Towards Sustainability in Viral Marketing with User Engaging Supporting Campaigns

Jarosław Jankowski,Artur Karczmarczyk,Magdalena Zioło,Jarosław Wątróbski

doi:10.3390/su10010015

Jarosław Jankowski, Artur Karczmarczyk + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su10010015

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Abstract

While viral marketing has captured substantial academic and professional interest, the processes that underpin successful viral marketing campaigns remain poorly understood. High competition and pressure for successful campaigns lead to strategies based on persuasion, unsolicited messages, and other techniques that negatively affect brand perception. The need for more sustainable strategies with a limited negative impact on web users is observed. Therefore, the current study examines the effectiveness of viral marketing and a supporting campaign, where the main goal was to increase user engagement and overall campaign performance. Supporting campaigns were evaluated, to determine whether they enhanced viral activity, but without the need for high persuasion or intrusive techniques. Results showed that supporting actions could be integrated with lower performing campaigns to increase their effectiveness. Apart from the main scientific goal that is presented, the study demonstrates how virtual worlds can provide a laboratory-like environment for identifying the processes that underpin viral marketing.

Highlights

Growing competition and pressure on electronic media attract more and more attention from marketers
Viral marketing based on dissemination of information about products or services within social networks [4] can bypass the advertising avoidance behaviors that are reducing the cut-through of traditional mass marketing methods [5]
Analysis of previous attempts to promote premium content in the virtual world suggested that the perceived value of this content decreased, due to the number of people to whom this content was made available

Summary

Introduction

Growing competition and pressure on electronic media attract more and more attention from marketers. Viral marketing based on dissemination of information about products or services within social networks [4] can bypass the advertising avoidance behaviors that are reducing the cut-through of traditional mass marketing methods [5]. It capitalizes on the trust embodied in an individual’s social network, as individuals are more likely to attend to and forward messages that have been sent within their social network [6,7,8]. Electronic media make possible precise campaign monitoring what was showed for large scale viral campaigns based on the propagation of information about products offered by a leading e-commerce platform [12]

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