Viral marketing is a marketing strategy that uses existing social networks to spread a marketing message and increase brand awareness through self-replicating viral processes, with the potential for exponential growth. The document discusses the key elements of an effective viral marketing strategy, including offering incentives or "free" products, easy sharing capabilities, scalability, leveraging human motivations and behaviors, and using existing communication networks. It also provides examples of successful viral marketing campaigns and discusses how viral marketing can backfire if not executed properly.

1. Principles of Marketing
Assignment Paper
Topic: Viral Marketing: a powerful marketing tool
Submitted To: Submitted by:
Prof. Venugopal P. Manas Rai
11BCE0187
Slot - B2

2. Viral Marketing: a powerful marketing tool
Manas Rai
School of Computer Science & Engineering,
VIT University
manas.rai2011@vit.ac.in
Abstract: Viral Marketing is basically a
promotional tool which companies use to
build brand awareness and to meet other
marketing goals cheaply and rapidly. This
paper is an attempt to describe viral
marketing, the key elements of a viral
marketing strategy and the common viral
marketing strategy being used currently in
the business world. Keywords: Viral
Marketing, Marketing Mix, Marketing
Strategies.
Introduction
Viral Marketing describes a strategy which
stimulate the individuals to transfer a
marketing message to others, creating the
potential for exponential growth of a product.
Viral Marketing the term looks offensive. If
anyone call himself a viral marketer surely
people will take a step back. But we have to
admire this virus. Like viruses only these
techniques make use of rapid multiplication
to explode the message to thousands, to
millions and billions. Viral marketing is
basically a promotional tool which
companies use to spread WOM (word of
mouth) about their products, and to build
brand awareness inexpensively and at a fast
rate resulting in increase of sales.
The Viral Effect
According to a leading research nearly 90%
of customers said they told at least one person
about a website when the original
recommendation came from a friend.
Key Elements of Viral Marketing Strategy
There are six basic elements in viral
marketing strategy. To be more effective the
viral marketing strategies should contain
most of these elements. A powerful viral
marketing strategy:
 Grants products or services.
 Provides for effortless transfer to
others.
 Scales easily from small to very large;
 Avails common motivations and
behaviors.
 Makes use of existing communication
networks.
 Takes advantage of others’ resources.
1. Grants Valuable Products or Services

3. “Free” is the most attractive word for a
customer and most commonly used by
marketer. Albeit “cheap” or “uncostly”
attracts a lot but “Free” generates a wave of
interest at rapid rate. For example free email
services, free storage, free account etc. is
commonly used by the marketer to attract
eyeballs. Viral marketers exercise delayed
contentment. They may not get profit at
present but if they are able to generate a buzz
from something free, surely they are going to
get good profit in future and may be for rest
of their live.
2. Provides for Effortless Transfer to
Others
Viruses only spread when they can be easily
transmitted. Same way the medium should be
easy to transfer and replicate that carries
marketing message: social networks, email,
website. Viral marketing is more effective on
the Internet as it reaches to a lot of people
with less effort and cost. A marketing
message must be simple so that it can be
transmitted easily without degradation.
3. Scales Easily from Small to Very Large
To be viral, the transmission method must be
rapidly scalable from small to very large.
Prior to campaign launch a marketer should
take into consideration server bandwidth,
space, support staff, stocking and fulfillment
to capitalize the full success of the campaign.
4. Avails Common Motivations and
Behaviors
Crafty viral marketing plans utilizes common
human motivations. Greediness drives
people. So does the hunger to be loved,
understood and popular. People loves to be in
touch, thus leading to formation of millions
of websites and email messages. A marketer
should focus on a marketing strategy that
utilizes common behaviors and motivations
for its transmission to get success.
5. Makes use of Existing Communication
Network
Most people are social. Surveys show that on
an average one person has a network of
minimum 8 to 13 people in his network of
family, friends, and associates and can be
upto thousands depending upon an
individual’ position in the society. For
example a shopkeeper meets hundreds of
customers daily. These networks must be
utilized by the marketer to easily spread
message and create buzz in cheaper way.
6. Take Advantage of Others’ Resources
The best viral marketing plans utilizes others’
resources to transmit the message. For
example people keep their graphic link on
others websites like we can see on cricinfo or
any other website. Thus someone else’s
resource or webpage is circulating your
marketing message resulting their resources
depleting rather than your own.
Viral Marketing Advantages
 Allows marketers to effectively and
easily reach to the consumer.
 Inexpensive marketing strategy.
 Reaches to the masses rapidly.
Viral Marketing Disadvantages
 If not done properly viral marketing
can backfire and create negative buzz.

4.  Like positives if something went
wrong negatives also can spread
rapidly.
 Threat of spam.
 Brand Dilution.
Marketing Mix
Viral Marketing is not a substitute of
conventional marketing strategies. It should
not be considered as a standalone miracle
worker.
Brand Director for Virgin Mobile Mr. James
Kydd described viral marketing as: “viral
marketing is best used not as a one-off
tactical end in itself, but as an integrated
strategic part of the overall marketing mix. It
is a means to an end whereby it not only
generates buzz, but also provides ongoing,
quantifiable brand benefits, such as increased
awareness, peer-to-peer endorsement and
ultimately more sales.”
Common Viral Marketing Strategies:
Viral marketing strategies differ from
campaign to campaign. Most of the
successful campaigns used some common
approaches. These approaches are generally
used in combination to get the best result.
-Free Services or Products
Most of the viral marketing programs
provides free products or services to attract
and generate buzz. Giving low-cost items
free, such as belts or t-shirts often increases
the likelihood of the sale of higher cost items.
-Compelling content
Creating a quality content is mostly
expensive than giving away free products but
it gives better results. To make a campaign
viral the best strategy is to create a
compelling content which may be hilarious
or raunchy or even controversial. This
strategy is utilized by many small companies
to attract eyeballs.
-Financial Incentive
Financial incentives and rewards plays an
important role in viral marketing campaigns.
Marketers can stimulate users to pass on a
message to get rewarded with points, special
offers or may be cash. For example
‘Buyhatke’ gives flipkart money boucher for
every 5 referals.
Case Study – Myntra.com
Myntra.com is an online shopping portal of
fashion and casual lifestyle product.
Myntra.com, established in February 2007 by
Mukesh Bansal and Ashutosh Lawania,
within 5 years became India’s largest online
fashion store. In its success there is a big hand
of viral campaigning done by the company.
Co-founder of Myntra.com, Mr. Ashutosh
Lawania said that “Technology is a game
changer in the crowded e-commerce market”.
Myntra.com has a solid media presence on
social networking sites. It utilized the social
network brilliantly to expand its customer
base as now most of the people are more
active on social networking sites than
socially. In February 2012 it came up with a
very compelling campaign OOH (out of
home) across many cities to promote online
shopping which created a lot of buzz. It offers
free return service and exchange service
within 30 days. Also it offers financial

5. incentives in form of myntra coupons to its
users for each referral thus promoting its
website smartly and expanding the customer
base.
We can observe that how beautifully
myntra.com utilized the basic viral marketing
strategies for message passing like providing
financial incentives, giving free services and
compelling content as we discussed in the
previous section to achieve great success at
rapid pace.
When Viral Marketing went wrong
Viral Marketing can backfire if not executed
properly and with good planning. In Jan 2012
McDonalds tried on a social media campaign
to boost its emotional appeal to the
customers. It used its own hashtag on Twitter.
They thought that people will share their
good experiences with
McDonalds. But it backfired as thousands of
negative stories were bombarded from the
users thus creating negative publicity for the
brand.
Conclusion
Viral marketing is a reliable marketing
strategy that can give good results in less
efforts and at a rapid rate if executed properly
as we see in the case of myntra.com. But at
the same time if it is not executed properly it
can backfire. So viral marketing is a mixed
blessing as it can spread both positive and
negative words. But keeping in mind the
potential gain of a successful viral campaign,
the marketers should utilize the potential of
viral marketing to achieve their business
goals.
12. References
[1] Wilson, R.F. 2000. The six simple principles of
viral marketing, Web Marketing Today.
[2] Coupey, E. 2001. Marketing and the Internet:
conceptual foundations.
[3] Azeez, W. 2001. Will viral marketing become an
epidemic? New Media Age.
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[5]www.managementparadise.com/santhoshkumark2
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[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing
[7] www.docstoc.com/docs/10944574/Claymation-
and-Viral-Marketing---Juicy-combo-to-Reach-
Millions!
[8]issuu.com/jviteri/docs/connected_marketing__the_
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[9] www.slideshare.net/swatiluthra5/myntracom-
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