Below is an email I recieved from MediaPost’s Email Insider this morning and is worth a read. Everyone wants their campaign to go “viral” but it is not the easiest thing to accomplish. It is also hard to gauge the effect on ROI.
I would be interested in knowing your thoughts on what gives an email “viral-ness” (is that a word?) I think it has to be one of four things:
1.) “laugh out loud” funny
2.) have really good looking people in it
3.) an unbeatable offer or discount
4.) just plain bizarre
Marketers Still Struggling With Viral Strategies
by Erik Sass, Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Major marketers are still coming to grips with viral marketing, it became clear over the first two days of MediaPost’s E-mail Insider Summit. In part that’s simply because viral marketing hasn’t yet produced a large enough return on investment to get execs’ attention.
It’s not for a lack of metrics, according to Syd Jones, senior manager of worldwide demand generation e-marketing for IBM: “One of our marketers has patented a viral marketing method that includes tracking of forwards to the second, the third, the fourth [recipient], that’s actually quite powerful.” Nonetheless, Jones said, “right now it’s a bit of an education among our campaign owners and campaign shapers, because unfortunately it’s still relatively new to them.”
In the same vein, Tim Dolan, vice president of marketing for Return Path, noted: “One of the things we as an organization have struggled with is the potential of ‘tell a friend,’ versus its actual value.” Dolan went on: “‘Tell a friend’ is one of those things where everyone has aspired to achieve great results, but I don’t know how many people actually see that… We’re still working on that.”
(more…)
