Impact Of Viral Marketing On Consumer Decision-Making Process: An Essay.

Viral Marketing Process

Question:

Describe about the impact of viral marketing on decision making process of consumers.
 

The marketing is an innovative process to influence the purchase behaviors of the consumers. One of the innovative ways of marketing is the viral marketing (Lu et al. 2013). The decision making process of the consumers can be influenced by viral marketing. This research proposal aims to identify the consequences of the viral marketing on the decision making behaviors of the customers. 

• To understand the concept of viral marketing
• To critically analyze the impacts of viral marketing
• To evaluate the factors of consumer decision making process
• To determine the relationship between viral marketing and decision making process 

• What are the positive impacts and negative impacts of viral marketing?
• What is the importance of consumer decision making process in purchase decisions?
• What is the relationship between viral marketing and consumer decision making?
• How can the decision making process can be influenced by viral marketing? 

Weeks	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
Project Milestones
Research Objectives
Research questions
Literature Review
Research outcome
Research Process
Data collection process
Data analysis
Ethical Consideration

Fig: Gantt chart

Source: Created by author 

2.1 Meaning of viral marketing

The marketing techniques that utilize the existing social networks as well as other technological advancements to increase the brand awareness or any other marketing purpose is known as viral marketing (Kirby 2012). The process is a replica of the viral processes, which are identical to the spread of computer virus or malware. This is the reason behind the terminology of “viral marketing”. The aim of this type of marketing is to formulate viral marketing campaigns, which is appealing to the target audience (with high social networking potential). The marketing messages that reach such individuals have the highest probability of further spreading in their known circles within a short period (Aslay et al. 2015). The viral advertisements are paid by a sponsor company, which are published either on their websites or a social media network (like Youtube or Facebook). The consumers get access to the link of the page displaying the viral advert from a social network and enjoy the privilege of copy the advert. The copied advertisement can be passed along through sharing channels like the blog, social media webpage, and a web page (Aslay et al. 2015). The internet is the primary agent for the fast transmission of viral marketing. The internet and the social media websites help the consumers to share content with their acquaintances at lightning speed (Aslay et al. 2015). The advertisement message should be capable enough to catch the attention of the audience. For example, it should be appealing, attractive, worth sharing, good content so that it gains attention easily. 

The viral marketing is a wide concept, which can be used in a variety of forms. The marketing message may be transmitted in the form of interactive Flash games, video clips, ebooks, text messages, webpages, and emails (Grifoni D'Andrea and Ferri 2013). The mobile devices are also one of the most common forms of transmission of the viral advertisements. The other common methods of promotion of viral adverts are- Web search engines, smartphone integration, blogs, radio, television, search engine optimization (SEO), direct marketing, print advertisements, e-polling services and others (Khan and Siddiqui 2013).

The viral marketing has many benefits from the concerned organization’s point of view. It provides remarkable growth of the company in a short span of time. The company gathers an enhanced list of dedicated customers as well the referral customers. The brands enjoy a greater visibility in the market, and a buzz is created around the products or services of the company (Howeidi and Nguyen 2016). The viral marketing is financially profitable for the concerned company as it cuts down the promotional expenses to a great extent. This is because the advertisement is spread through the referrals of the existing customers. A large audience can be reached by this method of advertising, which automatically reduces the cost of the marketing campaign. 

Benefits of Viral Marketing

The decision making process of consumers involves the mental steps they undergo during the purchase of products or services. It involves the factors, which involves the selection and acceptability of a product or a service (Solomon 2014). The decision pattern of the consumers is not always constant. There are deviations in the consumer behavior, which is dependant on the product type, purchasing stage of the consumer, purchasing parity and the financial well-being of the consumer (Butkevičienė Stravinskienė and Rūtelionienė 2015). The decision making of the consumers undergoes five major stages such as need recognition, searching of information, alternatives evaluation, purchase process and the post purchase behavior.

There are four different types of factors that influence the decision making the behavior of the customers (Haghighi et al. 2012). They are- Cultural, Social, Psychological and Personal factors. The cultural factors are important for understanding the behaviors and needs of the consumers. The consumers are influenced by friends, family and the cultural environment in which he is exposed to. It is important for a brand to understand the predominant cultural factors in a market. The understanding of the cultural factors would help the company to customize its products and adapt the marketing strategy. The social factors are also important from a marketers point of view (Haghighi et al. 2012). The brands have to identify their social benefit offered by the particular products. The brands can target distinguishable social classes like actor, musician, celebrity, politician and others to spread the purchase and use of the product. The psychological factors revolve around the perception, motivation, attitudes and beliefs of the target audience (Newell Lagnado and Shanks 2015.). These factors shape the decision making process regarding a particular product or service and it changes from one individual to the other. The personal factors like the way of life, the standard of living, age, purchasing power, lifestyle and personality are important determinants of the decision making the process of the consumers. The marketing concern should take care of these four factors, which directly influence the decision making patterns of the customers. 

The viral marketing has a significant impact on the purchase decision making of the consumers (Czinkota and Ronkainen  2012). The viral marketing is the key to the success of many business entities, especially the electronic businesses. The viral campaigns, as compared to traditional marketing techniques, have proved to affect the way the consumers formulate their decisions (Gensler et al. 2013). There are different stages of consumer decision making process and the effect of viral marketing can be observed in each of these stages (Andersson 2015).

The awareness stage of the decision making process implies that the viral marketing can be used to impart initial knowledge about a product to the consumers (Mohr 2014). The interest stage of the decision making process implies that the viral marketing can be utilized to impart more knowledge about the product and the brand, as a part of the promotional strategy. The evaluation stage of the decision making process implies the growing role of the contents and design of the viral marketing on the consumers. The viral adverts are said to come with value offerings to the consumers (Alsubagh 2015). The success of the previous steps leads the purchasing behavior in consumers.  

Consumer Decision-Making Process

3.1 Research outcome

The outcomes of this study are expected to deliver an analytical framework for the purpose of investigation of the impacts of the viral marketing on the consumer decision making process. This study would help the marketing concerns to formulate suitable strategies for the maximization of the effect of viral marketing and greatly influence the consumer decision making process.

The research process would consist of the identification of the problem, review of literature, clarification of the problem,

The theoretical framework of the study was carried out through the investigation as well as research in the relevant literature in journals, books and literary works that directly relate to viral marketing and the purchase decision patterns of the consumers (Jørn Nielsen and Hjørland 2014). A questionnaire was also designed fulfilling the scientific standards of the studies (Williams  2015). The segments that were reflected in the questionnaire were viral marketing, factors affecting decision making of consumers and impact of viral marketing on purchase decisions of the consumers.

The researcher would adopt two types of data analysis- quantitative data analysis and qualitative data analysis. The qualitative data would make use of surveys, observations and online forums. The quantitative data would be analyzed by pie charts, excel sheets, figures, mathematical tools and statistical modeling (Riff Lacy and Fico 2014). The qualitative data would also be analyzed with the help of “literature review” (Grbich 2012).

The researcher should abide by the guidelines of “ethical conduct of research” for the truthful achievement of the research objectives (London Kimmelman and Carlisle 2012). The researcher should avoid forcing any participant in the data collection process. The researcher should ensure the privacy of the shared information.  

References

Alsubagh, H., 2015. The Impact of Social Networks on Consumers' Behaviors. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 6(1).

Andersson, S., 2015. Consumers' attitudes toward mobile advertising: a rhetorical approach.

Aslay, C., Lu, W., Bonchi, F., Goyal, A. and Lakshmanan, L.V., 2015. Viral marketing meets social advertising: ad allocation with minimum regret.Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, 8(7), pp.814-825.

ButkevičienÄ—, V., StravinskienÄ—, J. and RÅ«telionienÄ—, A., 2015. Impact of consumer package communication on consumer decision making process.Engineering Economics, 56(1).

Czinkota, M. and Ronkainen, I., 2012. International marketing. Cengage Learning.

Gensler, S., Völckner, F., Liu-Thompkins, Y. and Wiertz, C., 2013. Managing brands in the social media environment. Journal of Interactive Marketing,27(4), pp.242-256.

Grbich, C., 2012. Qualitative data analysis: An introduction. Sage.

Grifoni, P., D'Andrea, A. and Ferri, F., 2013. An integrated framework for on-line viral marketing campaign planning. International Business Research,6(1), p.22.

Haghighi, M., Dorosti, A., Rahnama, A. and Hoseinpour, A., 2012. Evaluation of factors affecting customer loyalty in the restaurant industry.African Journal of Business Management, 6(14), p.5039.

Howeidi, M. and Nguyen, D., 2016. VIRAL MARKETING (Doctoral dissertation).

Jørn Nielsen, H. and Hjørland, B., 2014. Curating research data: The potential roles of libraries and information professionals. Journal of Documentation, 70(2), pp.221-240.

Khan, F. and Siddiqui, K., 2013. The Importance Of Digital Marketing. An Exploratory Study To Find The Perception And Effectiveness Of Digital Marketing Amongst The Marketing Professionals In Pakistan. Journal of Information Systems & Operations Management, p.1.

Kirby, J., 2012. Viral marketing. Connected marketing, pp.87-106.

London, A.J., Kimmelman, J. and Carlisle, B., 2012. Rethinking Research Ethics: The case of postmarketing trials. Science (New York, NY),336(6081), p.544.

Lu, W., Bonchi, F., Goyal, A. and Lakshmanan, L.V., 2013, August. The bang for the buck: fair competitive viral marketing from the host perspective. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining (pp. 928-936). ACM.

Mohr, I., 2014. Going Viral: An Analysis of YouTube Videos. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 8(3), p.43.

Newell, B.R., Lagnado, D.A. and Shanks, D.R., 2015. Straight choices: The psychology of decision making. Psychology Press.

Riff, D., Lacy, S. and Fico, F., 2014. Analyzing media messages: Using quantitative content analysis in research. Routledge.

Solomon, M.R., 2014. Consumer behavior: buying, having, and being. Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Williams, A., 2015. How to… Write and analyse a questionnaire. Journal of Orthodontics.