Affiliate Marketing

Viral Marketing expert David Meerman Scott sent out a press release stating that viral marketing should be viewed in the same terms a venture capitalist thinks about new start-up companies. Scott says it is simply a numbers game.

Successful viral marketing campaigns are amazing, because a website or a company that was virtually unknown, can become a household name in a matter of days. The problem is no one knows which viral marketing campaigns the public will reward and which they will chide into oblivion.

Scott says that while it is difficult to purposely create viral marketing buzz, it is certainly possible. “The way to create viral programs is a lot like the way venture capitalists invest in start-up companies and studios create films,” he says. “A typical VC has a formula that states that most ventures will fail, a few might do OK, and one out of twenty or so will take off and become a large enterprise that will pay back investors many times the initial investment. Record companies and movie studios follow the same principles, expecting that most of the projects that they green-light will have meager sales but that the one hit will more than pay back the cost of a bunch of flops. It’s the same with viral marketing campaigns.”

Scott says it may take up to 20 flops before a company finds a winner. He reassures skeptics that one successful campaign will more than pay for the cost of producing all the losers. I think he is right.

David Meerman Scott is the author of the book “The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to use news releases, blogs, podcasts, viral marketing & online media to reach your buyers directly”.