How effective is viral marketing?
We have heard about word of mouth/referrals or viral marketing. For people who have have used or using this strategy, how effective was this strategy?
It is effective as you intend it to be or you intended target audience.
When it's done in a creative yet subtle way, it is effective;
otherwise, it'll be annoying. Be careful.
Viral is a term used to indicate the unintended, exponential reach that something demonstrates. For any marketing to be effective it must influence and incite action. The challenge is crafting an action, outside of visibility, that benefits the marketer directly. People do not share messages that further "our" agendas as marketers. They share what resonates with them and what they believe will resonate with their immediate sphere of influence. Combine these x-factors and you have a difficult recipe to reproduce.
"Viral marketing" is a very broad term and a big buzzword right now, so without knowing more specifics, it's hard to answer your question. My advice as owner of a large online marketing agency is that you shouldn't spend much time or money on social media. Endless case studies have shown that, while it's a great tool for a salesperson who needs to contact people, it simply doesn't work for marketing a business. Take a look at the General Motors or PepsiCo social media disasters. Or Costco's bold announcement that they refuse to engage in social media after seeing others lose millions with it.
Depends on your target market, your ideal client and exactly what you are trying to do.
If this would be as effective as they claim, they would not ask for money trom You, they would be doing better even with 10% of earning You would make with their software. I was offering even 50%, and got no answer. Caveat Emptor!
It's highly effective. It's also not a strategy. Sure, you can engineer for virality. However, it's not a guaranteed return. The best path to virality is a great product and equipping your customers with the means, desire and positive effects of doing so. Hence, it is effective when the preconditions are met - and that is where the hard work really is
The efficiency can't be denied. A consumer always needs to appear smart, well-informed, before all his peers. He is very likely to use a product purely based on the innovative promotions a brand makes online.
Aren't we all using viral marketing at some point.
The very point of all of us creating a presence on social media is for our brand names to go viral - to generate a buzz about our products. Whether or not it is successful is another subject.
As far as Handdy Apps is concerned (our product), we use questions/polls on some social media platforms, blogs, videos to create a buzz about the product. It is not hard-selling; we try and make the info useful and interesting so that we get a good reputation first ; and then the word spreads.
It has worked fairly well so far, I would say about 60%. We are working on it more.
Otherwise any potential results are simply unsustainable