How Does Viral Marketing Work: What Works & What Doesn’t

By Ikedi & Uche - InsightEmpire.com | Apr 12, 2009

Stop trying to force e-mails down people’s throats already! Trying to force or bribe people to send your stuff to people they know in order to get some thing in return or win is quite skanky in today’s ultra-permission-based email world. Especially if you don’t tell the visitor anything about the privacy they will get next to the e-mail form.

A good viral campaign gets passed on because readers are compelled to pass it on due to the content, not because you are bribing them with gifts or anything else.

What absolutely will not work?

Telling e-mail sign ups to send your message to the people they know, will not work. Putting a message at the end of your e-mail that says “Please feel free to send this message to people you know” is more likely to get it scrapped than passed on.

What absolutely will work?

Giving the viewer something that is worth sharing like a big discount, vital content or giving an incentive for distributing it like more entries into a sweepstakes or an increased discount or premium service will likely work.

Relevant or on time information, research, or informative studies that are added to your e-mail may encourage the recipients to send it to people they know. Interactive information such as quizzes or tests, especially if they are fun, will inspire forwarding.

Jokes and cartoons are majority of the time passed on to everybody on the recipients email list. Why? Just because they are entertaining and entertainment has the share appeal.

A really good multimedia experience is very likely to achieve a lot of pass on appeal. Good media is new and the novelty and tech bits about it alone are very likely to make the e-mail recipient keen to share it.

Oops! Almost forgot there’s another important thing. You can make a good e-mail following all these rules, but if the customer goes to the recommended site and has an experience that is not as good as what is promised, you are going to get viral marketing, alright but more of the negative bad kind. So be sure that your product or service is as good as advertised.