The following article focuses on the ‘viralization’, if there is such a word, of email marketing campaigns.
What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands and then to millions.
Human Motivations
Viral email marketing and the Internet have always had a strong relationship, as they complement each other. With the use of the Internet, communication is speedier, and the financial cost is much smaller. For your message to be remembered, and easily understood, always take note of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid). Your readership will always prefer something short and easy, to something long and complicated.
Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. The greed and the desire to be cool drives people. So does the hunger for popularity, love, and being understood. The resulting urge to communicate produces millions of websites and billions of email messages.
Sociability
According to social scientists, people are generally social. There might be exceptions, like those who prefer to mingle online instead of meeting people in person. According to studies though, 8 to 12 is the usual extent of an individual’s network (people with whom they are in regular contact). For people who opt to establish a network online, they collect website URLs and email addresses. These are the types of lists that affiliate marketers tend to exploit. Therefore, make sure that your recipients have an existing and active network online, as this assures the transfer of your ads.
In launching a viral marketing campaign, you need to not only focus on the transfer of messages, you should also look into the motivations of people to execute the transfer.