Viral Marketing and Word of Mouth Marketing

Viral Marketing is the electronic representation of "word of mouth” marketing. Currently, viral video marketing in the form of films and short video clips are the most popular formats of viral marketing and viral advertising campaigns.

Viral marketing is more powerful than third-party advertising because it conveys an implied endorsement from a friend. Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. If the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly fizzles.

At the height of B2C it seemed as if every startup had a viral component to its strategy, or at least claimed to have one. However, relatively few marketing viruses achieve success on a scale similar to Hotmail, widely cited as the first example of viral marketing.

Viral marketing campaigns are much cheaper to produce and disseminate then conventional commercials or media advertising.  In addition, since viral marketing is currently not regulated you can also push the envelope much further with risqué, controversial or shocking viral video content.  

In an age where e-mail spam is rampant viral video marketing is the most effective non intrusive internet marketing method to utilize for your business.