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Why Viral Online Marketing Rarely Works
By Rob | July 18, 2007
Most of the startups we see here on OTV don’t have a marketing budget. They plan to go viral. They plan to get blogs to talk about them. They plan to spread via word-of-mouth. That’s all fine and good, except that it rarely works. Why? Well, a new study hints at one reason - the things bloggers talk about are the things that spend the most money.
After analyzing blog buzz volume, ad spending, purchase intentions and actual product sales, Nielsen found the best predictor of buzz for newly launched consumer-packaged goods (CPG) is a large advertising budget.
So much for the power of the blogosphere to do your work for you.
Topics: Strategy |
July 18th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I laughed..was it supposed to be funny? Such an paradox for startups. Viral is just an overhyped term..obvious. I’d encourage people to look into Reed’s Law…and truly find how to tap into the concepts of GFN’s..group forming networks. It is what makes viral..uh, viral?..thanks for the laugh and deadon post.
July 20th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I had a quick look at the linked study and my impression is that it talks about goods more than startup companies and most of all it is about big big money, not entrepreneurs trying to get their idea successful.
I guess word-of-mouth is still a good way (sometimes the only one…) for internet startups to attract their first users.