ViraL MarKetinG

One very important and useful technique i've learned on my E-Marketing class is the term: “Viral marketing”. This concept in simple words describes any way or strategy that would make individuals to pass on a marketing message to others. This words i've put in bold are the main concept of a viral strategy and the reason why as it name says, it indeed refers to viruses; but don't be scared!. It refers to a virus because by passing a mesage to others it creates the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence so that each time there's more and more people following your idea.

One very good example of Viral Marketing is the classic “Hotmail.com” which is one of the first free Web based e-mail services. The viral strategy they followed is simple:

They just catch a few customers at the beginning as they offered free service, so in order to explode a viral campaign, they just attached a "Hotmail free suscription link" to every email their customers send so as all the time people was passing the marketing message to others, then at the end everyone get into the service and so on it has become the most popular email service in a couple of years.

Another important thing to know about viral techniques ithat i've learned on Emarketing Class is that brands can also harness viral marketing techniques to enhance their performance. And by using these techniques they can generate new interest and extend to a larger audience which will generate more demand, making the communication more authentic.

Finally, accept this fact, some viral marketing strategies work better than others, and few work as well as the simple Hotmail.com strategy. But however if you manage to launch a good viral message, customers will be speaking in your behalf and your message will be spreading like a virus.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1l3rJmLU2s and watch another example of how a brand can use a viral marketing technique.