If a film clip is emailed to somebody and it makes them laugh or sit up straight, chances are that it will be passed around. The same could be said for pictures, stories, jokes, petitions or special offers. With the average person receiving 33 work emails and a further eight private emails a day, these messages are now the standard fare of everyday communication. For retail marketers, there is enormous potential to cleverly promote their businesses by leveraging these practices for their own benefit. More and more, retailers who are technologically in tune and understand these behavioural patterns are turning to viral marketing as a cost effective way of spreading their message.
The term “viral marketing” uses the metaphor of biological viruses to describe its mode of transmission. In US magazine Web Marketing Today, e-Commerce consultant Dr Ralf F Wilson describes the process as “piggybacking” on other hosts and using their resources to spread the message. In the same way pathological viruses are transmitted through sneezes, handshakes and coughs, a marketer can spread their message via electronic coupons, invite-a-friend emails, entertaining film clips and e-cards. If the message is successful, then it is replicated through the transmission of the message to the recipient’s contacts and the process continues exponentially.
Viral marketing may be a buzzword in the circles of advertising and marketing professionals, but the concept is nothing new. The earliest examples of viral marketing campaigns are word of mouth promotions such as “tell-a-friend” campaigns. Savvy business owners understood the human inclination to discuss their experiences with others and found creative ways to create a buzz and encourage customers to promote their products and services for them.
The explosion of new communication technologies over the past 15 years or so has widened this scope and opened up new avenues for the creative and innovative to find new methods of pushing customer’s buttons. Using devices such as the Internet and SMS, consumers can instantly reproduce information and spread it to tens, hundreds or even thousands of others.
In 2001, Business Week described web-based campaigns such as Hotmail (1996) and Blair Witch Project (1999) as striking examples of viral marketing. In the case of hotmail, the method was simple – the creators attached a tag to the bottom of every free email sent out from the site stating, “Get your private, free email at http:// hotmail.com”. Before long hotmail usage was spreading like wildfire, attracting more users to its site than the world’s largest ISP. It didn’t take long for other free e-mail services to follow suit such as Yahoo! and more recently G-Mail.
In the case of Blair Witch, the filmmakers, who had a low budget, started to release rumours in Internet chat rooms that three college kids went missing in the woods while on a film school project investigating stories about a witch. The story followed that a camera was found with film in tact featuring horrifying footage of strange sounds and events during the students’ last few days before they vanished. Although it was later revealed to be a hoax, the story reached fever pitch in chat rooms across the world and believers sat on the edge of their seat as the anonymous filmmakers incrementally revealed more of the story. By the time the film hit the cinemas, the phenomenon was already set to become a box-office hit.
Business Week used these two examples to reveal the crux of what viral marketing is all about – getting others to market your message for you. This power of getting others to market your message for you should not be taken lightly. Section 8, a makeshift bar that emerged in a dishevelled car park in Melbourne’s Tattersalls Lane started out with very little start up capital. One of Section 8’s founders, Maz Salt, said that the group who started up the business had no budget for marketing. Regardless, the bar went ahead and opened its doors on a Thursday night unannounced. To the group’s surprise, by 7pm Friday night, they were turning people away. Salt attributes the overwhelming response to people discovering Section 8 by accident on the Thursday and informing their peers of their “discovery” via SMS.
Being one of the first to discover something that has all the markings of a fad is considered a badge of honour for many people according to Mark Daoust, former owner of Site-Reference.com, a website dedicated to assisting businesses in Internet Marketing. He says that it strokes their ego and if you want to get people interested in your product or service, stroking their ego is a great start.
Much like the discovery of a new restaurant or café, Daoust says that people feel a sense of ownership in being the first to impart that knowledge. He says that everybody likes to be in the know and the aim of viral marketing should be to get people talking about your offer, compelling them to let others in on their secret (your offer) to create a sense of exclusivity. In the case of Section 8, the owners created a sense of excitement in the fact that it was the first pop up bar in Melbourne and although the actual message wasn’t propagated by its owners, it is a good example of how powerful getting others to spread your message can be.
Piggybacking on the resources of others to spread your message also eliminates the expense of purchasing media space in its various forms. Small to medium retailers with limited marketing budgets may have been disadvantaged in the past. Now, however, some of these retailers are finding clever marketing ploys with very little outlay, if any. Some advertisers will continue to deploy sophisticated viral campaigns featuring short advertising film clips that are funny, strange or even cringe-worthy, however, it is sometimes the simpler campaigns that are the most effective.
With limited resources at his disposal, Mag Nation Chief, Sahil Merchant has made use of simple, yet clever viral marketing campaigns to attract customers to his business. In one case, Merchant ran a viral campaign offering free coffee. There was however, a catch.
To retrieve their offer, email recipients had to quote the secret code. Those who wanted a latte used the line, “Excuse me, I am a little itchy. I was wondering if you have any anti-fungal cream?” Cappuccino lovers recited the words, “Hi, I’ve been lonely for a really long time. Would you mind giving me a little comforting?” and customers after a flat white posed the question, “Do you have any magazines about back hair removal?”
Merchant says, “We only sent the email out to 20 people. However, we hand picked these people and each individual came from a different walk of life and had no connection with the other 19 people”.
“The peculiar nature of the campaign led these people to forward this offer on to their contacts and the flow-on effect was astounding. The first day after the email was sent a few people came in, the next day numbers grew markedly and from there the response increased exponentially. Our message even reached the mainstream media when a MX journalist came in and uttered the secret code for a latte. When the latte was served, out came the cameras.”
Merchant ran a similar campaign where for a limited time customers who received Mag Nation’s e-newsletter could receive a free coffee if they threw a dice and landed an even number.
Mag Nation’s e-newsletter, viral campaigns and other promotions have been so effective that they have taken on a life on their own. Merchant points out that there are now over 200 blogs featuring his business. With viral communities writing about, discussing and photographing the magazine retailer, Mag Nation has developed a cult status among a number of interest groups.
Although Mag Nation’s campaigns are seemingly simple, they are well thought out before they are executed. According Dr Ralf F Wilson, this is particularly important because a successful viral campaign requires at least one of six basic elements to succeed. He suggests that the more of these elements these messages embrace, the more powerful the results are likely to be.
Wilson believes the most powerful viral marketing campaigns give away something free of charge. Because there is no profit in the beginning, this process means delayed gratification. He says that employing these tactics can pay off because you are exposing customers to your other products and developing a rapport with them. If you can’t give anything away, then he advises offering sizeable discounts.
The promise of giveaways or substantial discounts is a powerful incentive because it taps into common human motivations. Wilson holds the opinion that the cleverest campaigns truly understand and play upon intrinsic motivation and desires such as social acceptance or greed.
Travel website, Webjet, illustrates Dr Wilson’s point eloquently. Webjet has run a number of “Win a trip to Europe” competitions which tap right into this psychology. Subscribers are sent an email inviting them to participate, but to qualify they must invite at least three of their contacts to enter. An invitation can only be given using Webjet’s online entry form where space is provided for nominated email addresses. The more contacts subscribers invite, the more times they can enter, increasing their chances of winning. Once the subscriber has entered, nominated contacts receive an email from them with an invitation to partake in Webjet’s competition. To participate, nominees must then follow the same process and agree to join Webjet’s mailing list.
The strength of Webjet’s strategy also lies in its ability to make use of existing communication networks among subscribers. Social scientists estimate that each person on average has a network of eight to 12 people in their close network of family, friends and associates. A person’s broader network may consist of hundreds or even thousands of people depending on their position in society. Wilson says that injecting your message into existing communications between people is one of the keys to a successful campaign.
Once the message is placed within existing communication networks, however, it needs to be easily transmissible. Wilson points out that the reason viruses spread so rapidly is that they are easy to transmit and replicate. The moment it becomes complicated to pass on is the moment the virus dies.
If the message does spread successfully, the marketer must also be able to cope with the response. Dr Wilson says that if the virus multiplies only to kill the host, then everything has been done in vain. Krispy Kreme ran an email and SMS viral marketing campaign to announce its pop-up store in Melbourne’s QV. On its first day, the store was swamped by hundreds of people eager to have the Krispy Kreme experience. Being a large company, Krispy Kreme was able to deal with the demand. If it hadn’t, it could have been a PR disaster.
The final point Wilson emphasises is the importance of using other’s resources to run a successful campaign. He suggests creating affiliate relationships with other companies, community groups and associations and making use of their resources such as websites, e-newsletters and other modes of communication with their contacts.
When Amazon started out, it developed some affiliate relationships where it would offer a small commission on any sales that were directed to its website from its affiliate sites. As Amazon grew rapidly and developed a strong brand presence, so did its number of viral affiliates.
Today, Amazon has over 100,000 affiliates directing buyers to its website and gaining a small commission on each of its sales.
Not everyone of course is as big or necessarily wants to be as big as Amazon. What the Amazon example highlights is just what is possible with a little ingenuity and resourcefulness. For retailers, the emergence of new vehicles of communication coupled with some clever viral tactics widens the scope of reaching potential customers, regardless of budget. All is needed is a good idea and an effective way to get your message out there.
Once your message is out there, the rest is in fate’s hands. But it pays to take some time beforehand to think about who your market is and what motivates them to act. Get that right, and you might just see your outlets multiply.
