Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Marketing Viral Marketing Viral Marketing For years businesses have understood the power of word-of-mouth advertising; both positive and negative. Enough negative comments spread by unhappy customers can have a devastating impact, and it is obviously desirable to have people spreading the word about the positive attributes of a business’s product or service. Yet until recently, although companies certainly have paid attention to popular buzz, marketing campaigns have not been planned based mostly, or entirely, on getting people to “spread the word.” E-commerce has changed this. A form of word-of-mouth marketing known as viral marketing has proven to be an effective strategy in electronic commerce. The term “viral marketing” describes any tactic designed to encourage people to pass the word in ever-widening circles. This paper will explore this trend through the @ of an internet article entitled “The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing” (Wilson, 2000); and a look at how these principles were applied in a successful viral marketing plan by Hotmail.com. The six principles as outlined by Wilson (2001) are: “1) gives away products or services, 2) provides for effortless transfer, 3) scales easily from small to large, 4) exploits common motivations and behaviors, 5) utilizes existing communication networks and 6) takes advantage of others’ resources.” Hotmail.com utilized all of these and managed to establish itself as the largest independent e-mail provider on the Internet. One wondering what the point is may consider the large (seemingly unending) number of advertisements seen at the Hotmail.com website. The value of ad space grows with each new e-mail account Hotmail.com provides. As stated by Perreault and McCarthy (1999), “advertisers are primarily interested in placing ads on web sites that will give their ads a lot of exposure” (p.454). Give Aways, Effortless Transfers and Common Motivations The basic concept behind viral marketing as applied on the Internet is geometric progression; similar to old-fashioned chain mail letters. Hotmail.com accomplished this by applying Wilson’s first principle: give something away. They offered free e-mail accounts and included a simple tag on the bottom of all e-mails informing recipients that they too could receive a free e-mail account. They also incorporated Wilson’s second principle; provide for effortless transfer by means of including a link to their site on all e-mails. Users had to do nothing to promote Hotmail.com but send e-mails to friends and acquaintances. Combined, both of these features addressed Wilson’s principle of exploiting common motivations: establishing and using a Hotmail.com account was free and it was easy. One of the pitfalls that may come with viral marketing is the possibility of not having enough resources to accommodate a rapid growth in customer base. Hotmail.com avoided this by ensuring that they had, or had access to, enough mail servers to handle the explosion of traffic. Although not all businesses engaging in viral marketing will have to worry about providing mail servers, viral marketing by its very nature will increase traffic to a website. If offering a free download, program, graphic or hyperlink the smart e-business will make sure to have adequate bandwidth to handle this traffic. Nothing will kill a viral marketing campaign faster than customers not being able to access the “freebie” they were offered. Utilizing Existing and Others’ Resources Wilson’s last two principles, using existing communication networks and others’ resources were perhaps the strongest advantages enjoyed by Hotmail.com’s viral marketing strategy. Most of what was required was already in place and being supplied by others. They are not an Internet service provider; their account holders must bring their own ISP. The only other necessary resource is the computers already owned and used by the account holders. All Hotmail.com had to do was supply the mail servers and initiate the viral process by means of a small push to several thousand Internet users. After that it was simply a matter of waiting for the campaign to do its job. Viral marketing is a strategy that can be used by almost all e-commerce businesses. They do not necessarily have to be an Internet based service such as Hotmail.com. Any website offering a free product or service, along with the caveat that the user must be willing accept a link or offer a recommendation, is likely to increase its site traffic manifold. This is comparable to what Perreault and McCarthy (1999) describe as pulling, which is using a promotion to get customers to ask for a product. An increase in traffic, and potential customers, would be beneficial to any business. Bibliography: Word Count: 751
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