Just read a fantastic post on Eric Kintz’s blog about the dynamics of viral marketing. He highlights the “key insights that all marketers should use as they develop word of mouth campaigns”:
#1 – Viral marketing does not spread well. In epidemics, high connectors are very critical nodes of the network and allow the virus to spread. In recommendations networks, a few very large cascades exist but most recommendation chains terminate after just a few steps.
#2 – The probability of viral infection decreases with repeated interaction. Providing excessive incentives for customers to recommend actually weakens the credibility of those links. The probability of purchasing a product increases with the number of recommendations received, but quickly saturates to a constant and relatively low probability.
#3 – Viral effectiveness varies depending on price and category. Social context has a high influence on the potency of viral infection. Technical or religious books for example had more successful recommendations than general interest topics. Smaller and more tightly knit groups tend to be more conducive to viral marketing.
The insights are gleaned from a research paper which makes for a fascinating read and is something I will be referencing over the coming months.
The insights are quite eye-opening from a marketing and communications perspective. While the fact that niche products are more likely to be promoted via viral marketing, the fact that repeated recommendations after a certain threshold are more likely to turn a consumer off due to feeling like spam is quite interesting.
We all know that we are more likely to buy a product after receiving a recommendation from a friend or family member than after receiving a piece of direct mail. However, if you’re thinking of setting out to convert your customers into your own personal salesforce, then the following passage is well worth a read.
Marketers should take heed that providing excessive incentives for customers to recommend products could backfire by weakening the credibility of the very same links they are trying to take advantage of.
Traditional epidemic and innovation diffusion models also often assume that individuals either have a constant probability of ‘converting’ every time they interact with an infected individual or that they convert once the fraction of their contacts who are infected exceeds a threshold. In both cases, an increasing number of infected contacts results in an increased likelihood of infection.
Instead, we find that the probability of purchasing a product increases with the number of recommendations received, but quickly saturates to a constant and relatively low probability. This means individuals are often impervious to the recommendations of their friends, and resist buying items that they do not want.
Technorati Tags: Business Cards, Eric Kintz, Piaras Kelly, Viral Marketing
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piaras – what’s your take on this http://www.dublincoastaldevelopment.com/ joke put out by the new property site http://www.funda.ie/ ? did they push the viral too far by sticking up fake planning permission signs at the weekend? has their consistent spamming of the main irish forums worked for or against them?
Funny you should mention it, I finally saw it yesterday and I was left scratching my head. Is it just me or does no-one else find it funny?
It seemed to me that it was trying to be a bit like a Carlsberg ad, but it took too long for the punchline to come around.
Didn’t see the planning permission signs or the spamming. Spamming would definitely have worked against them, the signs sound funny.
At the end of the day though, the main part of their campaign – the viral – didn’t grab my attention so I never visited their website.
it made me smile, a little. more in admiration than in humour. the farm did a really good job on the video.
the reason i asked, was that it’s a viral that’s clearly been pushed, and pushed hard.
it surfaced on various irish boards early/mid last week, but never really gained much traction ( a lot of people didnt watch the video to the end, so missed the fact that it was a viral). possibly that’s becuase the people you could expect to forward this around saw the fact that it was being pushed anyway, and so didn’t bother.
then friday they pulled the signs stunt, which atleast made morning ireland for them, though morning ireland neglected to mention that this was just a viral for a property site. actually, all told, i’m not sure this is a real viral – it seems more just a stunt to get the press (and only via the press, the public) to notice them. they seem to have wanted too much too quick for it to be a viral, in my book. virals should be slow-burners – you can’t control when they’re going to explode.
what’s weirdest about is there is nothing at the of the website. given how hard they’re pushing this video (and not merely letting it propagate itself). by the time there is something at the end of the website, i’ll have forgotten all about it. there really needed to be a website live and active last week, when the viral was released.
Just flicked through to the website and you’re right, it’s quite strange – hardly fills you with confidence does it.
The production is very slick for the video.
Well if coverage is the only metric they are concerned with then they have scored well – a full 5 minute feature on the site on the RTE Main 9′o’clock news this evening, including snippets of the actual viral video . The report mentioned that the total cost of 30k Euro which would be buttons for most above the line campaigns. But as with my amnesia over Corona boot sponsorship, I can’t help thinking that their branding has let them down. Despite actively looking for the site, I’m damned if I can recall what the name of the property company is. if they had created a campaign where people could create and put spoof property ads for their own homes up and sent on to their friends this might have worked. Earthlink have done this well with their Challenge campaign. http://earthlink.podshow.com/
As FMK says this is not really a viral at all. I cannot imagine anyone sending on this video to others – not engaging enough really. And they have alienated a lot of people while not cultivating any real loyalty to their product. Just because you can do something does not mean you should!