To many, the term “Viral Email Marketing” might be weird, offensive or even dangerous. But when it comes to email marketing, there are some things about the much loathed virus that one can't help but admire. Given a conducive environment, a virus population will grow exponentially. A virus skillfully uses the resources of the host to replicate itself and it is only a matter of time, before the humble, half-dead-half-alive virus simply overwhelms the host by its sheer number. Viral email marketing attempts to take a cue from this behavior.



Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson is credited with coining the term “Viral email marketing'. If the term sounds distasteful to you, then call it “word-of-mouth publicity”, “media leveraging“or “creating a buzz”. The idea behind all these marketing strategies is the same, but when it comes to the internet, the term “viral email marketing” has stuck. As an interesting aside, this kind of marketing is even mentioned in the annals Greek history, although the term viral marketing itself is fairly new!

The Concept of Viral Email Marketing

Viral email marketing is the strategy of using individuals to spread a marketing message or advertisement to other individuals, who will in turn pass it on to more individuals in their network. Viral email marketing has the potential of growing exponentially and exploding on the internet in much the same was that a viral population does in its host environment. A successful Viral email marketing campaign can deliver a marketing message thousands, even millions of people within a very short period of time.

The concept of viral email marketing will become clearer when you consider the example of a famous and hugely successful viral email marketing campaign. Hotmail.com, a pioneer in web-based email services used this simple strategy to great effect. Initially, Hotmail gave away free email addresses to a number of customers. Hotmail then automatically attached a tag that read "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com", at the bottom of all emails sent out by its customers.

Once this was done, Hotmail customers took care of marketing the email service to all their friends, family and associates – inadvertently of course, but it is effective marketing all the same. A prospective customer might receive an email from a friend with a Hotmail account, see the tag at the bottom, click on it to open his own account and Voila! - a new customer has just been won to Hotmail by an existing customer of Hotmail. And what's more, the entire process is now set to repeat itself, as the new customer starts to send out emails of his own. This is a classic example of how a successful Viral email marketing strategy can spread like a ripple on a pond.

Before launching your own viral email marketing campaign, it is important to understand what makes a good “virus”. A good virus must be creative and original. People on the internet tend to have notoriously low attention spans, so a good virus must be designed to catch the eye instantly. Most importantly, the message contained within the virus must contain a compelling call to action.

Apart from the virus itself, the host (email) through which the virus is spread must also have certain qualities. For starters, the email must be authentic and credible. For example, nobody would open an email if they were unsure of whom it is from, or if they are certain that the sole purpose of the email is to market a product or service.

Of course a successful viral email marketing campaign involves a lot more research and strategy, but this should give you a good idea of what are the bare minimum qualities of a good virus and host pair.