Viral marketing

Viral marketing Viral marketing is a mode of promotion of a commercial or marketing offer by which it is the recipients of the offer or message that will ensure the essential of its final distribution by recommending it to relatives or colleagues. 

In the context of viral marketing, the offer is spreading like a virus, hence the term viral marketing. 

In a real successful viral marketing campaign, the bulk of the exposure obtained by a message or an offer does not come from a purchase of advertising space but from the phenomenon of recommendation or word of mouth. 

The viral recommendation can be spontaneous depending on the usefulness, originality or humor of the message, or sometimes paid through a sponsorship system.

Viral marketing existed before the Internet but its potential has been increased tenfold by the ease of transmission of information on this medium and the development of the use of social networks that facilitate transmission or sharing through the social buttons. 

It is generally possible to distinguish two forms of viral marketing.

The first can be described as viral engineering and refers to the integration of different sharing tools (email, social buttons, etc.) on a website or a mobile application. Bars or recommendation functions are thus integrated into the editorial contents or product sheets of a website or even to the pages or emails of order confirmation. The recommendations functionalities can even be present in offline points of sale. In the case of these permanent devices, we are closer to the recommendation than the "exponential" viral phenomenon.

The second form of viral marketing is a true viral campaign logic with a creative investment. A content or device is created to promote a true phenomenon of viral diffusion more or less exponential.