Definition

One source defined viral marketing as:

“the electronic word-of-mouth whereby some form of marketing message related to a company, brand, or product is transmitted in an exponentially growing way, often through the use of social media applications.” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2011).

However, this does not satisfy the full scope of viral marketing. Margaret Rouse (2017) extended the definition to include non-electronic word-of-mouth also as seen below:

Viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces websites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message’s visibility and effect.

Consumer/User centric

Viral marketing is entirely dependent upon the customers and users who the advertisement reaches. De Bruyn and Lilien (2004) supported this theory stating that viral marketing is “customer to customer” communication inferring that a company has little or no impact once a message has gone viral.

What a marketer or company can do is control who and how they pass the initial message to get the viral ‘ball’ rolling.

Firstly, all smart companies identify their target market. Middo and Topp (2014) state that in today’s digital environment, the key is actually knowing where your target market congregates in order to penetrate the audience most likely to take note of your message.

 

Middo & Topp’s – Viral Marketing Tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbZ9gc-L8YY)

 

Knowing where your target customers and users are will allow you to analyse the platform on which they are found, find areas to exploit and then develop the presentation of the message.

The next feature to consider is how do you want the message to psychologically effect the users it reaches? This does not mean to elate or depress your customer, per se, but to instead invoke an innate reaction. Shutz (1966) stated that users will need to be motivated to act in at least one of three ways:

• The need to be included
• The need to show affection
• The need to control

As you can see from the above motivations, all of them could be categorised as being elements of the human ego. This ties into the final feature that Scott (2015) declared:

“Nobody cares about your product (or service) except you”

This point is very demonstrable by casting your mind back to extremely popular marketing campaigns from Cadbury’s and Evian. Cadbury’s famously ran two, extremely memorable advertisement campaigns, one featuring a Gorilla playing the drum beat to Phil Collin’s “In the air tonight” and the other had two children moving their eyebrows in time to a catchy electronic tune. Evian, ran a similarly bizarre advertisement using babies on roller skates. All three of these advertisements had very little to do with the product, instead it gave entertainment to the viewer and its randomness gave them something to talk about and be included in with their friends and colleagues.

Scott continued to state that all people want is to know how to solve their problems and to be entertained. Customers want to receive something, usually for free, from an advertisement and this could lead to it being shared.

How to gain Viral traction for your marketing message

So, what does all of this equate to when formulating a viral marketing campaign?

1 – Find the digital space where your customers are

Before coming up with any marketing message you need to know where you will send it and how it is likely to look on the relevant platform. The initial message must be received by a community of users who are engaged or benefit so much that they are compelled to share with their family, friends and/or colleagues.

2 – Design and develop your offering

The marketing message must give something to the receiver. Keep in mind the three egotistical elements that motivate a customer to 1) become involved in a viral storm but even more so 2) to be compelled to share the message on to other people in their network. Your initial design may not quite hit the mark with your audience which is why it is crucial to develop your idea, offer the customer more incentive to engage with and distribute your message.

3 – Resist talking about your service or product directly

The viral hype should be caused by something separate from your service or product because, if you remember, people don’t care about it! Instead, a watermark or closing image with your brand, logo or slogan should suffice to associate your company with the campaign. If people are talking about your campaign then the company is being noticed and is more than likely to see an increase in traffic to its website.

References

Rouse, M. (2017). What is viral marketing? – Definition from WhatIs.com [Online]. http://searchsalesforce.techtarget.com/definition/viral-marketing. Accessed 8 December 2017.

Scott, D. M. (2015). The new rules of marketing and PR: how to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly (5th Edition). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

Schutz, W. (1966). FIRO: a three-dimensional theory of interpersonal behavior. Muir Beach, CA.: WSA.