Today's consumers are deluged by commercials and advertising, and increasingly, they're finding ways to tune it all out. The Do Not Call List prevents unwanted telemarketing, spam filters block junk email, DVRs allow television viewers to skip commercials, and satellite radio foregoes advertising altogether. Clearly, reaching the modern consumer with your marketing message is more difficult than ever, but the reward for doing so is also unprecedented. Viral marketing is a technique that not only penetrates consumers' self-erected commercial barriers, but goes a step further - enlisting consumers as part of your sales and marketing staff.



Viral Marketing - What Is It?

Viral marketing spreads a commercial message from person-to-person. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on traditional advertising through print or broadcast media, viral marketing campaigns are typically web-based. The basic idea is to send an email message to a core list of consumers and hope that they then forward the message to their friends, who in turn forward it to their friends, and so on. Viral marketing is thus a "social networking" form of commercial advertising.

For example, a popular jobs web site developed a traditional TV ad to air during the Super Bowl. The ad featured monkeys running around an office. In order to build additional buzz, the web site allowed visitors to login and construct silly video email messages using the monkeys. A toll free number could be used to record a personal message, and other things such as the monkey's clothes could be customized. Five months later, the emails are still circulating - 44 million have been sent by more than 6.5 million unique visitors through July, 2006.

No Monkeys on Your Staff? No Problem

The "Monk-email" project, as it was known, cost its creators in excess of $100,000. By contrast, their 30 second Super Bowl ad cost about $1 million to produce, and $4 million to air. While these numbers are well beyond the means of all but the most wildly successful home-based businesses, the point is clear - viral marketing is much less expensive and yet much more effective than traditional advertising.

You don't need a six-figure budget to construct a viral marketing campaign. All you need is a mailing list of your core demographic, and an idea of what they might like to pass along. A good viral marketing message has a 30 percent pass-along rate, which means that a successful message sent to a base list of 5,000 would reach approximately 7,140 people. Of the first 5,000; 1,500 would pass it along; and of that 1,500; 450 more would pass it along, as so on. What's more, each time your message is passed along from one consumer to his or her friends, it is like a personal endorsement of your product or service.

What Should You Use in a Viral Marketing Campaign?

For traditional, broad-based markets, humor seems to work best. Mere jokes are unlikely to make the grade, so an investment in the creation of a video ad is essential. Luckily, the cost and difficulty of producing such material has plummeted in recent years, and there are plenty of freelancers on the web who can be contracted for a reasonable fee.

If your target is more of a niche market, then worthwhile content is probably a better bet. For example, if you provide a financial service, then a short, enticing e-book on stock selection may do more for you than a humorous video clip - provided you have a good list of people who are interested in stocks.

Creating a successful viral marketing campaign isn't easy. But for the creative home-based business owner, the public's aversion to traditional marketing can be a great asset. After all, it levels the playing field. There's no way you can compete with big businesses on TV or in magazines, but you can compete in viral marketing. Of course, having a pet monkey wouldn't hurt!