JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC RESEARCH FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY Impact Factor 2.417, ISSN: 2320-5083, Volume 3, Issue 12, January 2016

VIRAL MARKETING - A CLICK THROUGH

AMITGOYAL*

*Assistant Professor in Commerce, Shree AtamVallabh Jain College, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

ABSTRACT Viral marketing simply involves spreading of information regarding the product or service, automatically from one customer to another customer through or otherwise. Newcomers to electronic markets are forced to accumulate customers as quickly as possible. One strategy to fulfill this particular aim is viral marketing, which seems a suitable term for describing the pattern in which internet companies spread by making use of customer referrals. This article is based on extensive review of literature. The aim of this article is to describe and explain common features of viral marketing strategies and to outline benefits and risks associated with using internet word-of-mouth in consumer settings.

KEYWORDS: Word-of-Mouth, Viral Marketing, Marketing Strategy

INTRODUCTION Viral marketing involves that as each new user starts using the service or product, the advertising will go to everyone with whom that user interacts. The most famous example of viral marketing is Hotmail, which offers free web-based email. Each time a user emails someone, there is an attached advertisement to the receiver to sign up for a Hotmail account. While the practice was much more widely used in the early to mid-2000s as new internet businesses were being created in extreme numbers, it is still common among internet based business-to-consumer (B to C) companies. According to Patel (2007),viral marketing is an advertisement that is in some way tied to an e-mail. It can be attached to the e-mail or placed in the body of the e-mail. “Viral Marketing” is a technique whereby information related to products, services or companies are “seeded” strategically. Viral marketing is a form of advocacy or word-of-mouth endorsement marketing. One customer passes along the message to other potential buyers. The name “viral” is derived from the image of a person being infected with the marketing message, then spreading it to friends like a virus. The major difference, however, is that the customer voluntarily sends the message to others. It does not occur automatically. Viral marketing messages may be hyper-linked promotions that take someone instantly to a Website, online newsletters, or various games. The term "viral marketing" is aggressive. Call yourself a Viral Marketer and people will take two steps back.

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"Do they have a vaccine for that yet?" you wonder. A threatening thing, the simple virus is fraught with doom, not quite dead yet not fully alive, it exists in that rear type somewhere between disaster movies and horror flicks. But you have to admire the virus. He has a way of living in secrecy until he is so numerous that he wins by absolute weight of numbers. He piggybacks on other hosts and uses their resources to increase his . And in the right environment, he grows exponentially. A virus doesn’t even have to mate -- it just replicates, again and again with geometrically increasing power, doubling with each interaction: 1 11 1111 11111111 1111111111111111 11111111111111111111111111111111 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 In a few short generations, a virus population can explode, (Wilson, 2005). In this paper, an attempt to put a light on concept and significance of viral marketing has been made. The SWOT analysis of viral marketing has also been done.

Review of literature Steve Jurvetson and Tim Draper introduced the term viral marketing in 1997 (knight, 1999). Because of this new and too much used term, disagreement existed about its definition. Some (e.g. Pastore, 2000) viewed it as word-of-mouth advertising in which consumers tell other consumers about the product or service. Others (Modzeleweski, 2000) argued that “true virul marketing differs from word-of-mouth in that the value of the virus to the original consumer is directly related to the number of other users it attracts. That is, the originator of each branch of the virus has a unique and vested interest in recruiting people to the network” (Modzelewski, 2000). Shirky, 2000 suggested that soon viral marketing will mean word of mouth advertising to most people. More importantly, however he added that the concept describes a way of acquiring new customers by encouraging honest communication among consumers. According to Rosen, 2000, “Purchasing is a part of social process. It involves not only a one to one interaction between the company and the customer but also many exchanges of information and influence among the people who surround the customer.”Viral marketing spans a number of marketing domains. Kaikati and Kaikati

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(2004), e.g, categorized viral marketing as a stealth marketing technique. While stealth marketing is a recent proposition within marketing, viral marketing relates to the advertising (Phelps, et al., 2004, Porter & Golan, 2006) and brand (Dobele, et al., 2005, Moore, 2003) elements of traditional marketing. Of the emerging new marketing streams, viral marketing is firmly positioned in the e-marketing domain. The other major domain that viral marketing fits into is marketing communications. This approach puts emphasis on the spread of the message and its viral characteristics (Welker, 2002). While conventional communication in marketing directly addresses the consumer, viral marketing communication aims to create an environment where customers and consumers transmit messages without the involvement of the original source. Therefore, viral marketing can also impact on consumer behaviour by influencing consumer perceptions, attitudes and views and has the potential to emerge as a key element of a company’s promotional mix (Kirby and Marsden, 2006). The underlying principle of viral communication, however, remains the ‘traditional’ word-of-mouth paradigm that is now facilitated by the Internet. Research studies show that the Internet “word of mouth” communication, i.e. Viral Marketing is far more effective than traditional word of mouth communication (Woerndl and Bourlakis, 2008). Consumers can communicate easily and share their own views with their acquaintances in a more critical way. This kind of communication can reach to every locality and this is a much wider concept. The existing literature on viral marketing indicates four emerging research which includes Consumer to Consumer (C2C) Viral Marketing, studies of Communications, Media and Viral Marketing positioning.

Benefits and risks of viral marketing The heightened attention paid to viral marketing in the computer and management literature is a sign that there can be significant benefits to be gained from viral marketing. One important benefit is that viral marketing is relatively inexpensive in comparison to many other forms of advertising and marketing campaigns (Dobele, et al., 2005, Kaikati&Kaikati, 2004, Welker, 2002). The other major benefits relate to the positive diffusion characteristics: viral marketing can, for example, reach audiences within a short period of time (Kaikati&Kaikati, 2004) as messages spread exponentially at a fast speed (Helm, 2000, Welker, 2002). This rapid diffusion can significantly boost the speed of the adoption of the marketed product or service (Dobele, et al., 2005). Yet, besides positive financial and diffusion implications, viral marketing makes use of peer-to-peer transmission (Dobele, et al.,

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2005), which is one of the most influential marketing methods available to marketers and it overcomes legal and privacy concerns as messages are not unsolicited anymore and hence may avoid being considered as ‘spam’. In addition, viral marketing can help achieve substantial audience reach as marketers get access to diverse audiences through social contacts (Helm, 2000) and can profit from effective targeting (Dobele, et al., 2005). Yet, besides these significant benefits, there are risks and challenges that marketers have to face when engaging in viral marketing campaigns. Probably the biggest risk is the lack of control associated with viral marketing campaigns: organisations have no means of controlling the spread of the message and the content of the transmission (Dobele, et al., 2005, Helm, 2000, Kaikati&Kaikati, 2004, Welker, 2002). The receivers of a message may even consider the transmission as ‘spam’. With this lack of control comes the potential of a negative impact from a viral campaign. Negativity can occur through backlash and unfavourable word-of-mouth, and may result in a negative brand image, product or service boycott, unfavourable attributes associated with the organisation and its products and services, hate sites etc. (Dobele, et al., 2005, Helm, 2000, Kaikati&Kaikati, 2004, Phelps, et al., 2004). A lack of legal standards in terms of viral marketing is another potentially risky issue (Kaikati&Kaikati, 2004). The dependency on the consumer for message transmission is a further risk as consumers, for example, may want a return from the organisation for passing on a viral message (Helm, 2000). The final risk to be considered when engaging in viral marketing campaigns is the lack of ethical standards (Kaikati&Kaikati, 2004): consumers may feel exploited, cheated, and used (Dobele, et al., 2005), and may view viral messages as an invasion of their privacy (Phelps, et al., 2004).

Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy Accept this fact. Some viral marketing strategies work better than others. Few work as well as the simple Hotmail.com strategy. But below are the six basic elements one should include in the strategy. A viral marketing strategy need not contain all these elements, but the more elements it embraces, the more powerful the results are likely to be. An effective viral marketing strategy: • Gives away products or services; • Provides for effortless transfer to others; • Scales easily from small to very large; • Exploits common motivations and behaviors;

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• Utilizes existing communication networks; • Takes advantage of others’ resources. Each of these elements is discussed briefly.

1. Gives Away Valuable Products or Services “Free” is the most powerful word in the vocabulary of marketers. Most viral marketing programs give away valuable products or services to attract attention. Free email services, free information, free software programs that perform powerful functions but not as much as you get in the “pro” version. Wilson’s Second Law of Web Marketing is “The Law of Giving and Selling”. “Cheap” or “inexpensive” may generate a wave of interest, but “free” will usually do it much faster. Viral marketers practice delayed gratification. They may not profit today, or tomorrow, but if they can generate a groundswell of interest from something free, they know they will profit “soon and for the rest of their lives” (with apologies to “Casablanca”). Free attracts eyeballs. Eyeballs then see other desirable things that are being sold. Eyeballs bring valuable email addresses, advertising revenue, and ecommerce sales opportunities. Give away something, sell something.

2. Provides for Effortless Transfer to Others Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: Stay away from people who cough, wash your hands often, and don’t touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they’re easy to transmit. The medium that carries the marketing message must be easy to transfer and replicate: email, website, graphic, software download. Viral marketing works famously on the Internet because instant communication is easy and inexpensive. The digital format makes copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation. Short is better.

3. Scales Easily from Small to Very Large To spread like wildfire, the transmission method must be rapidly scalable from small to very large. The weakness of the Hotmail model is that a free email service requires its own mail servers to transmit the message. If the strategy is wildly successful, mail servers must be added very quickly or the rapid growth will bog down and die. If the virus multiplies only to kill the host before spreading, nothing is accomplished. One must build in scalability to his/her viral model.

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4. Exploits Common Motivations and Behaviors Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. What proliferated “Netscape Now” buttons in the early days of the web? The desire to be cool. 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 email messages. Marketing strategy has to be designed that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission.

5. Utilizes Existing Communication Networks Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science graduate students are the exception. Social scientists tell us that each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in his or her network of friends, family, and associates. A person’s broader network may consist of scores, hundreds, or thousands of people, depending upon his or her position in society. A waitress, for example, may communicate regularly with hundreds of customers in a given week. Network marketers have long understood the power of these human networks, both the strong, close networks as well as the weaker networked relationships. People on the Internet develop networks of relationships, too. They collect email addresses and favorite website URLs. Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do permission email lists. One must learn to place his/her message into existing communications between people, and get rapidly multiplied its dispersion.

6. Takes Advantage of Others’ Resources The most creative viral marketing plans use others’ resources to get the word out. Affiliated programs, for example, place text or graphic links on others’ websites. Authors, who give away free articles, seek to position their articles on others’ webpages. A news release can be picked up by hundreds of periodicals and form the basis of articles seen by hundreds of thousands of readers. Now someone else’s newsprint or webpage is relaying the marketing message. Someone else’s resources are depleted rather than the marketer’s.

SWOT Analysis of Viral Marketing Strengths • Penetration or market research • Active community members who are willing to become brand evangelists

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• Resource in term of times and manpower, your team is able to response quickly and effectively • Management or the C-level executives support the medium and give you the go ahead

Weaknesses • Trouble scaling or maintaining a social media campaign • Lack of tools or resources to track & monitor social media campaign results • Not effective social media presence & campaign, meaning goal are not being met • Tough to train or convince management team on social media principles

Opportunities • Creating online presence on sites where the company currently does not exist • New target or niche market that are untapped • Promotions, discounts, offers that can be utilized through social media platform • Partnerships with a publisher or advertiser • Penetration into a new geographical market

Threats • Macro factors such as economy, will affect our campaign • Competitor is going after the same pace with similar campaign • Current campaign sustainable, can it be continue • Obstacles stand in the way of success and failure

Conclusion Viral marketing, having others, tells and spreads the story of marketer for marketer. It is one of the most exciting and powerful ways to reach the audiences. It’s not easy to harness the power of word-of-mouse, but any company with thoughtful ideas to share and clever ways to create interest in them can, after some careful preparation, become famous and find success on the web. Viral marketing is a credible marketing tactic that can deliver positive ROI when properly executed as a component of an overarching strategic plan. Marketers should utilize viral marketing when the messaging can match and support a measurable business goal. This article has basically put the light on the importance of viral marketing.

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Further this article fills the gap in the literature of marketing. Somehow there are some limitations in this article like there is a lack of primary research in it. This article has just focused on extensive review of literature. These limitations will have to be addressed in further research.

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