time and location sensitive etc.
Ease of availability & delivery
Most of the people who use internet today are people who are working or are students. Time is of essence with the working hours being long and shopping at times being pushed to a weekend slot. It is imperative for any “Viral Marketing” strategy to address the Supply Chain viability of the product and at the same time to understand the cost it incurs.
Given a choice, all other parameters of pricing & quality being standard, one would like to try out a new product which is available with ease and the delivery taken care of. In addition, if one gets some tangible benefit out of it by referring the same to the “network” one would readily do it. The “tangible benefit” has to be suitably identified or it would not get the desired result.
Quality
It is very important for the Marketer to maintain the standard of quality prevalent in the market and to maintain the same on a regular basis. “Value for money” is the new mantra and it is best if the same can be achieved.
Pricing
Pricing is a tool which can be played around with to make the product offering attractive. A competitive pricing initially can pull the consumer to the product and subsequently the other parameters will help retain the consumers.
Some of the features to attract the attention are:
• Create communities
• Loyalty clubs
• Text-to-win competitions
• Product information
• Coupons and m-commerce
• Location based services
• Proximity marketing
• Alerts, information on demand
• User generated content
• Blogging
Internet as a communication tool has out performed any other channel of communication and ‘Viral Marketing’ can ride piggy back to success on this communication boom. In a close knit society like ours there is always going to be potential for a Marketer to exploit the ‘Network’ of individuals.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhay has 19+ years of experience in Recruitment, Mentoring and Business Development. He is an entrepreneur and a professional with 14+ years in the industry specialising in Manpower Planning, Strategy and Recruitments. He heads Operations and Business Development at Team Recruiters a Delhi based Manpower Consulting company with clientele in both domestic and overseas market. Abhay is widely known across the industry and has a great reputation across Capital Market and Travel Trade, which has been the focus of Team Recruiter’s business interest for the last two years. He has been a hands-on person spearheading the operations for the company and has a good connect with people across the board.
He has earlier been an entrepreneur with 12+ years at the helm of Teamvision Solutions a Delhi based Manpower Consulting company with clientele in both domestic and overseas market.
In his previous roles, prior to Teamvision, he has also worked with Thapar Groups IT venture iBiLT Technologies Ltd, Excel Infotech Ltd and US based AVS Systems Inc. and was instrumental in growing the business tremendously.
