Viral Marketing - Does it Work?

[incka]

Does Viral Marketing work?

An example of a viral marketing program (http://www.freeviral.com)

I read somewhere that JoeCartoon.com used Viral Marketing and thats what made them so popular.

[Chris]

Canned viral marketing I put in the same boat as submitting to 200 search engines.

Viral marketing works, it works great, but it isn't something you can apply to every site, it isn't something that some site can sell you.

In most cases viral marketing is something that happens, not something you plan.

Any site/service that promises you traffic is best avoided.

[Stephanie]

Hi Incka,

I totally agree with Chris, this type of viral tools brings you untargeted traffic, which will end up giving you a very lousy conversion rate.

I use another type of viral marketing, which is giving away a free ebook from my website, and letting others give it away on their website. This takes more time of course but it is worth it in the long run.

My two cents!

[snoopers]

Making your website "viral" does work though.

I've found "tell a friend" programs to work well on my site. Not only do they give good, targeted traffic, but they also make your website more sticky and are a good revenue generator.

I'm currently using TAFmaster.

[lo0ol]

Viral marketing works especially well for those types of sites that have a general appeal. The humor links and stupid little flash games you get in your email from friends are examples of this. I've read on some sites that their site might go from 0 to tens of thousands of visitors in as little time as a week. But I don't think all sites have this option, or at least to this degree.

[incka]

Originally posted by lo0ol
stupid little flash games


That's my site in 4 words :eek:


I signed up to a tell a friend thing that pays... I'll see if it works :D

[lo0ol]

Nothing wrong with stupid flash games. :) You could see good results with this. Let us know.

[incka]

I'm using opt-media insted of the one you mentioned...

[Yael]

I agree, targeted viral marketing makes sense.

I use e-cards on my site, http://www.gemsinisrael.com/ecards/carddesk.html which sometimes works better than Tell A Friend, although that is also good.

I do also offer a free e-book.

[NancyRT]

I agree with most of the posters here. viral Marketing works well for sites that have some mass appeal, or which capture the fancy of a large audience. Some viral techniques can be used to promote any Web site, although these probably should be supplemented with paid advertising, etc.

[Yael]

While we're on the suject of viral marketing, is there anyone out there devloping viral games that would be willing to barter services?

[Mike]

Isn't there a member here doing it? Sure someone posted about this a bit ago.

[billiousness]

I think it is important to not confuse viral marketing with a simple word of mouth refferal of a product or service.

Viral marketing is the almost out of control marketing virus that spreads quickly and spreads far. In most cases it is a heavily planned unique creative execusion that allows for this to occur. Sometimes it just happens without the marketers intention. Viral Bank http://www.viralbank.com or Viral Planet http://www.viralplanet.com or Viralmeister http://www.viralmeister.com are always decent places to start to see what people have done previously to create a viral effect.

Word of mouth or unrewarded refferal marketing is more the development of such a good product or service experience that people tell their friends about it or implmenting easy to refer systems that allow people to refer the given product/service without much effort.

I now it seems like a fine line but when you split the two up you can come up with seperate strategies and hopefully gain more customers.

[chromate]

Originally posted by Mike
Isn't there a member here doing it? Sure someone posted about this a bit ago.

Yeah, the guy doing the game for dyson.

[incka]

A car did one I think, I saw a tv program about it, over 3/4 of the people on the net at the time so the creative thing...