Viral marketing can be defined as a campaign whereby a supplier seeks to motivate current customers, the referrers, to persuade family members/friends, the referreds, to undertake a desired action, often to become a customer of the supplier, in exchange for an incentive (for modeling purposes, all viral marketing campaigns are assumed to include an incentive, which, if equal to zero, is somewhat euphemistically referred to as a "Thank you", even if the supplier does not actually "thank" the referrer for passing along the message)
 

The target audience for this report includes corporate marketing, product/service marketing, marketing communications, public relations and marketing research managers, as well as advertising and public relations agency professionals
 

Information contained in this report concerning viral marketing campaigns was obtained through public domain sources, and telephone interviews with persons familiar with such campaigns, October - November, 2003, and, for referrer target populations, through face-to-face interviews with non-computer users in the USA, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, November - December, 2003
 

Over 100 randomly-sampled viral marketing campaigns are segmented by campaign objective, i.e. what action the campaign seeks to get the referred person to undertake, and by incentive type, of which there are 14 different incentive types for the referrer only, and 7 for both referrer and referred (View the sample excerpt)
 

All viral marketing campaigns investigated in detail are very profitable, with Gross ROI ranging from 66% to 3,746% (View the sample excerpt)
 

There is no relationship between customer acquisition cost and take-up in viral marketing campaigns, i.e. spending more does not necessarily yield more, and, on the contrary, some of the most successful campaigns have relatively low budgets (View the sample excerpt)
 

According to The Wedgewise Viral Marketing Model™, a proprietary model based on detailed analysis of the results of actual campaigns, 4 essential levers determine the results of a viral marketing campaign
 

This model shows that viral marketing campaigns with a (correctly) focused target referrer population tend to be more successful, and the more focused the target, the lower the investment needed in the other 3 factors
 

It also provides guidance on how the effects of the essential factors can be amplified by implementing/avoiding successful/unsuccessful practices, emphasizing the importance of a tailor-made approach
 

The Wedgewise Viral Marketing Model™ also differentiates between 7 distinct types of campaigns, of which two yield consistently higher success rates at relatively lower costs
 

Firms undertaking viral marketing campaigns of the most successful type have increased their customer base by 13-25% with a single campaign, lasting at most 12 months
 

The model then provides detailed orientation on how to correctly focus viral marketing campaigns