• emarketing
• email marketing
• microsites
• SEO
• paid search
• viral marketing

Viral Marketing is any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence.

There is a misconception that you have to be brave to carry out a viral campaign as they often involve injury (Ford Ka), humiliation (MasterCard) or sex (Virtual Bartender). Of course viral marketing works better for some brands than others but with a bit of imagination any brand can take advantage of this peer-to-peer marketing technique. BlendTec came up with the fantastic "Will it blend?" campaign to promote their Total Blender. Everything from a video camera to a golf club are put to the test and inevitably the answer is "yes". Such is the entertainment value of this campaign that the clips have collectively been viewed on YouTube over 10 million times, all of which ultimately drive the viewer to the BlendTec website.

BlendTec Marketing Manager George Wright says... Our results eclipsed our expectations, both in impact, volume and timeframe. The return for the $50 that we spent to produce the first round of videos is staggering. We literally have built a brand for our home products.

For viral marketing campaigns to succeed, brands need to let go, think how Jack Ass would promote their product and then blame the agency if it all goes wrong.

Large have developed successful e- marketing campaigns for Bang & Olufsen, Coca-Cola and Excite amongst others. For Coca-Cola, the result was a pan-European online game that encouraged viral communication on two levels, encouraging visitors to "challenge a friend" and to play for their country by submitting their score to the international high score table. The result was 500,000 pan European visitors in 3 months.

NB It goes without saying that >large monitor the success of campaigns like these by assessing open-rates, forwarding-rates, click-through rates and conversions.