RETHINKING THE IDEA VIRUSThe other day I was looking for my copy of "The Idea Virus". I had read this thing a couple of years ago. I was put off to an extent because some of the ideas were pretty advanced. I was convinced that I had to hook up with a programming super genius to make some of these creations really take off.
The concept behind this book of course was to create something powerful -- a virus if you will. This virus would pick up momentum and create a powerful windfall of profits. In this ideal situation the customers would do all the talking for you and in a sense take care of your advertising. Your services would then be the "talk of the town" and your name would jump from one consumer to the next.
Word of mouth taken to a whole new level.....
I never had faith in the ol' fashion "Word of Mouth" on its own. I always felt it needed a little help. Godin talks about an amazing service that works on cell phones. Where you find something cool you want to experience like a museum or a restaurant and you get it on your phone. When you go to tell someone else about it you just point your phone to another phone and it points that person to download the software so they can experience this service. He called that "working in the smooth".
IS VIRAL MARKETING PERFECTED?
I always had a fascination with Viral Marketing due to the fact that it was a pretty powerful concept. There wasn't a whole lot happening with off the shelf software at the time to support it. I liked the idea of having a piece of media that would fish around online and promote your company at the same time. For the most part that is happening with blogging and podcasting.
On another level there is something that you may want to look into. Ebook marketing is old and done to an extent. There are many better advanced strategies and techniques that seem a bit more appealing. But to take ebook marketing to the level where Seth takes it is an tempting possibility. There is a lot of room here for growth.
http://www.marketingtips.com is a great web site to check out. It is Corey Rudl's company. Rudl was the cutting edge Internet genius of the late 90's. His answer to ebook marketing really holds the Godin vision close.
The answer is Ebook Pro.... a virtual ebook that you can capture viewers contact information before they even try to open it. This is a very powerful strategy. When you consider that you can get a lot of these out there in circulation.
The ebook is tied into a database for you online. Before your prospect can view the downloaded ebook they must give you their contact information before the book will open. You in turn then can view the database to see who has signed in. This is a very clever way to trap customer information. When I found this software and its sneaky approach I was reminded of what Seth said about, "Working in the smooth". That is to say in order for anyone to participate in this process the end user would have to find that experience relatively easy.
I was relieved to see these new technologies becoming more easier to use. Viral Marketing is getting to a very unique place in our culture where the market can pick up your marketing messages and distribute them.
We weren't quite there 24 months ago. I know because I called several firms and tried to get some Viral Marketing created. Back then I got a big run around and insufficient answers.
Now I can do it. And you can do it too.
Posted by Cantu on Oct. 2007 at 10:39 PM
