Viral Marketing as a Marketing Strategy: a brief literature review

According to Reece et al. (2010), in order to be considered a viral marketing, marketing campaigns need to be associated with a value for sender and receiver, they need to be free and reproducible and marketing campaigns need to be spread exclusively via the internet.

Zarella (2010) specifies the goals of viral marketing strategy as customer attraction, increasing the level of customer loyalty, and achieving a higher level of brand awareness. According to Waldow and Falls (2012) viral marketing is different from advertising in a way that it promotes products and services in an indirect manner.

Carriers of viral marketing message have been specified by Middleton (2012) as satisfied customers, individuals that are aspiring to be customers, journalists, and experts in the field.

These carriers can transmit the viral marketing message in active and passive ways. Active transmission of a viral marketing message involves carriers to be spreading the message in active ways, such as making direct recommendations via internet. Passive transmission of a viral marketing message, on the other hand, occurs in situations where a particular brand or product is promoted by carriers indirectly, such as through letting others know about the act of purchasing from a specific brand.

Anjum (2011) divides the costs of engagement in viral marketing into three categories: free, indirect, and direct. Viral marketing can be automatically facilitated free of charge when the product is innovative or it offers competitive benefits that are appreciated by consumers. In such occasions innovative features of the product or its competitive benefits become a viral marketing message to be spread by internet users with no costs for the manufacturer. Wirtz (2012) mentions the promotion of Apple’s Iphone in online channels as a case study for free viral marketing.

Indirect costs for viral marketing occur when marketing staff of a firm develop marketing messages intended to be spread by internet users. In these situations the costs of viral marketing is going to be limited to the compensation provided to company marketing staff.

Direct costs for viral marketing, on the other hand, may be incurred when the implementation of viral marketing strategy is being facilitated with the inclusion of incentives for internet users for the spread of viral messages (Anjum, 2011).

Literature review has identified numerous attempts of comparing viral marketing to alternative marketing strategies. Mackay and Willmshurst (2012) offer a detailed comparison of such a nature that is illustrated on the following table:

	Believable	Two-way	Fast	Cheap	Controllable	Action
Viral marketing	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Personal selling	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Seminars	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Advertising	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Sales promotion	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Public relations	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No

Comparison of marketing methods

Source: Mackay and Willmshurst (2012)

Generally instruments employed for viral marketing have been found to include customer recommendations, newsletters, utilisation of search engines, the use of affiliation programs, the use of online chats and sweepstakes, maintaining online communities and others (Beneke, 2010, Schneider, 2011).

The issue of marketing mix for viral marketing has been comprehensively addressed by secondary data authors in the following manner:

Product element of marketing mix includes products that are sold over the internet. According to Anjum (2011), until only a few years ago the rages of products sold online were mainly limited to books, gadgets and other tangible products of smaller sizes. However, in present, Anjum (2011), convincingly argues, most of the products that are available offline can be purchased online as well, including perishable products such as fresh food and flowers.

Wirtz (2012) argues that the development of internet has given rise to a wide range of new products that are available only online such as applications on portable electronic devices, search engines, anti-virus programs, and data bases.

Price element of marketing mix in viral marketing is different form price element in traditional marketing mix in a number of ways. For example, in viral marketing, some products such as e-books or downloadable software products might be provided free of charge in order to motivate individuals to spread the viral marketing message (Anjum, 2011).

According to Kabani (2012), price is not the primary focus in viral marketing, as the primary objective of viral marketing is closely associated with the spread of the message at a global scale.

Place element of marketing mix in viral marketing is fundamentally different from place element in traditional marketing in a way that a universal virtual marketplace represents trading place for viral marketing (Lilien and Grewall, 2012). Anyone with the access to the internet has an access to virtual marketplace. Moreover, virtual marketplace operates in 24/7 basis, and requires minimum or none transaction costs.

Promotion element of the marketing mix in viral marketing adopts individuals as integral element of the promotion strategy.  Waldow and Falls (2012) confirm that if people like a marketing message, it gets spread and may achieve its objectives.

According to Middleton (2012), viral marketing can prove to be highly effective in following circumstances:

Firstly, viral marketing works well for new type of products and services that are innovative in some ways. Specifically, the innovative feature of the new product or service can serve as a powerful marketing message with the potential of going viral.

Secondly, the potential benefits of viral marketing are further increased when the benefits associated with the use of products or services are real. Similarly to the point above, Middleton (2012) argues, specific benefits associated with the use of product or service has the potential of being an effective viral marketing message.

Thirdly, viral marketing can also prove to be highly effective in situations where product or service being promoted caters for the needs of specific group of people. In other words, members of such groups can facilitate the spread of marketing message within the group.

According to Ryan and Jones (2012), nowadays the majority of consumers in the USA and Europe do engage in online researches in relation to products and brands they are considering to purchase, and Ryan and Jones (2012) mention this data in order to explain increasing level of importance of viral marketing.

 

References

Anjum, A.H. (2011) “Social Media Marketing: The Next Marketing Frontier” Grin Verlag

Beneke, J.H. (2010) “The Application of Social Networking as a Marketing Platform to Young Adults: An Emerging Market Perspective”

Kabani, S.H. (2012) “The Zen of Social Media Marketing 2012: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue” Ben Bella Books

Lilien, G.L. & Grewal, R. (2012) “Handbook of Business-to-Business Marketing” Edward Elgar Publishing

Mackay, A. & Wilmshurst, J. (2012) “Fundamentals and Practice of Marketing” Routledge

Middleton, S. (2012) “What You Need to Know About Marketing” John Wiley & Sons

Reece, M., Shah, R. & Kasper, M. (2010) “How to Innovate in Marketing: Collection” FT Press

Ryan, D. & Jones, C. (2012) “Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation” Kogan Page

Schneider, G.P. (2011) “Electronic Commerce” Cengage Learning

Waldow, D.J. & Falls, J. (2012) “The Rebel’s Guide to Email Marketing” Que

Wirtz, J. (2012) “Essentials of Services Marketing” FT Press

Zarella, D. (2010) “The Social Media Marketing Book” O’Reilly

“7 Great Viral Marketing Campaigns” (2012) Inc. Available at: http://www.inc.com/ss/7-successful-viral-marketing-campaigns#4