100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS • 215Marketers from many of the largest corporations are using the
internet extensively for viral marketing. When Procter & Gamble,
GM, Pepsi, and most of the world’s largest brands use the internet,
it opens the door and reduces the perceived risk.
The idea
The term “viral marketing” was originally invented to describe hotmail.
com’s email practice of including advertising for itself in outgoing mail
from its users. The idea is that if an advertisement reaches a susceptible
user, that person will become “infected” (ie become a customer or
advocate) and can then go on to infect other susceptible users. As
long as each infected user contacts more than one susceptible user on
average, then the number of infected users will grow fast.
Hotmail.com was developed by Microsoft, and is one of the fi rst free
web-based email services. Its strategy is simple. It gives away free email
addresses and services with a simple tag at the bottom of every free
message: “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com.”
People then forward this email to their own network of friends and
associates, who see the message and sign up for their own free email
service. This then keeps the cycle going, creating an ever-increasing
circle of contacts, like a pebble quickly creating ripples in a pond.
In practice
Viral marketing has several key elements:
-^ Give away valuable products or services. Most viral marketing
programs give away valuable products or services to attract
(^95) VIRAL MARKETING