It's Catching

Brandweek, June 5, 2000 by Karen J. Bannan

"Marketers should keep in mind that viral marketing is a great idea, but you should always be thinking, 'Can I make this work if it feels to artificial?' You'll always hear about success stories," says Slack. "The best campaigns are going to be the ones that you don't have to promise your users anything."

Karen J. Bannan is a freelance writer who writes about e-commerce, technology and the Internet for Business Week Online, The New York Times and Internet World.

Spreading the Word

When it comes to getting the word out, e-mail is the killer app.

Viral marketing, which is a term that is often used interchangeably with e-mail marketing, is succeeding because consumers are becoming the medium by which advertisers get their word out. Since the messenger is familiar to the recipient, consumers are more likely to trust the message.

Health and lifestyle Web site Asimba.com found this out first hand. Last September, the company had 30,000 members and scant marketing funds. They needed to get their message out and register new users without spending a lot of cash.

Banking on the popularity of viral marketing, Asimba.com posted a prominent link on its site for a Friends and Fleece viral e-mail program--a take-off on MCI's Friends and Family campaign. Users could earn points towards a free fleece vest by referring friends. Once 10 of their referrals registered on the site, the fleece was theirs. The link paid off. Today, Asimba.com boasts more than 500,000 users, says Adam Roth, the company's vice president of marketing. "One of the nice things about this referral program is that we knew people weren't going to be referring other people who they didn't feel comfortable telling about us," says Roth. The viral route also saved the company quite a bit in marketing costs. Roth estimates Asimba.com paid $3 per user acquisition versus the $300 that the company would've paid by going the TV ad route that many dot-com companies seem fond of.

Free Internet Service Provider Bluelight.com also went the viral route. Surprisingly, the company didn't offer free gifts or incentives, yet even today they are still getting plenty of pass-along, says Dave Karraker, the company's director of marketing. Bluelight.com, which is a Kinart company, posted a simple tell-a-friend link on its Web site. That link translated into the second-largest source of new subscribers, says Karraker.

"People are passing on our message because they think it's such a good deal they want their friends to know about it. If our service wasn't free, it probably wouldn't work as well," he says. Jupiter Communication's Slack agrees. Users will only pass on a message that benefits them or their friends. Those programs that adhere to this adage are likely to succeed.

Even if they follow it to the letter, there will be some that are unsuccessful with viral marketing. For example, this spring, home furnishings retailer Ikea was forced to pull a viral promotion from its site a mere 24 hours after it was posted. The problem? The offer, which gave visitors gift certificates as a reward for publicizing via e-mail the company's latest store opening, was misused. Even though Ikea limited the amount of passalongs to 10, some visitors spammed strangers who in turn complained to the company. Again and again, retailers are learning that people don't like spain.