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Spreading the Word with Viral Marketing 61
e-special or coupon or include the URL to the page on your Web site
just because you have a great offer—it doesn’t happen! You have to
make it easy.
Here are some tips to make your word-of-mouth campaign effective:
• Have a fantastic button or graphic that grabs their attention.
• Provide a call to action telling the visitors what you want them
to do.
• Place the button in the appropriate place away from clutter.
• Have the button link to an easy-to-use “Tell a friend” script.
The “Tell a friend” script accepts the name and e-mail address(es)
of the friend(s) and the name and e-mail address of your site
visitor that is sending the message to a friend. You need to provide
a section for a message. You might provide clickable options
for this, such as “Thought this might be of interest” or
“Knew you’d be interested in this.”
• 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 (something
of interest to the target market).”
• Leverage, leverage, leverage: “Tell five friends and be included
in a drawing for (something of interest to the target market).”
• Avoid using attachments in the message you want spread. This
will avoid any potential technical problems with the attachments
being opened as well as allaying any fears related to viruses.
• Have your privacy policy posted. If the user is going to pass
along a friend’s e-mail address, she wants to be assured that you
will not abuse the contact information.
Viral marketing will only be successful if the content is good enough
or valuable enough to be passed along.
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62 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
Pass-It-On Viral Marketing
When we find a great resource, a funny video, or a cool game, we usually
forward it to our colleagues or friends who we know will be interested
in it. This old “they tell two friends and they in turn tell two
friends” formula works very effectively on-line to enable you (with the
right content) to reach a tremendous number of your target market.
For this type of viral marketing to be successful, you have to start
with great content that recipients will want to share with others. It can
take many forms:
• E-books
• Small utility programs
• Fun videos
• Digital games
• Checklists
• A sound bite or audiozine
• Articles.
The pass-it-on viral marketing methodology works best using
small files that can easily be spread around.
E-Books
E-books are very big these days. If you have great content that clearly
shows your depth of knowledge on a particular topic, an e-book can do
wonders to create great exposure for you, your site, and your products
and/or services. Ensure that you have clear references to you and links
to your Web site that provide a reason for people to click through. You
might provide additional resources on your site or encourage people to
visit for copies of other e-books you have developed. Then market,
market, market that e-book. Encourage e-zine and newsletter providers
to send a copy to their subscribers, and promote it through your sig file,
in newsgroups, and in publicly accessible mail lists.
Audiozine
A magazine in
audio format.
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Spreading the Word with Viral Marketing 63
You can provide a shareware or freeware program that might be
of interest to your target market. Of course, you want to ensure that
you reference your site throughout the program and give them a reason
to visit.
Small Utility Programs
You can offer small utility programs for your target market which
include your logo. For example, if you own a speaker bureau you can
offer a small program that helps speakers organize their speaking engagement
dates. If you are a car dealer you can offer a small program
that reminds car owners of safety inspections, license renewals, and
scheduled tune ups. If you are a real estate agent you can offer a
program that allows the user to calculate amortization on a mortgage.
Think of your target market and what might be handy and helpful
for them.
Fun Videos
Nothing seems to spread faster on the Web than funny video clips. We’ve
all seen the enraged employee attacking his computer and the bear taking
salmon from the fisherman. Sometimes these video clips are cartoons,
seen one slide at a time with embedded audio, and other times
they seem to be full-scale productions.
Digital Games
If your organization can develop a digital game or you have access to
the rights to use a game, incorporate your logo and link back to your
Web site within the game. A good game spreads very quickly.
Checklists
If you have a checklist that others might find useful, why not include
links to your site in it and then provide it to your target market for use?
For example, you might have a great checklist for making your site
search engine friendly, or if you are a travel agent you might provide a
handy checklist for travel planning. Think about your target market
and what they might find useful. Always remember to encourage them
to pass it on through viral marketing.
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64 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
Sound Byte or Audiozine
New technology can send sound bytes. As long as the sound byte is
relevant, pertinent, and of value to your target market or people in the
industry you serve, people will pass it on.
Articles
Writing articles that can be distributed as content for newsletters or
e-zines is another form of viral marketing. These articles can also be
distributed to be used as Web site content as well. Just make sure that
you have clearly stated that others are free to use your article as long as
they include it in its entirety verbatim and include the Source box. The
article should contain links to your site. The Source box should include
information on you, your company, and your Web site.
You should track your viral marketing rate of infection. You want
to know what is working and how fast it is working. You can always
include a graphic in the article or e-book or digital game that is accessed
from your site. Then you can use your Web traffic analysis to
find information on the effectiveness of your pass-it-on viral marketing
campaigns.
Product- or Service-Based Viral Marketing
Two of the most prominent service-based viral marketing campaigns
are Hotmail and Blue Mountain.
The Hotmail Example
MSN.com (http://www.msn.com) has capitalized on viral marketing to
the fullest extent with its Hotmail service. Hotmail is a free e-mail service
that is provided by MSN.com and is used by millions of people around
the world. Why is a free e-mail account a viral marketing technique?
Because whenever a message is sent from a Hotmail account, a tagline is
automatically inserted into the body of the e-mail message that tells the
user about Hotmail’s e-mail service. The message reads as follows:
Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail
http://www.hotmail.com.
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Spreading the Word with Viral Marketing 65
This small message results in hundreds of new e-mail accounts being
opened daily on the Hotmail Web site. Although Hotmail doesn’t
provide any commercial services (i.e., they don’t sell anything), this viral
marketing technique creates mass exposure for the MSN.com Web
site. Visitors typically log in to their Hotmail account on the MSN.com
Web site, which creates exposure for the other product and service offerings
available on MSN.com (see Figure 4.3).
Blue Mountain—
Taking Viral Marketing to the Next Level
Blue Mountain (see Figure 4.4), is a site that is synonymous with electronic
greeting cards or e-cards. Initially Blue Mountain received thousands
of visitors daily who all sent free electronic greeting cards to friends
all over the world. Today Blue Mountain still offers this service to the
public, although a nominal annual fee is now charged if you want to be
a member.
Initially when you visit the Blue Mountain Web site, you are presented
with an array of different options such as e-cards, gifts, paper
Figure 4.3. Thousands of people access their Hotmail account through the
MSN.com Web site every day, thus creating exposure for MSN.com’s other
product and service offerings.
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66 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
greeting cards, and downloadable screensavers. When you decide to
send a friend an electronic greeting card and finally select a greeting
card from the thousands of cards available on the site, you are asked to
fill out the contact information for the individual who will be receiving
the card. This process is illustrated in Figure 4.5.
Blue Mountain encourages the recipient to visit the Blue Mountain
Web site to reply to the sender with another electronic greeting card.
This again provides Blue Mountain with the opportunity to sell a membership.
Through viral marketing, Blue Mountain is able to spread the
word about its business quickly and in a cost-effective manner.
Virtual Postcards
Today a large number of businesses, especially those that are tourism
oriented, are increasing traffic to their sites by offering virtual postcards
on their Web site, which enables them to capitalize on viral marketing
opportunities. Visitors can send virtual postcards to their family and
friends. The postcard should not actually be sent as an attachment, but
rather, an e-mail notice is sent saying that a postcard is waiting for the
Figure 4.4. Blue Mountain has one of the largest collections of electronic
greeting cards on the Internet.
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Spreading the Word with Viral Marketing 67
recipient at a particular Web address. By clicking on the Web address,
the recipient is sent to the Web site to view the personalized postcard.
An example of this is Carlson Wagonlit Travel (http://www.
carlsonwagonlit.ca), a site that gives visitors the opportunity to send
their friends colorful postcards via e-mail from different locations around
the world (see Figure 4.6). When you send a postcard to your friend, he
or she receives an e-mail containing a link to the page where the postcard
can be viewed. When your friend clicks through to view the postcard,
there is also a Carlson Wagonlit Travel logo and links to other
sections of the Web site. Offering electronic postcards is a great way to
generate repeat visitors to your site and to spread the word about your
site through the use of viral marketing.
Internet Resources for Chapter 4
I have included a few resources for you to check out regarding viral
marketing. For additional resources on a variety of topics, visit the Resources
section of my Web site at http://www.susansweeney.com/
Figure 4.5. Visitors can send electronic greeting cards to multiple recipients
from the Blue Mountain site.
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68 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
resources.html. There you can find additional tips, tools, techniques,
and resources.
Recommend-It.com
http://www.recommend-it.com
A network that helps you drive traffic to your Web site through referrals;
it offers incentives for visitors to tell a friend and affiliate opportunities
for site owners.
Viral Marketing Techniques the Typical Business Web Site Can Deploy
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-deploy.htm
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant, gives readers some ideas
for viral marketing on their Web sites.
Refer-A-Buddy.com
http://refer-a-buddy.com
A tool that allows you to incorporate a “Tell a friend” script into your
Web site; a year’s subscription to the service is US$15.
Figure 4.6. Carlson Wagonlit Travel (http://www.carlsonwagonlit.ca) offers
free virtual postcards to generate exposure for its Web site.
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Spreading the Word with Viral Marketing 69
Tips for Optimizing Viral Marketing Campaigns
http://www.clickz.com/em_mkt/opt/article.php/837511
A great article on viral marketing and some tips to follow to create an
effective campaign.
Tell a Friend Scripts
http://www.toolz.com/scripts/descriptions.asp?a=3
http://scriptsearch.internet.com/details/4711.html
Viral Marketing Case Studies
http://www.viralmarketer.com/vmcases.html
This extensive list of viral marketing case studies provides an in-depth
look at many successful online businesses that are leveraging viral marketing
opportunities on their Web site.
When Viral Marketing and Householding Intersect
http://www.ecrmguide.com/article.php/2105441
An article that compares householding and viral marketing.
Viral Marketing Tips
http://www.emage-emarketing.com/viral-marketing.htm
Dr. Ralph Wilson provides some valuable information and tips on how
to leverage viral marketing on your Web site.
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70
5
Permission Marketing
Permission marketing is an important aspect of Internet marketing.
When you put forth the additional effort to proactively ask your target
market to do something, you receive a much better response than if you
just sit back and “hope they do it.” Similarly, if you ask people for their
permission to send them materials on a specific topic, and they accept,
you do not risk intruding on their privacy. Companies that force content
on individuals through the Net hold little credibility in the eyes of
their target market—and bad news spreads quickly. New legislation further
imposes restrictions on what you can and cannot send via e-mail.
When you play your cards right, permission marketing can be a valuable
asset to any marketing campaign. In this chapter we discuss permission
marketing and its uses to provide you with a greater
understanding of this topic.
Permission Marketing Explained
Permission boils down to asking your target market and Web site visitors
for the authority to perform a specific action—for their permission
to do, or send them, something. Many businesses and advertisers com-
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Permission Marketing 71
pete for the attention of their target market on a daily basis, but it is
very difficult to break through all of the advertising clutter. The key to
permission marketing is to get your target market to willingly volunteer
to participate in the process. In order to do this, whatever it is you are
proposing must be of value to your target market—you have to make it
clear to the user by answering the question “What’s in it for me?” If
your target market sees no benefit in participating, then they will not
participate—it’s that simple.
Chapter 3 discusses many ways to encourage repeat visits to your
Web site. Almost every repeat-traffic generator provides an opportunity
for permission marketing. Examples include:
• “We change our coupons every week! Click here to join our
mail list to be notified as soon as we update.”
• “Click here to join our mail list and receive our biweekly Internet
marketing tips, tools, techniques, and resources newsletter.”
• “We have new specials on a regular basis. Click here to be notified
by e-mail when we post our new specials.”
• “We have a new contest every three weeks. Keep checking back
or Click here if you’d like to be notified by e-mail every time we
begin a new contest.”
• “We constantly update our Calendar of Events. Keep checking
back or Click here if you’d like to be notified by e-mail every
time we update.”
What makes permission marketing so effective? Permission marketing
is not intrusive. Your target market volunteered to receive the information
you’re sending because it is of interest to them, and as a result
they expect to receive it. This significantly increases the likelihood of
your target market’s viewing the material sent to them and their being
receptive to it. When implemented correctly, permission marketing can
be a valuable asset in acquiring new customers and maintaining relationships
with existing ones. We discuss some of the ways in which you
can use permission marketing to increase your online marketing success
in the next section.