What is Viral Marketing?

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.

Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, ebooks, brandable software, images, or text messages.

It is claimed that a satisfied customer tells an average of three people about a product or service he/she likes, and eleven people about a product or service which he/she did not like. Viral marketing is based on this natural human behavior.The goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential (SNP) and create Viral Messages that appeal to this segment of the population and have a high probability of being passed along.

Example of Viral Marketing:

Most people know about one of the great viral marketing campaigns
of all time, the WillItBlend campaign. Those behind the campaign are demonstrating how the Blendtec blends anything, and they mean anything. From avocados to an iPod, they’ve tortured the poor blender with everything but the kitchen sink (and the kitchen sink is probably next week’s video).

Here’s why the WillItBlend campaign works so well:

It’s funny, evoking laughter from almost everyone who sees the videos.
It’s truthful to the brand and supports the company’s brand promise: this blender blends anything. Yet it never strays into television commercial territory.

It shocks by the sheer absurdity of it. No one in their right mind would place expensive electronic devices in a blender. However, by demonstrating the strength of the blender on plastic, viewers intuitively understand that it’s strong enough to chop ice cubes for their daiquiris.