Tag Archives: viral marketing

Viral Marketing-The next strain of marketing

Originally written and published for Ski Area Management in May 2006.  It’s an oldy but goody!

There’s a secret new marketing strategy circulating through the ski industry. It’s basically free, almost always entertaining, and rarely involves a visit to the doctor.

In the old days, marketing was considered a function of your organization, and managing your message was an art. You used “visible” methods, such as printed materials, press releases and ads, TV, and radio spots to build brand awareness and generate sales leads. It worked, but the majority of these tools were expensive and inefficient. As the old adage went, “50 percent of marketing dollars are wasted, we just don’t know which half.”

That’s so last century. Today, marketing has become more personalized. It’s become more of an interactive experience. Instead of being an “art” and a function of your business it’s now an “act” of an organization, one that relies on “invisible” science and technology. We still use technology to generate leads, but also to talk directly with consumers. This is why “viral marketing” is rapidly replacing traditional marketing methods and has become the latest strain of marketing.

Traditional Visible Marketing

“What’s Out”

Invisible Viral Marketing

“What’s In”

Print Collateral Website
Print Ads Banner Ads
Direct Mail Email Marketing
Mail in Sweepstakes Online Contest/games
Professional photography Individual Camera phones
TV ads Video-on-demand
Press release Gossip & rumor mill creation
Emails Instant Message/RSS Feeds
Mailed letter Mobile text message marketing
In-house sales manager Affiliate marketing
Customer comment cards Blogs
Broadcast ski reporting (Snocountry.com) Desktop ski reporting software (Snowmate)

Driven by consumers, viral marketing is rapidly gaining momentum and acceptance in the mainstream business world. A handful of early adopter ski areas are realizing the power the Web has to target the right consumers with the right message and to deliver the message inexpensively. These resorts have come to understand that their guests want three things: segmentation (talk to my group), personalization (in a way that I understand), and conversation (let me have a say). And they are shifting some marketing dollars into online efforts, including viral marketing.

What is viral marketing?

Have you ever visited a website and found an article, a coupon, a special offer, or something else that impressed you so much that you immediately sent an email to a friend about it? If you have, you’ve experienced “viral marketing.”

Viral marketing is a highly effective way to “bug your customers” by marketing your products or services using web-based technology. It is enticing because of the ease of execution, relative low-cost (compared to direct mail), good targeting, and the high and rapid response rate.

The term viral marketing was originally coined by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson in 1997 to describe Hotmail’s email practice of adding advertising for themselves to outgoing mail from their users. The strategy was simple. On the bottom of each and every Hotmail email was the phrase, “Get your free private email at www.hotmail.com.” According to Jurvetson, this simple sentence helped to make Hotmail the largest email provider in India without spending a dime.

Viral marketing campaigns are used to generate awareness or to stimulate specific action. By harnessing the network effect of the Internet, viral marketing can reach large numbers of people rapidly, like a bug or flu virus in humans. Instead of propagating itself by human contact, it does so by computer contact (in a good way). One minute no one’s heard of a product or service like Hotmail; next minute, it’s everywhere.

Viral marketing is effective because it capitalizes on referrals from an unbiased and trusted third party—your consumer. Let just one of your customers catch your “marketing bug,” and they will happily “sneeze it” to everyone they know. Viral marketing campaigns can have a long life expectancy and are usually much more cost effective than other marketing methods, since your “sneezers” take it upon themselves to spread your message for free—more precisely, as the by-product of your customers’ normal online activity.

Building the Bug

A viral marketing campaign should focus on something you do, NOT on who you are. A viral campaign is something that is so cool, so exciting, or so creative that it gets people very excited; they can’t wait to share it with others. Often the ultimate goal of viral marketing campaigns (and the proof of their success) is to generate media coverage worth many times more than your entire advertising budget.

“Bob,” an animated character created by Elk Mountain Ski Resort in Pennsylvania, is a great example of a concept that “went viral” due to its broad appeal and loyal following.  “Bob” is everybody’s Elk insider-buddy who gives them the scoop on what’s happening. He came to life on the web in January 2006. According to general manager Gregg Confer, “Bob is just an ordinary guy doing an extraordinary job… especially for an animated character.” Customers can’t get enough of Bob, so he will soon be appearing in the resort’s coloring books, new clothing line, and on employee uniforms.

The “Bob” concept was developed to appeal to consumers in a fresh and entertaining way that differentiated Elk from its competition. For about $3,000 in development and implementation costs, “Bob” helped drive the resort website visits up 92 percent over a three-month time span during the 2005-06 season. To see how cool Bob is, go to www.elkskier.com.

Making the bug cool

Since viral marketing is relatively new, most organizations are confused about what viral campaigns are and how they work. The method is still evolving. However, there are three basic types of viral marketing: word-of-mouth, pass-it-on, and virtual tools.

1. Word of mouth involves integrated web technology that encourages you to  “Tell a Friend,” “Send this coupon to a friend,” or “Recommend this website to a friend.”

Killington has done a great job of word of mouth viral marketing with their weekly email newsletter “The Drift.” Unlike traditional (and boring) newsletters, this one is off-beat, with a personal writing style that caters to Killington insiders. Besides entertaining content, there’s a contest in every issue. Named “Gimme, Gimme,” the questions keep readers coming back for more. One “Gimme, Gimme” question asked, “If you weren’t planning to go skiing or riding on a given weekend, what could a resort do for you to get you motivated (hint, hint, wink, wink, and a nudge)? Free tickets and a foot of snow are not acceptable answers only because I can control neither.” Respondents could win two 2-Day lift tickets valid for the rest of the season.

Nick Polumbus, Killington’s marketing brand manager (and the personality behind “Drift”), was not able to share the area’s in-house subscribers numbers, but admitted that “our email subscriber list has stayed pretty consistent for the past 3-4 years. We’ve worked hard to deliver content, giveaways, and cool new things such as podcasting to keep our subscribers reading and hopefully coming to Killington.” He admitted that The Drift receives an average of 600-900 email responses to every “Gimme, Gimme” contest. Considering the only cost involved is a bit of creativity, that’s viral! To get the drift of The Drift, go to http://www.killington.com.

2. Pass-It-On is the ultimate viral technique. Ever pass on a joke or political cartoon? Sure, you and everyone else. A January 2006 study by Sharpe Partners revealed that 9 out of 10 adult Internet users in America share content with others via email.

Pass-it-on viral marketing relies on social networking, where the receiver feels compelled to “pass on” and share an article, cool tool, funny video, etc through email to a friend, family member, or associate. Echo Mountain, Colorado, has exploited this in a most unique way. To spread word of the all-park area’s impending opening last March, the resort tapped into the social networking power of snowboarders and freestyle skiers through Myspace.com. For those who have somehow escaped news of this infamous and wildly popular social networking website, it offers a plethora of instant communication (i.e., viral marketing) tools, including music & photo sharing, blog creation, anonymous matchmaking (match people of similar interests), community group space, and an internal email system to send messages to other MySpace.com friends. MySpace.com has recently been criticized for allowing members to post indecent pictures and use high levels of profanity, and for some advertising that violates good taste, none of which deters its fans. According to Alexa’s web report in March 2006, MySpace is the world’s fifth-most popular English-language website.

According to Eric Pettit, marketing director for Echo Mountain, “we chose to build a page on Myspace.com after listening to recommendations from our interns, who are closest in age to our target market. It made sense for us to go where there’s already a [freestyle skier and snowboard] community interacting online. The fact that it’s free didn’t hurt, either.” As for the controversy that surrounds Myspace, Eric said, “People are going to talk to their buds online. We can either join in and help lead the conversation or let it go on without us. We just try to watch what WE say.”

Their viral thinking has paid off. Just a few weeks after creating their page on Myspace.com they had already gathered hundreds of “friends,” comments and pictures. The best part? Their network of sneezers continues to grow, all without spending one single penny. You can see it online at www.myspace.com/echomtnpark.

3. Virtual tools are usually product- or service-based. A viral tool is used online and embedded with a marketing message, like Hotmail’s free emails.

In January of 2004, Vail launched “Snowmate,” a downloadable computer program that website visitors and resort guests could leave on their desktop to get up-to-the-minute information on weather, snow conditions, video clips, and travel offers. Snowmate lets users seek information in a fun, unique, and playful way. It includes “Trevvor,” an animated cartoon character, and animations such as piles of snow on the computer screen when it was snowing at Vail. Vail included “tell-a-friend” tools in the program that made it easy for users to email others favorite images or deals.

Although this type of viral tool is more expensive than most, it is still relatively cheap by traditional standards, and it produced significant returns. According to Kam Rope, director of online marketing and sales for Vail Resorts, there were 55,000 downloads in the first five months, and more than $200,000 in measurable revenue from click-throughs (users who used their mouse to click on a link in the program to visit a website or get additional information). The 2006-07 season will see the third generation of the application, with new elements to make the viral tool more compelling for the user and more rewarding for Vail Resorts.

Spreading the Bug

Coming up with a cool concept that people will embrace and share with others is not easy. But if you can get your “sneezers” involved in building the concepts, they will be more likely to spread your bug. That’s just what Snow Trails Winter Resort in Ohio did this past season.

The Snow Trails “Wanted Video Contest” focused on creating a place where terrain park enthusiasts could show off their best video tricks to all their friends. Snow Trails created a micro-site on their website that allowed registered contestants to upload personal video for “fame and prizes”. Here’s the viral part: to win fame and prizes, the contestants had to engage their network of friends to visit snowtrails.com and vote for their videos. By integrating “tell a friend” and “voting system” software into the micro-site, it was fun and easy for contestants to “spread the word” about their video—and the Snow Trails brand as well.

Snow Trails marketing manager Nate Wolleson says, “For less than $1,000 we were able to excite a target market that is normally very hard to reach, and to generate ten times our investment in sponsor money and prizes. The Wanted Video Contest not only generated a 12 percent increase in visitors on snowtrails.com during the campaign but also spiked an 18 percent jump in people that spent two or more minutes on the site. And, as you know, the longer they hang around, the longer they think about Snow Trails.”

How to Keep from Getting Sick

One of the most exciting things about viral marketing is the fact that anyone can do it. No matter if you are a 25,000 skier-visit area or a 250,000 skier-visit resort, the only thing you need (besides an open mind) is to create something that people WANT to share with others.

Remember that. Many marketers will be tempted to quickly throw together a campaign while viral marketing is still relatively new. Unfortunately, most will fail for one simple reason: lameness. To become viral, the email, website, application, or video being shared must be unique, informative and/or entertaining, or create a definite value by solving a problem. If it doesn’t appear to originate from a credible entity (i.e., a relevant organization or individual to the sneezer), it can be seen as blatant advertising and immediately discredited. Finally, if the leave-behind message doesn’t resonate with the target/intended audience, or provide a meaningful call to action, it’s a waste of time and money.

Spreading your own Bug

So don’t be lame! Inoculate yourself against failure—follow the top 10 best practices of the six areas mentioned above.

Ski Resort Viral Marketing Best Practices:

1. Know your audience

Start with something relevant to your sneezers to get their attention and encourage them to act. Understanding and delivering what your sneezers want is the key to “going viral.” This includes going to where they are (Echo Mountain and Myspace.com) and speaking their language (Killington’s The Drift).

2. Remember who you are

The tone and personality of your viral campaign will either build long-term relationships or destroy them. A fun and friendly viral campaign (Elk Mountain’s “Bob”) will reinforce how your customers see your resort. A borrowed campaign that is not aligned with your overall marketing objectives or your personality will almost always backfire.

3. Keep it short and sweet (K.I.S.S.)

Always keep your content brief and relevant. You have 7 seconds to make an impression that captures the reader’s attention. Use bullet points or short paragraphs to make information and sentences easy to absorb.

4. Layout and design

Appearance and style can play a major role in making your viral campaign a success. Build your viral tool around the niche group you are trying to attract. Keep in mind that not everyone has broadband. Readability and quick on-screen reading should be number-one priorities. For those that do have broadband and are web savvy, exploit it (think Snow Trails, Wanted Video Contest).

5. Covertly embed promotional concepts into your viral tools.

Encourage people to visit your website more often by offering the things that appeal to them the most, such as coupons, e-specials, contests, and fresh content (Vail’s SnowMate).

6. Be unique.

Do things that are unique and grab attention. Be subtle, not forceful.

7. Provide a call to action.

Tell people what you want them to do. Make it simple. Make it intuitive. Make it easy. Vail encourages visitors to download the application and start having fun.

8. Offer an incentive.

Greed is the most common motivator. Use it to encourage your sneezers to act on your behalf: “Tell a friend and be included in a drawing for …” Then, leverage, leverage, leverage! “Tell five friends and get a free …” Snow Trails’ video contest compelled contestants to get their friends to visit the snowtrails.com website to vote.

9.  Trust no one…

…because no one trusts you or what you will do. Post your privacy policy. Highlight opt-out options. Most people won’t consider giving out an email unless they know what you plan to do with it and can remove themselves if they so choose. Killington includes contact and subscription information at the bottom of every email.

10. Be prepared for a big response.

Viral tactics are designed to grow exponentially and are uncontrollable. You tell two friends, then they tell two friends, then they tell two friends, and so on. Often, these hordes will jam your web site, registering, downloading a large file, requesting a freebie, or buying something. If the campaign is strong enough, you might see a 10- or 100-fold increase in traffic within a day. Make sure whatever technology you use can handle the spike. There’s nothing worse than offering something you can’t deliver on.

Go Ahead, Bug Your Customers

What is a Viral Campaign?

Have you ever visited a website and found an article, a coupon, a special offer, or something else that impressed you so much that you immediately sent an email to a friend about it?  If you have, you’ve experienced “viral marketing”.

Viral marketing is a term to describe a low cost, highly effective way to “bug your customers” by marketing your products or services using the Internet.  This “word of mouse” method is like a bug or flu virus in humans.  Instead of replicating and propagating itself by human contact, it does so by computer contact (in a good way).  One minute nobody’s heard of it, next minute, it’s everywhere.  Viral marketing is so effective because it lets you capitalize on referrals from an unbiased third party—your consumer!  Let just one of your customers catch your “marketing bug” and they will happily spread it to everyone they know.

As you know, the power of a positive testimonial from a reliable source will add credibility to your organization.  Putting various viral marketing methods in place will give you a tremendous opportunity to help guide and influence people’s buying decisions without the use of costly advertising.

So what then is a viral campaign?

It’s a specific marketing promotion that focuses on something you do, NOT on who you are.  It is also not something malicious or under-handed.  Viral marketing is used by reputable companies trying to promote reputable products.  A viral campaign does not use spam or programs that force people to see or do things they do not want.

Instead, a viral campaign is something that is so cool, so exciting, or so creative that it gets people so excited; they can’t wait to share it with others.  It’s subtle, not forceful.  It’s uncontrollable.  The exposure you get from this MAY raise sales or otherwise help your company name recognition, but that’s actually the by-product.  That’s why it’s so effective if done correctly!

With a good viral campaign, people feel compelled to spread your word.  They can’t help themselves (just like sneezing when you pass a virus around).  The heart of a viral campaign is the content.  People don’t spread what you say or do because they love you, they spread it because they can’t help but adore your content.  Don’t forget!  They are not evangelists serving you, they are self-serving.

So, you better create a “bug” that sticks around.  All successful viral campaigns appeal to any one (or all three) of these basic human motivators: entertainment, greed, or charity.  Develop a theme around one of those and you may be able to create a full blown epidemic of sales.

What Makes Viral Marketing so cool?

People (read consumers) hate ads.  They will do anything to avoid them.  So, if you want to find a way to appeal to your consumers without offending and without spending huge dollars (another viral marketing perk) than going “viral” is something you should consider.

Despite (or perhaps because of) viral marketing still being relatively new, most people are confused about what viral ads are, how they work, what they should cost (loads of confusion there), how to measure results, etc.  It is still evolving.  However, there are three common forms being used:

1. Word of Mouth such as “Tell a Friend,” “Send this coupon to a friend,” or “Recommend this to a friend”.

2. Pass-It-On, where we receive an article, cool tool, funny video and then pass it on through email to a friend, family member, or associate.

3. Product or Service Based, where a free tool is used online and that tool includes an embedded marketing message, like Hotmail.

Word of Mouth

A good word-of-mouth viral marketing strategy enables a visitor to your website or a recipient of your email to share your site or email content with others with just a click of a button or link.

Amazon.com is a great example of a company that is using viral marketing throughout their website.  When you browse the products, you’ll notice invitations to “Tell a Friend” about this product.  Providing this automatic and easy to use feature, results in increased sales for Amazon products.  Yup, it’s that easy.

How can you do this?  Here are 8 tips to effectively use this strategy on your website:
•    Use tools that encourage people to visit your website more often such as coupons, newsletters, e-specials, contests, and fresh content.
•    Do things that are unique and grab attention.  I.e. cool button or graphic.
•    Provide a call to action by telling visitors what you want them to do.
•    Give clear instructions on how to participate; make it simple, intuitive, and easy.
•    Offer an incentive to encourage them to do what you want them to do: “Tell a friend and be included in a drawing for …”
•    Leverage, leverage, leverage!  “Tell five friends and get a free …”
•    Have your privacy policy posted.  Most people won’t consider giving out an email unless they know what you plan to do with it.
•    Make sure whatever technology you use works.  There’s nothing worse than offering something you can’t deliver on.

Pass-It-On Marketing

We all love to share a funny story, cool resource, or great deal.  When we find one, we usually send an email or “forward” it on to friends, family, or people we work with.  This old “they tell two friends and they in turn tell two friends” method is very effective online because of the ease and simplicity of reaching large groups of people.

Pass-It-On marketing can take many forms.  Including:
•    Articles-writing articles that can be distributed as content for newsletters or other websites.  The article should contain links to your website and include information on you, your company, and your website.  See myMarketingGuide.com for samples.
•   Fun videos or clips-nothing seems to spread faster on the web.  Fun to produce, but not a sure thing for results.  Worth noting—you’ll need extra help with this campaign—unlike games, email, and music which have long established pass-along tendencies, video is harder to spread the word about.  You may need to supplement this with paid advertising to make it successful.
•    Free software or templates-doing something your target market will be interested in, and will find handy and helpful.
•    Online Games or Quizzes-spread like wild fire.  Develop your own game or buy the rights to one.  Unlike common myths, the demographic that loves games and quizzes the most are…adult women.  Many marketers report game interaction time of up to 20 minutes per play.  That’s a lot of time for your brand to hover friendly-like in the background as a sponsor.  I.e. Murder mystery game for forensic scientists sponsored by a forensic tools maker.

Just make sure, whatever you choose, do it well.  For this type of viral marketing to be successful, you have to start with great content that the recipients will WANT to share with others.

Product or Service Based Viral Marketing

MSN.com was the true leader of service based viral marketing with its Hotmail service.  Hotmail is a free email service that is provided by MSN.com and is used by millions of people around the world.

How did they use a free email account as a viral technique?  They added a tagline to every email message sent through their system.  If you’ve ever received a Hotmail email message, you’ll notice a line of text at the bottom, “Join the world’s largest email service with MSN Hotmail…”  That message results in hundreds of new accounts each day on the Hotmail website.  This innovative and inexpensive technique creates massive exposure for MSN.com and the other products and services offered on their website.  Now that’s viral marketing at its finest!

Do you have a viral technique you’d like to share?

Return on Engagement

So, maybe I have been hiding under a rock, but today was the first time I’ve heard the expression that “ROE” or “Return on Engagement” has replaced “ROI” or “Return on Investment” (in the marketing universe).

Active vs. passive

So what is ROE?  It’s about focusing on engagement, and relationships, and attracting and rewarding the right kind of brand advocates to help spread your message.  It is getting people involved in what you do and how you do it.  Or at least that’s what I believe it means.  The term is so new, it doesn’t even have a place in Wikipedia yet.

With social media and the new social networks it has changed how we build a marketing plan.  Although social media does not have an upfront price tag like radio or TV, it is labor intensive and has a reputation (just for kids, not business worthy, etc)  it still needs to get past.  Using social networks for business practices is still new.  There are stumbling blocks.  But, for those that figure it out, the return can be big (as the early adopter that everyone else will try to mirror).

Should ROI ever have been used when it applied to marketing?  Probably not.  How do you really determine the ROI of a radio spot?  Isn’t it more about the response?  That’s why I think ROE is brilliant.  It allows us as marketers to clarify a business who our best customers are and what we can do to continue to excite and engage them.  No matter what the means or marketing channel.

Measurement

Here’s the start of my check list for ROE.  Should these be here?  What others should be added & why?

* Value for advocacy: what is the cost per action as applied to advocacy or outreach (branding, education, etc) campaigns. Including being able to access as many people as possible when your version of a Katrina hits or you have a window of opportunity where the issue you’re working on hits the headlines.

* Recruitment: how many friends per week have been acquired?  How many lost?

* Opportunity cost: how many hours per week have my staff or volunteers devoted to spending time in social networks?

* Viral benefit of social networks: if you have a network in place, you might increase your chances of reaching a lot of people to spread your news. Most social networks are set up to enable communications with a lot of people quickly.

* Demographics: is the audience you’re recruiting from the social network appropriate for your organization?

* Message control: your message is likely to get picked up by others, and to be successful, some amount of message control will likely need to be sacrificed.

* Investing in the future: Maybe the younger demographic of the social networks will be interested in your organization in the future, so start building awareness now.

Go Ahead, Bug Your Customers

What is a Viral Campaign?

Have you ever visited a website and found an article, a coupon, a special offer, or something else that impressed you so much that you immediately sent an email to a friend about it? If you have, you’ve experienced “viral marketing”.

Viral marketing is a low cost, highly effective way to reach your customers using the internet. This “word of mouse” method is like a bug or flu virus in humans. Instead of replicating and propagating itself to other humans it does it to other computers (in a good way). One minute nobody’s heard of it, next minute, it’s everywhere. Viral marketing is so effective because it lets you capitalize on referrals from an unbiased third party—your consumer! Let just one of your customers catch your “marketing bug” and they will happily spread it to everyone they know.

So what then is a viral campaign? It’s a specific marketing promotion that focuses on something you do, NOT on who you are. It is also not something malicious or under-handed. Viral marketing is used by reputable companies trying to promote reputable products. A viral campaign does not use spam or programs that force people to see or do things they do not want.

Instead, a viral campaign is something that is so cool, so exciting, or so creative that it gets people so excited; they can’t wait to share it with others. It’s subtle, not forceful. It’s uncontrollable. The exposure you get from this MAY raise sales or otherwise help your company name recognition, but that’s actually the by-product. That’s why it’s so effective if done correctly!

With a good viral campaign, people feel compelled to spread your word. They can’t help themselves (just like sneezing when you pass a virus around). The heart of a viral campaign is the content. People don’t spread what you say or do because they love you, they spread it because they can’t help but adore your content. Don’t forget! They are not evangelists serving you, they are self-serving.

So, all successful viral campaigns appeal to any one (or all three) of these basic human motivators: entertainment, greed, or charity.  For an example of a viral campaign, check out SkiHeroes.com.