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Andrew,
Please do me a favor and spread the term 'VMO' and tell everybody that me and Naval coined it, and that we are geniuses, and that no one is even worthy to hear the term, let alone understand it.
VMO = Viral Marketing Optimization.
:-P
This is a good framework for folks thinking about viral marketing. The only point I'd like to question is the wisdom in circumventing the loop you mentioned at the end of your post. The danger in being too aggressive in requiring effort from the user before he/she sees value is that you either a) alienate users who don't want to give before they've gotten something of value and b) you develop a reputation as being a "spammy" application by being too aggressive. I think Plaxo is a good example of the b) case and there are plenty of examples of the a) case that I won't mention.
There are plenty of applications which have driven virality by focusing on creating a product that people want to share with their friends and making it really easy to do so. This is especially true of applications where the consumer:producer ratio is quite high. Look at YouTube and Flickr - both have achieved scale with fairly benign approaches in terms of address book capture. In both cases, they made good products and made it easy to share content from their services.
Being really aggressive in forcing users to spread the word can certainly drive usage, but I question whether it can really drive ongoing usage unless the underlying product is something people really want to use anyway.
friggin awesome post.
Good stuff Andrew. You mentioned Tagged.com's funnel - I got "tricked" into registering for YouNoodle the same way. I just wanted to see why people were talking about me. After I was in the site I immediately sent out an email to a couple investor dudes and said, "keep an eye on this one."
hah. right on target. just re-read this & saw the part about "induction proofs".
not even 24 hours ago, was just thinking about it the same way: "ok, so let's assume that you already got the app because you discovered it from a friend..."
felt exactly like the setup for inductive proof. i couldn't remember the exact term until you mentioned it, but i was thinking "something about this feels like math proofs or recursion... hmmm"
funny.
A lot of cool thoughts! What I doubt is that with so many websites out there, how often people are willing to recommend a site to their friends without even using it first?
Brilliant. Makes me think a lot of Jeremy Liew's thoughts on knowing the gates in the widget adoption process and maximizing users' passage thru them.
I'm very regretful that we did not get to meet at CommunityNext. If you'd ever like to stop in the Dogster & Catster offices we'd love to have you.
Most respectfully,
Just wondering, what's the point to this crap. It all just seems like a useless waste of time to me. If you can develop a useful product people will want it without trying to trick them.
Echo the previous comment. Ipod and Iphone are great examples of offline viral marketing. You'd think it'd be harder to go viral without an online component. But there it is: people love them, they look cool, and lots of people want them.
I also think that people have become smarter than just giving you access to their address book without really trying out a product. Some new users might get caught in this trap. But if you're product doesn't cut it, eventually, that leaky bucket is going to catch up with your viral expansion.
For eg, Facebook is great product, so you want to tell other people about it. As is the case with Apple products.
Success Story...
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/nings-infinite-ambition.html
I am interested in learning how to use viral loops with durable goods marketing on the internet. I have seen many articles discussing the use of internet products and services as the business model. But how can this work with a physical product. Can you refer me to information in this regard?
I think with a compelling story and a product that supports that story, a viral loop would be an excellent method of expanding one's customer base.
Thanks, phlyman
Hello Andrew,
Your website is a great source of relevant information for marketers. Kuddos!
I was wondering what were your thoughts about Sprout (sproutbuilder.com) as a viral loop.
Many thanks in advance!
Cheers,
Damian