Viral Marketing : Subliminal Advertising
ZD Net Inter@ctive
Week, April 1, 2002
By Annette Cardwell
Savvy companies are polishing their brands and pushing products by going undercover.
Think good word of mouth just happens? Positive buzz, the secret ingredient of a successful product launch, is rarely left to chance. Instead, companies are hedging their bets by recruiting online opinion leaders to ensure a warm reception for their product. This subversive campaign tactic gets results: Last spring, one such company rode its good buzz all the way to the bestseller's list.
Eager to build anticipation for one of its upcoming children's books, the top-five publishing company approached online marketing firm NewGate to start spreading the word. NewGate distributed advance excerpts of the new book to online forum leaders discussing a similar title that was already a bestseller. When the forum leaders read the prereleased chapters, they quickly spread the excitement. "When the book was finally released, we had created a lot of anticipation for it, and it ended up being on The New York Times bestseller list," says NewGate president Tom Dugan. "Working as a team with those opinion makers, we made the book a smash hit. Our client was thrilled."
The key to a profitable buzz campaign is to build solid relationships with "e-fluentials" among your customers, says Idil Cakim, a director of Burson-Marsteller's knowledge management research group. "E-fluentials are a small segment of online adults, about 11 million people, who reach 155 million consumers by spreading the word," says Cakim, whose group just completed a joint study of these opinion makers with RoperASW.
NewGate, which bases its business on strong ties with e-fluentials in more than 400,000 discussion boards and message forums across the Net, is tight lipped about its clients. "It's their little secret weapon. We've been doing it for them, it works, and they don't want their competitors to know what they're up to," says Dugan. "A lot of them have said, 'If this gets out to the press at all, we'll just deny it and reconsider working with you.' "
For the most part, the need for subtlety makes it hard for companies to do this kind of marketing themselves. "Don't tell your corporate communications person to go to a message board and post messages blatantly in favor of your company," Cakim says. "Be systematic and tap into individuals who are geared to speak to others on your behalf. They become your marketers."
Web Exclusive: E-Fluentials Start the Buzz
While good buzz often seems to grow in lots of directions at once, it has to start with someone. Burson-Marsteller's study of these so-called e-fluentials describes customer zero as having these top five characteristics:
1. Likes to talk trash. E-fluentials tell an average of 11 people about their positive experiences, but tell 17 people when they have a negative experience.
2. Avoids chat rooms. While 31 percent use company Web sites to spread the word when they have a positive experience and 25 percent use opinion sites to post their feedback, only 17 percent work the chat rooms.
3. Likes to pass it on. More than half of all e-fluentials (54 percent) forward at least one e-mail per week, and 27 percent of that group forward mail every day.
4. Prefers a second opinion. To safeguard against bad information, 72 percent of e-fluentials double-check information they receive against an offline resource; 69 percent verify the goods with another online source.
5. Gives as often as he gets. E-fluentials are asked to give their opinions about as often as they offer them: 41 percent offered their opinion on retail stores within a 12-month span, while 42 percent claimed that other consumers had consulted them online during the same period.
Linked from Resources page of Viral Marketing by Marshall Burns.