Newsletter #69 Viral Marketing Revisited

Created on 5/07/02

A special hello to all new subscribers.

The last newsletter (5th June, 2002) was "IM's Here, RU Ready?" and can be found at http://www.netinsites.com/article3.cfm?ArticleID=95

This newsletter only goes to those who wish to receive it. Click on the link at the end of this article if you wish to remove yourself from the list.

---

When Hotmail launched in 1996, Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (venture capitalists) persuaded the company to include a promotional message at the bottom of every email. Hotmail grew from zero to 12 million users in 18 months, an adoption rate more rapid than any in world history. In 1997 Steve Jurvetson of the same firm coined the term 'viral marketing' in a Netscape newsletter and used Hotmail as an example. A buzzword was born!

If you're not sure what viral marketing is, well it's word of mouth souped up for the Internet age. In the same way that you recommend people, services or products in the physical world, doing the same via the Net is deemed viral marketing. On the Net the process is accelerated many times over as you can connect with a larger number of dispersed people far more quickly.

For me high profile viral marketing on the Net needs the following components to be successful:

• A great innovative new product that can be used or accessed via the Net or
• Something that is fun, quirky or different that piques the interest of a large number of people or
• An incentive, monetary or otherwise, to partake and pass on
  and
• A reasonably large amount of development money

If you have any of the first three components and have access to the fourth, viral marketing can be integrated successfully into your overall marketing strategy. A great recent example is New Line Cinema's promotion of Lord of the Rings. Instead of closing down unofficial sites, New Line VP Gordon Paddison cooperated with them and reached out to the more than 400 fan sites. In April 2000, a trailer was released on the official site and 1.7 million people downloaded the clip on the first day and as word spread, 6.6 million people downloaded it by the end of the week.

####################################################################################

INTERNET STRATEGY -- If you or your company are planning an Internet development why not give us a call? Often we find that business managers or owners don't see all the possibilities or fully understand how the Internet can be used within their business. First consultation free. Check out this page www.netinsites.com/ services/strategic.cfm or just reply to this email.

####################################################################################

Another example of how to integrate viral marketing into the marketing mix comes from Lee Jeans. Lee produced a TV/cinema advertisement that starts by showing four naked bottoms talking as they admire a nearby Lee Jeans-clad bottom. The naked quartet begin their search for Lee Jeans the next morning until, to the sound of cheering, they find and pull on their jeans. Before launching the TV and cinema ads Lee worked hard to promote it in a viral fashion. It bought lists of 17- to 22-year-olds and emailed them a link to the ad, placed the ad on media clip site eatmail.tv, added a pop-up window linking to the ad on its homepage and also added a 'Send as an E-Card' feature. Within days of the campaign's launch in March, links to the commercial were showing up all over the US.

Of course most businesses, particularly smaller ones, don't suit this high profile viral marketing. In fact when you get past the major triumphs like Hotmail, ICQ and the Lord of the Rings there are not that many success stories. In fact Chris Yeh from Porthos Consulting says that "Viral marketing is like sex -- everyone talks about it, but most people aren't as good at it as they think." (Boy was I tempted to use that as a title. :-) )

The very nature of the Net is viral, you see or read something you like and you pass it on to those you think might be interested. Bearing this in mind there are a number of ways you can introduce low profile viral marketing into your business.

• Making use of email stationery and signature to include a call to action. I've just upgraded my email stationery so that you can sign up to my newsletter directly from it - just never know where your email might end up. Click on this link to see a screen shot. www.netinsites.com/images/email_stationery_screenshot.gif
  
  
• Can you give something away for free? Most businesses have expertise in an area, that's how they stay in business! Can you provide a free report/analysis or a service that you can brand as your own? If the report has been written or the service is automated there is often very little cost involved.
  
  
• Use your existing communications channels first. What can you add to your existing products or services that is useful to your customer, or the end user, and gets them talking about you?

Remember that viral marketing is just a referral system in an electronic format - think about how you get referrals normally? By providing the very best service and products you possibly can and attempting to exceed your customer's expectations, always.

Alex Garden

---

Newbies

Sometimes Webpage text can be difficult to read because of a dark background, or because of a particular color of text chosen by the site's designer. Next time you encounter such a situation, use 'Ctrl+A' (hold down 'ctrl' and then press 'A') to highlight the entire page. This should turn both background and text a different color and make the Web page at least readable. Simple huh!

For previous tips visit http://www.netinsites.com/hottips.cfm

Power Users

When you click on Windows Explorer or 'Start' it often opens to the Start or another folder. If you'd prefer it open highlighting your entire hard drive or another drive, create a shortcut on your desktop. To do this, right click on a blank area of your desktop, select 'New' and 'Shortcut'. In the Command line, type (without quotes): "c:\" or whatever drive letter you desire and click Next, then give the icon a name and click on 'Finish'.

For previous Power Tips visit http://www.netinsites.com/hottips_power.cfm

---

Google have done a great job again by bringing together news headlines from reputable news sources all around the world. Just visit http://news.google.com/ and scan the latest headlines or search for a topic by keywords. The service shows the latest headlines first and without human intervention. The service is still in beta testing but already is a great resource for those who need to find reputable news on a topic.

Forget the good and the bad, uglyfootballers.com is a site that is topical right now and in fact they've just come up with their 2002 World Cup XI. If you're interested, Golden Boot Ronaldo from Brazil makes the All Time World Cup XI courtesy of his wonderfully ugly haircut! http://www.uglyfootballers.com/

---

No new articles this month.

To search through all the articles in our online database just use the search function on any page of our Website http://www.netinsites.com

No new quotes.

You can see our other Quick Quotes on the front page http://www.netinsites.com; just refresh the page to see another one randomly selected from our database. Great for presentations or times when you want to appear to be a techno-dude(ss)!

---

To access previous newsletters visit our newsletter archive at http://www.netinsites.com/articles.cfm.

If you wish to subscribe to the email version, just send a blank email to subscribe@netinsites.com, or visit www.netinsites.com .

Best wishes

Alex Garden

Internet Strategy | Website Design | Website Promotion | Web Text Messaging | Email Newsletters | Online Sports Games | Content Management