referral system &viral marketing Martin Lee on 13 Nov 2006 12:52 am
Case Study of a Viral Marketing Campaign
Just a couple of days ago, I came across a well executed viral marketing campaign called Death of Internet Marketing (warning: site might take a while to load due to heavy traffic) that is worth a mention here. Read on to also find out how you can easily make some spare cash by being a part of this campaign.
The person behind this campaign is Mike Filsaime, a person who makes more than $4 million a year from his internet business in the highly competitive niche of internet marketing.
These are the numbers of registered users he has received (so far) as a result of this viral marketing campaign.
Saturday – 11,807 (Day One – 13 hours total)
Sunday 14196 (Full Day)
Monday – 8343 (First 17 hours)
Total = 34,346
A quick summary of his method:
1) Write a useful report and make it available for free.
2) Offer a direct cash incentive for people to give it away.
3) Introduce a time limited offer period.
If you are not familiar with the niche of internet marketing, some of the names and products that are mentioned in the report might be foreign to you. But the insights shared in his report can definitely be applied to the niche that you are operating in as well.
The method that Mike Filsaime used is hardly original but he made sure that it would become very viral by introducing an irresistible cash incentive to readers of the report.
If you share his report with your friends (something that you could easily do since the report is useful), you will get a token $1 for everyone that signs up to read the report.
The amount might not seem like much of an incentive but Mike made it viral by introducing a 2nd level payout. If the friends that you refer also do the same, you will also get the same payout on their referrals.
For example, if you refer 10 people to the report and they each refer 10 people as well, you will earn $100. Suddenly, this becomes much more attractive. Who knows, one of your friends might share the report with hundreds of people.
Mike is essentially paying $2 per person that signs up to read the report. I’m sure he has done his maths and he think it’s worthwhile to pay that amount. The danger of course is that there might be people who are totally uninterested in internet marketing and sign up just to earn the cash incentive. This will increase his real customer acquisition cost. Not to mention the likelihood of fraud.
So, if you want to do something similar, better sure make there is some way of qualifying the people properly. It is also a good idea to run the promotion for a specified time period.
Another problem that you might want to plan for is overloaded servers due to massive amount of traffic. This is something that Mike encountered as well. And last of all, make sure that you have enough budget!
on 15 Nov 2006 at 10:38 pm 1.Anonymous said …
A provocative subject title “The Death of Internet Marketing” combined with a well branded name: Mike Filsaime, played a large role in the viral power of this campaign. When a well respected Internet Marketer says that your livelihood is in jeopardy, he gets your attention.
on 15 Nov 2006 at 10:38 pm 2.jellershaw said …
I signed up to get Mike’s report and am looking forward to reading it. Your article is very informative, and as a relatively new internet marketer it sent out an (appropriate ) warning signal. I think this type of viral marketing campaign is for those marketers who have a list, JV partners AND the money to support the payouts. I look foraard to being in that situation some time.
Cheers
Janet Ellershaw
http;//21stcenturymlm.wordpress.com