VIRAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN IN COMPETITIVE EDGE

Effective viral marketing campaign for Bangladesh: an analysis

ABSTRACT

Global competition on the marketplace requires thorough planning and careful investment of capital. Start-up companies with a limited budget need to reduce cost wherever feasible. Eliminating promotional costs by using viral marketing is a big saving for a company and viral marketing has become the number one option to create dynamic brand awareness. The power of online influence, namely, “word of mouse” plays a key role in the spreading of a message. The key driver in viral marketing is the effectiveness of unsolicited, electronic referrals to create awareness, trigger interest, and generate sales or product awareness. Viral marketing process influences consumers’ actual behaviors, particularly in a cluttered business environment. In this paper I want to show how viral marketing influence consumer decision making process and tried to relate a model with this process. The research output identified tie strength is more effective for viral marketing than demographic similarity. Demographic similarity had a negative influence on each stage of the decision making process. The tourism sector of Bangladesh can be developed by using this model. By creating a Chat room or virtual group the country can developed the tourism product. People from other country will join the chat room and gathers information about different tourism site of Bangladesh. A Web link will support them to have virtual tour to different tourist site. The foreigner will verify the product and get enough viral information. They compare the viral information with virtual tour and videos, and finally start viral marketing to friends and copartners. I conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and methodological contributions of my work and of managerial implication of these findings for global marketer interested in strategies for leveraging peer-to-peer referral networks.

INTRODUCTION

The Internet greatly facilitates consumer communication. E-mail, face book and other social communication site allow consumers to share information far more easily than ever before. This interconnectivity is a global matter that facilitates both positive and negative word-of-mouth. This distribution of information can not be easily controlled by marketer or brand manager. It also challenges the existence of geographical market, and hence the ability to conduct local marketing strategies.

From the point of view of marketer viral marketing is the best possibilities that challenge the existing Communication system of the company. The goal of viral marketing is to use consumer-to-consumer communication as opposed to company-to-consumer communication to disseminate information about a product or service, thereby leading to more rapid and cost effective adoption by the market.

Message distribution can either be intentional on unintentional. Consumer sometimes send message to their friend via facebook when they are delighted by purchasing a product. The most common version of intentional viral marketing occurs when consumers willingly become promoters of a product or service and spread the word to their friends; they are driven to do so either through an explicit incentive or simply out of a desire to share the product benefits with friends. As example, creating a facebook group and yahoo group promote the tourism sector of Bangladesh toward the people of this country and abroad.

The viral marketing concept and this example suggest that marketer can leverage the power of interpersonal networks to promote a product or service. The concept assume that electronic, peer-to-peer communications are an effective means to transform communication networks into influence networks, capturing recipients’ attention, influencing interest, and eventually leading to adoption or sales.

E-mail seems here to stay, and there is no doubt that peer-to-peer, e-mail based communication will continue to play an informational and influential role on recipients’ behavior. The inauguration of spam, unsolicited bulk e-mail, and e-mail based electronic viruses has made recipients suspicious of most unsolicited e-mails. Consumer experience a high level of noise in their day-to-day electronic communication and for viral marketing campaigns to be designed more effectively, there is a need to better understand which online referrals are likely to cut through the clutter and which are not.

To better understand why and how viral marketing can be effective, we must understand its pass-along process and its underlying mechanism of influence. While the existing word-of-mouth communication inform us, it is important to note that electronic referrals differ from their “offline” counterparts in two significant ways: they are electronic in nature, no face –to-face communication and those referrals are usually unsolicited, they are sent to recipients who not looking for information, and hence are not necessarily willing to pay attention to them.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it. In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product. Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pass on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.
Viral marketing is a term coined to define the productive ways a marketing message is made available. And corporates are using the medium to circulate brands and brand messages. The idea has caught on like a virus, as efficiently as Information Technology has entered households and businesses. Firms are now structuring their businesses in a way that allows them to grow like a virus and lock out the existing brick and mortar competitors through innovative pricing and exploitation of competitors' distribution channels. The beauty of this marketing technique is that none of it requires any marketing. Customers, who have caught the virus, do the selling.
Organizations are realizing this only too well these days as they jump on to the social media and viral marketing bandwagon to gain visibility and immense popularity in a short span. Recently, Moonfruit, the little known web designing firm, unleashed its cool campaign where it rained Apple iPhones on people who followed it on Twitter or Re-Tweeted their promotional message. Marked by remarkable success, where the company enjoyed enormous brand awareness, resulting in increased sales queries and orders, the campaign became so popular that Twitter had to intervene to make sure Moonfruit didn’t hijack Twitter in the course of its promotions. And the promotional campaign was a miniscule cost when compared with the success that the company derived.
This power of new generation marketing tools like Twitter and Facebook are being tapped into generously, not just by companies in the business of digital products and services but also by organizations that sell brick-and-mortar products for the real world. Lastminute.com, the travel, entertainment and lifestyles portal recently launched a Viral Video of the YouTube kind, where a man in underwear walking along the road in Britain is encountered by former BBC weather forecaster, Michael Fish, who uses a big fish as his bat to beat ice on him.


Objectives of the study:

The main objective of the study is to find out the ways how viral marketing can be effectively used in Bangladesh. In the light of this main objective, the specific objectives of the study are as follows:

1. To identify the types of viral marketing campaign applicable for Bangladesh.
2. To find out whether stronger relationship or geographical dissimilarities affect viral marketing campaign in Bangladesh.
3. To identify effective strategies for viral marketing campaign in Bangladesh.
4. To identify the problems of viral marketing.
5. Finally, recommendations for improving viral marketing in Bangladesh.

Methodology of the study:

Nature of research design:
The descriptive research design is used in this study.

Sample size:
In this study, students of various public and private Universities have been selected for the survey. The total number of sample is thirty.

Data collection:

Non-probabilistic sampling technique has been preferred for the study. Most of the data of the study has been collected from primary source. A structured questionnaire has been used for the purpose of colleting primary data for theoretical justification of the study. Different local and international published articles, websites and different text books related to viral marketing had also been reviewed.

Data Analysis:

In this study, multiple correlation coefficient, R², which is also called coefficient of multiple determination has been used to determine the strength of relationship between tie strength and demographic similarity which have a contribution in explaining the effectiveness of viral marketing. To measure the relationship ‘7 point Likert Scale’ has been applied.


FINDINGS:

Types of Viral marketing campaign:
Now-a-days viral marketing campaign is popular and very frequently used marketing strategy that relies largely on individuals rather than traditional campaigns to pass along a message to others. In order to generate exponential enhancements in brand awareness along with the help of self-replicating viral processes, viral marketing and viral advertising use pre-existing social networks. The term "viral advertising" itself signifies that the idea behind this marketing talks about passing on and sharing interesting and entertaining content, which is usually sponsored by a brand looking to build awareness of a product or service. These viral commercials often take the form of funny video clips, or interactive Flash games, an advergame, images, and even text.
Increase competition, rising media rate and scattered consumer concentration rise expenditure traditional marketing campaign in Bangladesh. However, almost every internet marketer likes to promote his product through viral concept. Viral marketing earned popularity in a very short time because of the ease of executing the marketing campaign, great affordability, good targeting, and the incredibly rapid response rate. However, the ability to obtain a large number of interested people at an extremely economical budget remains its most powerful attribute. Viral marketing, therefore, can be an effective marketing campaign tools for the marketers of Bangladesh.
The use of the internet and the effects of e-mail advertising, the business-to-consumer (B2C) efforts have a greater impact than many other tools of marketing. Consumers become annoyance with the spam mail or junk mail. Viral marketing is a technique that avoids the annoyance of spam mail; it encourages users of a specific product or service to tell a friend. This would be a positive word-of-mouth recommendation.
Types of viral marketing campaign applicable for Bangladesh are:
• Pass - along: A message which encourages the user to send the message to others. Usually, it tries to form a chain where a message placed at the bottom of the e-mail prompts the reader to forward the message further.
• Incentivized viral: In this type of marketing, a gift or a reward is assured for either passing a message along or providing someone else's address. This can dramatically increase referrals. This significantly increases referrals and becomes all the effective when the offer demands another person to take action.
• Edgy Gossip/Buzz marketing: Edgy gossips are basically ads and messages capable of creating controversy by challenging the restrictions of taste or suitability. Talk on the given controversy often lead to buzz and word of mouth advertising. As for instance, before a movie is released, starts mostly create controversies like getting engaged or arrested, or become involved in some controversy that directs conversational attention to them. A little more refined and subtle form of this marketing campaign is called undercover viral marketing campaign.
• Undercover: A viral message presented as a cool or unusual page, activity, or piece of news, without obvious incitements to link or pass along. In Undercover Marketing, it is not immediately apparent that anything is being marketed
• User-managed database: With this type of viral marketing campaign users create and manage their own lists of contacts through a database given by an online service provider. They invite other members to participate in their community and thus create a viral. It is basically a self-propagating chain of contacts that grows and persuades others to sign up also.
Affect of stronger relationship or geographical dissimilarities in viral marketing campaign in Bangladesh:
In Bangladesh relationship plays an important rule in successfulness of any campaign. There is a strong relationship with friends and family members. So, if any one belongs to friends or family groups send a message or product advertisement, it creates value to the recipients and they curiously read the mail and most of the time forward it to the members of the group. This whole process creates a viral effect to the members of the friends or family groups. The stronger relationship creates reliability, so they read any message or shows positive appeal for the product or for the cause suggested by their friends. Geographic dissimilarity have stronger influence, people unknown person have no physical existence because they are from geographically dissimilar region. The value, norms and behavior of geographically dissimilar people are different. So the product or cause suggested by them has no influence to the people. Before starting the viral marketing campaign the first thing is to choose the friendship group or family groups, which work as a point of reference for the product or for introducing an important cause.
I conducted the study on 30 respondents both manually and via e-mail. I do not use third party e-mail address because of non-response error and limited time to conduct follow up studies on non-respondent. The study is important to gain the real scenario of viral marketing campaign in Bangladesh. The study also found which product has more viral effect in generating awareness.
H1. The stronger the tie, the more likely viral communications are to generate awareness.
H2. The more demographically dissimilar the tie, the more likely it is to generate interest.

Tie strength, H1 is supported(R Sqaure= .856). Tie strength significantly influenced the decision of the recipient to open the e-mail he or she received, hence facilitating awareness.
Model Summary
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
1 .893(a) .856 .832 1.86990
a Predictors: (Constant), tie strength, demographic similarity
Demographic similarity is, as expected, the only dimension that had a significant impact in models. Under these testing condition, electronic referrals from demographically dissimilar ties had more influence than referrals demographically similar ones at each stage of the decision-making process.
Factors Positive influence Negative influence No influence
Tie Strength 70% 30% 0%
Demographic Similiarity 30% 60% 10%




Figure : Comparison of responses between Tie Strength and Demographic Similarity.
Coefficients(a)
Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) 2.295 1.461 1.571 .128
Tie strength .382 .175 .381 2.185 .038

Demographic similarity .209 .147 .248 1.422 .166



a Dependent Variable: viral marketing communication
The strength of the relationship stipulated by the regression equation can be determined by using appropriate measure of association. The strength of the relationship is measured by square of multiple correlation coefficients, R Square that is also called the coefficient of multiple determinations. From R Square value it is clear that there is a strong relationship between dependent and independent variable.
There are two dependent variables –tie strength & demographic similarity. From t ratio it is obvious that tie strength makes more contribution in explaining the effectiveness of viral marketing than demographic similarity.
Effective strategies for viral marketing campaign in Bangladesh:
Many times a successful viral marketing campaign can be developed through pre-existing social networks or online communities like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, or digg. By using the information on these social networks marketers can determine what your market wants and needs. Implementing an effective viral marketing strategy is a good way to get people talking about your business. Viral marketing or "word of mouth" marketing is what we want, and it’s the best way to get our business to work for us. But how can we implement an effective viral marketing strategy? The viral marketing campaign tools and techniques described below can also be used to develop an effective strategy for the business of Bangladesh.
1. Give products or services away:
"Free" is the most powerful word in a marketer's vocabulary (Wilson, 2000). People love FREE stuff. Most viral marketing programs give away valuable products or services to attract attention. The idea is that we attract people’s attention with free services or products then begin to sell them the entire package. Even in a worst-case scenario when we can’t convert a consumer into a sale, you are still providing the consumer with a service for free which will in turn give us positive feedback.
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
FREE stuff shall be easy for people to receive. If they have to click 3 times and fill out a form most likely they will not go through all the trouble. The medium that carries your marketing message must be easy to transfer and replicate: e-mail, website, graphic, software download. Viral marketing works famously on the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital format make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation.
3. Reward for referrals:
Another way that encourages viral marketing campaign is reward for referrals. Referrals can be rewarded for referring a new client so that referrals will continue to spread your message. Many companies offer a finder’s fee for new clients that come from referrers. This can generate incredible word of mouth. In this day and age every other person is interested in the Internet and wants to know how to gain exposure. If marketers can keep people happy they will definitely spread the word and help make your viral marketing campaign a success.
4. Takes advantage of others' resources:

The most creative viral marketing plans use others' resources to get the word out. Affiliate programs, for example, place text or graphic links on others' websites. Authors, who give away free articles, seek to position their articles on others' webpages. A news release can be picked up by hundreds of periodicals and form the basis of articles seen by hundreds of thousands of readers. Now someone else's newsprint or webpage is relaying your marketing message. Someone else's resources are depleted rather than your own.
5. Be Controversial:
Creating controversy is one of the most effective viral marketing tools. Controversy stems gossip. People love to gossip, so if you can find a way to harness some decent gossip, the marketing takes care of itself. One doesn’t need to be rude or try to personally hurt anyone but often when one presents his/her opinion in a strong voice there’s a good chance that someone will disagree. Hollywood spends a lot of marketing dollars on who’s doing what. In turn they create a great deal of buzz.
6. Utilizes existing communication networks:
Most people are social. A person's broader network may consist of scores, hundreds, or thousands of people, depending upon her position in society. People on the Internet develop networks of relationships, too. They collect e-mail addresses and favorite website URLs. Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do permission e-mail lists. Learn to place your message into existing communications between people, and you rapidly multiply its dispersion. Utilizing these social networks of people is a simple viral marketing tool.
7. Create Own Buzz:
Create own blog where one can talk about all the new and exciting things that are happening in the company. Blogging is a great way to keep interested viewers involved and keep them returning to company’s site. When users begin to return to company’s blog, it builds a community. The company has to make sure that it keeps up with the community and comments. It is very important to make sure one’s has a voice when someone is responding to his/her blog. This is also a very good platform to exercise your controversial opinion.
8. RSS Feeds –
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It is generally used by news organizations to syndicate their news stories. RSS Feeds are now used to automatically
distribute content to blog and to distribute articles to web sites owners and ezine publishers throughout web.
Scope of Future research
This paper more importantly opens the way to further experiments and manipulations. For instance, one may use this methodology to investigate the best incentives to trigger “send to a friend” behaviors, and to study the stages most affected by such incentives. Researchers interested in brand equity may also find this methodology valuable for studying whether of not old and reputable companies are more likely to effectively leverage their consumers’ personal networks, or if new lesser known firms are equally capable of triggering such behavior; they also wish to examine which stages of decision making are most likely to be affected by superior brand equity. There is also a scope to examine cultural differences impact on trust, intimacy, or social power that have a influence on viral marketing

MODEL DEVELOPMENT






No




Yes








Figure : The Viral Marketing Model (Figure by John-Robert Skrob)


Mailing lists are the basis for contact among the national and international users. The purpose of the community is to provide a free service for everyone who uses software. Quick and practical help is given to everyone who needs it. Software is difficult to learn, therefore, a beginner’s guide, which can be found in the software archive, gives valuable information about the most frequently asked questions. More technically complicated problems and training material can be got from service providers found under the Consultancies. The listed companies are selected according to their competence in projects.

Customer recommendation is the key to Internet advertising. Implementing recommend-it- Buttons on the Website is one way to ease the transfer of information to others. In addition, a link in the e-mail signature should be integrated with which the origin of the marketing communication channel can be shown. To attract more user to the company homepage a linking strategy needs to be developed. Reciprocal links with carefully targeted complementary sites are free and draw potential customers. A list of prospective buyers enables the company to make contact with the individuals and explain the value of the product to them. Members of specific trade groups are interested in the latest innovations and can receive such information through newsletters. Setting up a moderated virtual community including chatrooms allows the user group to gather and exchange vital information pertaining to software in real time. Observing and participating in chatrooms dealing with company themes can be used to spread information about the product. A company member can give founded advice as to the application and purpose of the software and what advantages derived from implementing this software.

The tourism sector of Bangladesh can be developed by using this model. By creating a Chat room or vertual group the country can developed the tourism product. People from other country will join the chat room and grather information about different tourism site of Bangladesh. A Web link will support them to have vertual tour to different tourist site. The foreigner will verify the product and get enough viral information. They compare the viral information with vertual tour and videos, and finally start viral marketing to friends and coopartners.

RECOMMENDATION

Research implication in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is going to digitalization. Digital Bangladesh means it will be an e-state; all of its activities like governance, commerce, education, agriculture etc. will be powered by computer and Internet. Today the entire world is gradually becoming a digital planet. Almost every state is heading towards a knowledge based society and Bangladesh cannot stay away from the advantage out of it.
The development of ICT will help a massive expansion of viral marketing companies can reduce the promotional effort and expenditure. It will help the country to promote the product in inexpensive way. The emerging product of Bangladesh for viral marketing is the tourism sector . The primary promotion will be conducted by Non-Residence Bangladeshi(NRB). Then the Viral message will help as an assistance to their activity.

Managerial implication

In light of our theoretical model and empirical findings, it should not be surprising that online markerters seeking to implement “send to a friend” and viral marketing campaigns have faced substantial challenges. The study found that while close relationships can be effective in capturing recipients’ attention and creating awareness, they had no influence at later stages. It also suggested that not all social network is equally important for peer-to-peer referrals. Attempts to initiate viral marketing mechanisms in the absence of close relationships among the actors in a network may be ineffective.






LIMITATION

Viral marketing is a new phenomenon that keeps evolving in a dynamic marketplace, and both firms and consumers are adapting to it. The limitations are as follows:
1. To participate in the study is a choice process of consumers and it’s not indicate that they will purchase the product.
2. The study only contained data about perceived tie strength and geographic similarity, it does not considered financial incentives that influence viral marketing.
3. The highly connected net of consumers can have undesirable side effects if the product is not liked. A network of unhappy customers can have a negative effect on word of mouth.
4. The probability that satisfied customers pass on the message is equally as intense as the spreading of negative incidence for dissatisfied customers. Customers match their dissatisfaction over a product or service with the Internet, influencing their immediate social contacts as well as the loose associations.
5. The personal experience is authentic and there is no personal gain involved which makes the voiced discontent credible.
6. This negative word of mouse propaganda reaches thousands of potential customers in a very short time, endangering corporate image and the success of a marketing campaign.
7. The concept of viral marketing is to have customers transmit a message to others. Company influence is reduced to the formulation of the message and that is only in the very beginning of a viral campaign.

CONCLUSION

Viral marketing gathers precise information in real time. Influence of source expertise should also be stronger in viral communication. Traditional word of mouth communication is richer, more complex, and thereby giving more pervasive impact, but it is more expensive. Viral marketing help businesses to break through the clutter. In global market place viral marketing works better. Global mass media is much expensive and it required different message formate than the home country. Thus increase cost. Viral marketing create a competitive edge in a inexpensive way. Creating product awareness viral marketing create a competitive environment in global market place.

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Topic: Effective viral marketing campaign for Bangladesh


















01. Viral Marketing is most important for global competition.

Strongly agree Agree Somewhat agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree
7 6 5 4 3 2 1

02. Peer-to-peer communication reduce cost of traditional marketing.

Strongly agree Agree Somewhat agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree
7 6 5 4 3 2 1

03. The stronger the tie, the more likely viral communications are to generate awareness.

Strongly agree Agree Somewhat agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree
7 6 5 4 3 2 1

04. The more demographically dissimilar the tie the more likely viral marketing is to generate awareness.

Strongly agree Agree Somewhat agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree
7 6 5 4 3 2 1

05. Tourism sector is best to promote through viral marketing.

Strongly agree Agree Somewhat agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree
7 6 5 4 3 2 1

06. Viral marketing is not effective product promotion strategy.

Strongly agree Agree Somewhat agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7


If you have any suggestion regarding viral marketing, please mention it.
Thank you for your valuable input.

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