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Viral Marketing Mechanics

A Case Study

Alec Saunders

March 31, 2007

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What is viral marketing?

• any strategy that encourages individuals to

pass on a marketing message to others,

creating the potential for exponential growthin the message's exposure and influence

• Not to be confused with network effects

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Why?

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User uptake

Draper Fisher Jurvetson

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User uptake

Year 1 1,000,000 800,000

Year 2 3,300,000 4,000,000

Year 3 6,700,000 8,000,000

Year 4 15,000,000

LinkedIn Plaxo

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Good viral candidates

1. Give away products or services

2. Provide for effortless transfer to others

3. Scale easily from small to very large4. Exploit common motivations and behaviors

5. Utilize existing communication networks

6. Take advantage of others' resources

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Metrics to measure

• cumulative users = (1+fanout) ^ cycles

• Hotmail / ICQ fanout = 2/cycle

• cumulative users = [(1+fanout x conversion

rate) x retention rate] ^ frequency x time

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Iotum’s Talk-Now

• See

• At a glance who’s available to

talk

• Be Notified

• When people you need to speak

with become available

• Share• Your availability to speak with

others

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iotum Business Strategy

Indexing

Sensor

Network

iotum

Relevance

Engine

iotum

Open Call

Path SDK

Voice NetworkEquipment 

Manufacturers

Carriers, Portals

etc.

Capture

End Users

Call Path

Embed

Context

Sensors

Centralize Relationship

& Presence Information

Web TargetsHandsets, Portals

PC’s, PDA’s

Social Networks

etc.

3. Distribute Presence/Context Information

1. Spread Talk-Now service virally

2. Up-sell new presence enabled services

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Iotum Talk-Now Preview

• Tech Preview launched in January

• Blackberry only

• Objectives:• User feedback

• Test viral model

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Metrics

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

0

100

200

300

400

500600

700

800

900

1000

1/1 1/8 1/15 1/22 1/29 2/5 2/12 2/19 2/26 3/5 3/12 3/19

   I   n   v   i   t   a   t   i   o   n   R

   a   t   e

   C   u   m   u    l   a   t   i   v   e   T   a    l    k  -   N

   o   w

   U   s   e   r   s

Total Users

Invitations sent

Invitation Rate

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Characteristics Scorecard

Characteristic

Gives products or services C

Effortless transfer 25%Scales easily C

Exploits common motivations C

Uses existing networksC

Takes advantage of others resources D

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Conclusions

• Talk-Now appears to be viral

• Still don’t understand conversion rate

• Needs:• Expand beyond BlackBerry

• More ways for users to expose their presence

• Obvious next steps:• Web based version + another handset

• Spend marketing dollars

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Thank You!

And a Shameless Plug

• Get iotum Talk-Now athttp://www.iotum.com/blackberry