viral marketing

Definition

 

Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.

The buzzwords 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 promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. The basic form of viral marketing is not infinitely sustainable.

Information

 

 Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. If the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly fizzles.

At the height of B2C it seemed as if every startup had a viral component to its strategy, or at least claimed to have one. However, relatively few marketing viruses achieve success on a scale similar to Hotmail, widely cited as the first example of viral marketing.

Example:

1. Today many companies are using a way of sms to deliver viral massage, people pass on message that you will earn free balance, talk time etc and continue go to pass the message..

2. The Movie 2012 also used viral marketing for the promotion of the movie, that was already information was prevailing the market about the end of the world in 2012.