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 internet 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. 228 www.jiarm.com JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC RESEARCH FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY Impact Factor 2.417, ISSN: 2320-5083, Volume 3, Issue 12, January 2016 "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 tribe. 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 229 www.jiarm.com JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC RESEARCH FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY Impact Factor 2.417, ISSN: 2320-5083, Volume 3, Issue 12, January 2016 (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., 230 www.jiarm.com JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC RESEARCH FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY Impact Factor 2.417, ISSN: 2320-5083, Volume 3, Issue 12, January 2016 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