Virus marketing overview

You have to worship viruses. He is concise, and people don't realize that he is a huge number until he wins the advantage simply by quantity. It is parasitic on other hosts and uses the resources of the hosts to multiply their offspring. In an appropriate environment, he will experience exponential growth. The virus does not even need to engage in objects-it simply relies on replication and doubles each time it grows exponentially. After just a few generations, the number of viruses will be astonishing.

I have to admit that the word "viral marketing" is a bit aggressive. People who boast of being viral marketers are daunting. But I like it. You might ask, "Do people have a vaccine against it? ". As a sinister thing, a small virus can only be seen in disaster movies or terrorist movies.

But you have to worship viruses. He is concise, and people don't realize that he is a huge number until he wins the advantage simply by quantity. It is parasitic on other hosts and uses the resources of the hosts to multiply their offspring. In an appropriate environment, he will experience exponential growth. The virus does not even need to engage in objects-it simply relies on replication and doubles each time it grows exponentially. After just a few generations, the number of viruses will be astonishing.

Viral marketing definition

What is the relationship between viruses and marketing? Viral marketing describes strategies that encourage individuals to transfer marketing information to each other and create exponential growth through information exposure and impact. Like a virus, this policy uses rapid propagation to explosively transmit information to thousands of millions of people.

Outside the Internet, viral marketing is used to refer to "word of mouth (word-of-mouth)," "creating a buzz", "" Integrated media (leveraging the media ), "" network marketing ). "But on the Internet, whether it is good or bad, it is also called" viral marketing. "Some of my wise brethren tried to give him a new name to tame and tame him, and I did not. The word "viral marketing" has been circulating.

Hotmail.com's classic case

The typical cases of viral marketing involve hotmail.com, one of the first free email providers. Their strategy is simple:

Free email address service is provided. add a tag under each email: "From http://www.hotmail.com /. Get your personal free email. "Then, when people send emails to their colleagues in the circle of friends, you can withdraw them. people can see the messages and register their free email services. then, send messages to your expanding circle of friends and colleagues.

Like a microwave which is flushed into the river, a well-planned viral marketing strategy spreads out at an extremely fast speed.

Elements of viral marketing strategies

Accept this fact. Viral marketing strategies are good or bad, but few are comparable to simple Hotmail.com policies. However, you may want to include the following six elements in your strategy. A viral marketing strategy does not have to include all these elements, but the more it includes, the better the result. Effective viral marketing strategies:

1. Complimentary products or services
2. Allow others to spread without any effort
3. Easily grow from small to large
4. Leverage common motives and actions
5. Use existing communication networks
6. Use others' resources

Let's take a look at these elements.

1. present valuable products or services

The most powerful word in a marketer's vocabulary is "free ". Most viral marketing projects offer valuable products or services to attract attention. Free mailbox, free information, free "cool" button, powerful, but slightly inferior to the Professional edition of free software. Wilson's second rule of online marketing is "The Law of Giving and Selling "). "Cheap" or "not expensive" may be interesting, but "free" is usually faster. Viral marketing adopts a satisfactory latency strategy. They may not make a profit today, nor tomorrow, but as long as they can use free things to attract endless interest, they understand that they will make a profit, "immediately and once and for all" (sorry, "Casablanca "). Be patient, dude. Free will attract eye-catching balls. The eye will pay attention to the baby things you are selling, and then you will make money if you cannot hide your ears and ears. Eye-catching can bring valuable email addresses, advertising benefits, and e-commerce sales opportunities. Give something and sell something (that is, a gift ).

2. allow others to spread without any effort

During the cold season, hospital nurses will provide wise advice: stay away from coughing (not keso) people, often wash their hands, do not rub your eyes, rub your nose, and chew your nails. The virus can be transmitted only when it is easy to spread. Media that carry marketing information must be easily transmitted and copied: email, website, images, and software downloads. The reason why viral marketing is popular on the internet is that instant messaging is getting easier and the cost is getting lower. The electronic format makes replication easier. From the marketing point of view, you must simplify your marketing information so that it can be easily spread and will not deteriorate. The shorter the appointment. The most classic is: "Get your personal free mailbox from http://www.hotmail.com. "This message is short and concise, and is copied under each free email.

3. simply grow from small to large

The transfer method must be quickly scaled up to fly like a wild fire. The weakness of the hotmail mode is that free email requires the email server to transmit messages. To make the policy quite successful, you must increase the number of email servers quickly; otherwise, the system will be stranded and die. If a virus kills its host for reproduction before it is transmitted, it cannot become a climate. As long as you plan how to quickly add email servers in advance, everything will be fine. Your virus pattern must be installed with an upgradeability.

4. use common motives and actions

Smart viral marketing uses people's common motives and actions. What makes the "Netscape Now" button available in the early days of the Internet? Is a cool desire. Greed drives people. There is also the desire to be famous, the need to be loved, and the desire to be understood. The resulting impulse to communicate resulted in millions of websites and billions of emails. Spread your marketing strategy on the basis of common motives and actions, and you will succeed.

5. use existing communication networks

Most people like social networking. geeks who graduated from computer science in the basement are not listed here. Social scientists tell us that everyone has a close network of 8-10 people, including friends, family members, and colleagues. A wider network may include dozens, hundreds, and thousands of people, depending on their social status. For example, a waitress may communicate with hundreds of customers on average every week. Network marketers are familiar with the power of interpersonal relationships, regardless of whether they are strong and close networks or distant networks. They collect email addresses and favorite website links. Consortium projects that use the same form of licensed email use these networks. Learn to put your information into existing interpersonal communication, and you will greatly speed up the dissemination of this information.

6. use others' resources

The most creative viral marketing will use others' resources for the purpose. For example, the cooperation alliance project places text or images on others' websites. The authors of free articles hope to put the articles on others' webpages. A piece of news may be selected by hundreds of magazines and forms the basis of Articles read by hundreds of readers. Other people's newspapers and webpages become your marketing messenger. Other people's resources are consumed rather than your own resources.

More or less, all viral marketing strategies use the six principles listed above. In the next article in this series, we will shift from theory to practice, "viral marketing techniques that can be adopted by typical commercial websites now. But learn these six principles first. If you master them, you will make a fortune.

This article is available at http://www.nowamagic.net/librarys/veda/detail/847.