Viral marketing strategies for the small business
- By David Carle
July 4th, 1995. USA is celebrating Independence Day, and people from all around the country are enjoying the festivities.
Few people are aware that on this same day, an Internet company that would later become one of the most successful online ventures is being launched into immortality.
On that date, Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia propelled Hotmail into cyberspace. Fewer than two years later, the free e-mail service had 8.5 millions users, and Microsoft would soon deposit an offer to buy the small company for $400 millions.
Now in 2006, Microsoft Hotmail host more than 125 millions accounts, and is one of the most recognizable Internet brand.
This story represents the model of online success for many Internet small businesses. But can you describe the reason behind Hotmail's impressive success? The answer lies in the principles of viral marketing:
1) Give something valuable freely to your audience (e-mail account)
2) Attach your brand to the communication (every message sent from hotmail is signed by "Get your private, free e-mail at http://www.hotmail.com")
3) Forward the message to your community.
4) Watch the message propagate itself, and reap the benefits.
Not bad for a small business working on a small budget launched from a dark basement.
Small business owner, if you are interested in discovering the viral possibilities of the Internet, the following five minutes are highly important for the success of your Internet venture. No needs to worry, viral marketing techniques are easy to apply. If you can open an e-mail, you can learn viral marketing.
What is viral marketing and what can it do for your small business?
Viral marketing is the equivalent of word of mouth, in a more powerful Internet version. In its early days the Internet was an unorganized, entanglement of websites, with almost no social interaction between its users.
Now in 2006, the trend is shifting toward specialized Internet communities housing users of the same interests, such as forums and popular sites like MySpace. Since theses communities provide interesting communications channels, viral marketing represents a great opportunity for the small business looking to get its marketing message spread over its target audience. All it takes is one person infected by your marketing message before that person transforms itself in one of your company salespeople.
One challenge facing your online small business is getting your message heard over the voices of the deep-pocketed corporations. Viral marketing is guerrilla marketing. One person infected at a time, and watch the contagion produce exponential results for your website.
How to carry out your viral market campaign
So you are interested in transforming your customers in your sales force and deposit your marketing message in their hands. So where do you begin?
First, it is important to know it doesn't matter if your company is big or small. The success of your viral marketing campaign will rely on three main aspects: relevance, ease of transfer and communication.
Relevance means developing an original message where the content is suited to your audience, and give it away for free. Many websites are already giving screensavers, e-cards or shockwaves games. Take a good look at your audience, and imagine yourself in their shoes: What would interest you? What do they do for fun, online and offline? What other website do they surf to? Incorporating that special feature to your marketing message is a great way of ensuring its contagion.
Just like an annoying virus, your message needs to be easily transmissible among your target audience. Think about the Hotmail example. Your brand has to attach itself to your message, and make it easy for your customer to pass among his social circle. How about the "e-mail this" script on your site? How about writing a free biweekly newsletter? Now this is something easy to send between Internet users.
The community factor is the psychological part of viral marketing. Let's put our psychology hat on and try to figure this one out. Your recipient doesn't want to hurt his reputation by passing along something of low value. The opposite is equally true: if the recipient feels he is one of the first to know about something cool, he will try to boost his popularity factor by forwarding the message to his entourage.
Go back in your consumer's shoes again, and profile where he hangs out on the Internet. Second, astutely place your message in the conversation, either trough socialization or sponsoring.
One of the most popular viral marketing techniques is writing articles for communities. An article can be easily linked to, and reproduced across multiple websites. Add your name and website's address as a signature to the article, and you are already working on your first viral marketing campaign.
Final thoughts
Some business owners are resentful of viral marketing, as it leaves your prospect the opportunity to add his comments, good or bad. This is part of the risk. Specific viral marketing campaigns work better than others.
As long as you concentrate on giving something valuable and free to your audience, you are improving your chances of growing your customer base.
Your next campaign might not achieve the same success as Hotmail, although a little publicity is better than none.