A RESEARCH REPORT ON

A STUDY ON LATEST TRENDS IN

MARKETING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO VIRAL MARKETING

In the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(2010-2012)

SUBMITTED BY: FACULTY GUIDE:GOVIND SINGH ADHIKARI MR. ARUN KAUSHAL 1006370031 (ASSISTANT PROFESSOR.)

GLA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & MANAGEMENT

PREFACE
Decision-making is a fundamental part of the research process. Decisions regarding that what you want to do? , how you want to do? , what tools and techniques must be used for the successful completion of the project. In fact it is the researchers efficiency as a decision maker that makes project fruitful for those who concern to the area of study. Basically when we are playing with computer in every part of life, I used it in my project not for the ease of my but for the ease of result explanation to those who will read this project. The project presents the role of financial system in life of persons. I had toiled to achieve the goals desired. Being a neophyte in this highly competitive world of business, I had come across several difficulties to make the objectives a reality. I am presenting this hand carved efforts in black and white. If anywhere something is found not in tandem to the theme then you are welcome with your valuable suggestions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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Preparing a project of this nature is an arduous task and I am fortunate enough to get support from large number of persons to whom I shall always remain grateful. With immense pleasure I would like to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to my project guide MR. ARUN KAUSHAL and all who helped me in the project without whom I could not get such an opportunity to work on this subject.

STUDENT DECLARATION
I, GOVIND SINGH ADHIKARI, hereby declare that this report titled
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A STUDY ON LATEST TRENDS IN MARKETING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO VIRAL MARKETING Submitted by me to the department of management, GLA Institute of management and technology, in partial fulfilment of requirements of Master of Business Administration programme is a bonafide work carried by me under the guidance of Mr. ARUN KAUSHAL. This has not been submitted earlier to any other university or institution for the award of any degree or diploma certificate or published any time before.

PLACE: MATHURA DATE:

GOVIND SINGH ADHIKARI (1006370031)

CONTENTS

PAGE No.

PREFACE .......................................................................................................II ACKNOWLEDGEMENT III

STUDENT DECLARATION.IV INDEX CATEGORIZATION OF RESEARCH REPORT CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION .. .................6 CHAPTER- 2 DESIGN OF STUDY .................................................35 CHAPTER-3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. 37 THE STUDY OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY METHODOLODY CHAPTER-4 ANALYSIS OF DATA & INTERPRETATION.38 CHAPTER-5 FINDINGS .................52 LIMITATION...................53 BIBLOGRAPHY .................54 ANNEXURE ...............55

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

MARKETING AN INTRODUCTION

Marketing is defined by the AMA as "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large." It can also be defined for business to consumer marketing as "the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships, in order to capture value from customers in return". For business to business marketing, it can be defined as creating value, solutions, and relationships either short term or long term with a company or brand. This replaces the previous definition, which still appears in the AMA's dictionary: "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders." It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves. Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and keep the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, marketing management is one of the major components of business management. Marketing evolved to meet the stasis in developing new markets caused by mature markets and overcapacities in the last 2-3 centuries. The adoption of marketing strategies requires businesses to shift their focus from production to the perceived needs and wants of their customers as the means of staying profitable. The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions. It proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors. The term developed from an original meaning which referred literally to going to a market to buy or sell goods or services. Seen from a systems point of view, sales process engineering marketing is "a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions, whose methods can be improved using a variety of relatively new approaches."

FURTHER DEFINITIONS
The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as "the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably." A different concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing is defined as "the management process that seeks to maximize returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage." Marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry in the past, which included advertising, distribution and selling, Merchandise support. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programmes. The overall process starts with marketing research and goes through market segmentation, business planning and execution, ending with preand post-sales promotional activities. It is also related to many of the creative arts. The marketing literature is also adept at re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times and the culture. Browne (2010) reveals that supermarkets spend millions of dollars intensively researching and studying consumer behaviour. Their aim is to make sure that shoppers leave their stores spending much more than they originally planned. Choice examined the theory of trolleyology finding that many shoppers instinctively look to the right when theyre in the supermarket. Supermarkets move products around to confuse shoppers, the entry point is another marketing tactic. Consumer psychologist Dr. Paul Harrison (cited in Browne, 2010) states that supermarkets are constantly using different methodologies of selling. One method is performing regular overhauls changing the locations of products all around to break habitual shopping, and break your budget. Harrison also contends that people who are shopping in a counter clockwise direction are likely to spend more money than people shopping in a clockwise direction. Consumer psychologists (cited in Browne, 2010) reported that most people write with their right hand, thus it is a biological trait that people have the tendency of veering to the right when shopping, it is understood that supermarkets capitalize on this fact. Found on the capturing right-hand side are usually appealing products that a shopper might impulsively buy e.g. an umbrella when the weather is dull.

EVOLUTION OF MARKETING
An orientation, in the marketing context, related to a perception or attitude a firm holds towards its product or service, essentially concerning consumers and end-users. Throughout history, marketing has changed considerably in conjunction with consumer tastes. Earlier approaches The marketing orientation evolved from earlier orientations, namely, the production orientation, the product orientation and the selling orientation. Western European timeframe

Orientatio n

Profit driver

Description

Production

Production methods

A firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service. Thus, this signifies a firm exploiting economies until the of scale until the minimum efficient scale is reached. A 1950s production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with a good certainty that consumer tastes will not rapidly alter (similar to the sales orientation).

Product

Quality of the product

A firm employing a product orientation is chiefly concerned with the quality of its own product. A firm until the would also assume that as long as its product was of a 1960s high standard, people would buy and consume the product.

Selling

Selling methods

A firm using a sales orientation focuses primarily on the selling/promotion of a particular product, and not 1950s and determining new consumer desires as such. 1960s Consequently, this entails simply selling an already existing product, and using promotion techniques to attain the highest sales possible.

Such an orientation may suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes that would diminish demand. The 'marketing orientation' is perhaps the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It involves a firm essentially basing its marketing plans Needs and around the marketing concept, and thus supplying 1970 to Marketing wants of products to suit new consumer tastes. As an example, a present day customers firm would employ market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&D to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure persons know the product exists.

CUTOMER ORIENTATION
A firm in the market economy survives by producing goods that persons are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern. Many companies today have a customer focus (or market orientation). This implies that the company focuses its activities and products on consumer demands. Generally, there are three ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach, the market change identification approach and the product innovation approach. In the consumer-driven approach, consumer wants are the drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued until it passes the test of consumer research. Every aspect of a market offering, including the nature of the product itself, is driven by the needs of potential consumers. The starting point is always the consumer. The rationale for this approach is that there is no reason to spend R&D funds developing products that people will not buy. History attests to many products that were commercial failures in spite of being technological breakthroughs.

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A formal approach to this customer-focused marketing is known as SIVA (Solution, Information, Value, and Access). This system is basically the four Ps renamed and reworded to provide a customer focus. The SIVA Model provides a demand/customer-centric alternative to the well-known 4Ps supply side model (product, price, placement, promotion) of marketing management. Product Solution

Promotion Information

Price Place

Value Access

If any of the 4Ps were problematic or were not in the marketing factor of the business, the business could be in trouble and so other companies may appear in the surroundings of the company, so the consumer demand on its products will decrease. However, in recent years service marketing has widened the domains to be considered, contributing to the 7P's of marketing in total. The other 3P's of service marketing are: process, physical environment and people. Some qualifications or caveats for customer focus exist. They do not invalidate or contradict the principle of customer focus; rather, they simply add extra dimensions of awareness and caution to it. The work of Christensen and colleagues on disruptive technology has produced a theoretical framework that explains the failure of firms not because they were technologically inept (often quite the opposite), but because the value networks in which they profitably operated included customers who could not value a disruptive innovation at the time and capability state of its emergence and thus actively dissuaded the firms from developing it. The lessons drawn from this work include:

Taking customer focus with a grain of salt, treating it as only a subset of one's corporate strategy rather than the sole driving factor. This means looking beyond currentstate customer focus to predict what customers will be demanding some years in the future, even if they themselves discount the prediction.

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Pursuing new markets (thus new value networks) when they are still in a commercially inferior or unattractive state, simply because their potential to grow and intersect with established markets and value networks looks like a likely bet. This may involve buying stakes in the stock of smaller firms, acquiring them outright, or incubating small, financially distinct units within one's organization to compete against them.

Other caveats of customer focus are:

The extent to which what customers say they want does not match their purchasing decisions. Thus surveys of customers might claim that 70% of a restaurant's customers want healthier choices on the menu, but only 10% of them actually buy the new items once they are offered. This might be acceptable except for the extent to which those items are money-losing propositions for the business, bleeding red ink. A lesson from this type of situation is to be smarter about the true test validity of instruments like surveys. A corollary argument is that "truly understanding customers sometimes means understanding them better than they understand themselves." Thus one could argue that the principle of customer focus, or being close to the customers, is not violated herejust expanded upon. The extent to which customers are currently ignorant of what one might argue they should wantwhich is dicey because whether it can be acted upon affordably depends on whether or how soon the customers will learn, or be convinced, otherwise. IT hardware and software capabilities and automobile features are examples. Customers who in 1997 said that they would not place any value on internet browsing capability on a mobile phone, or 6% better fuel efficiency in their vehicle, might say something different today, because the value proposition of those opportunities has changed.

ORGANISATIONAL ORIENTATION
In this sense, a firm's marketing department is often seen as of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from an organization's marketing department
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would be used to guide the actions of other departments within the firm. As an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product, or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires. The production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production and promotion of the product. Interdepartmental conflicts may occur, should a firm adhere to the marketing orientation. Production may oppose the installation, support and servicing of new capital stock, which may be needed to manufacture a new product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure, since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.

IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING
Marketing is a very important aspect in business since it contributes greatly to the success of the organization. Production and distribution depend largely on marketing. Many people think that sales and marketing are basically the same. These two concepts are different in many aspects. Marketing covers advertising, promotions, public relations, and sales. It is the process of introducing and promoting the product or service into the market and encourages sales from the buying public. Sales refer to the act of buying or the actual transaction of customers purchasing the product or service.

Ads
Since the goal of marketing is to make the product or service widely known and recognized to the market, marketers must be creative in their marketing activities. In this competitive nature of many businesses, getting the product noticed is not that easy.
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Strategically, the business must be centred on the customers more than the products. Although good and quality products are also essential, the buying public still has their personal preferences. If you target more of their needs, they will come back again and again and even bring along recruits. If you push more on the product and disregard their wants and the benefits they can get, you will lose your customers in no time. The sad thing is that getting them back is the hardest part.

Marketing Promotes Product Awareness to the Public

It has already been mentioned in the previous paragraph that getting the product or service recognized by the market is the primary goal of marketing. No business possibly ever thought of just letting the people find out about the business themselves, unless you have already established a reputation in the industry. But if you are a start-out company, the only means to be made known is to advertise and promote. Your business may be spending on the advertising and promotional programs but the important thing is that product and company information is disseminated to the buying public. Various types of marketing approaches can be utilized by an organization. All forms of marketing promote product awareness to the market at large. Offline and online marketing make it possible for the people to be educated with the various products and services that they can take advantage of. A company must invest in marketing so as not to miss the opportunity of being discovered. If expense is to be considered, there are cost-effective marketing techniques a company can embark on such as pay-per-click ads and blogging.

Marketing Helps Boost Product Sales

Apart from public awareness about a companys products and services, marketing helps boost sales and revenue growth. Whatever your business is selling, it will generate sales once the public learns about your product through TV advertisements, radio commercials, newspaper ads, online ads, and

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other forms of marketing. The more people hear and see more of your advertisements, the more they will be interested to buy. If your company aims to increase the sales percentage and double the production, the marketing department must be able to come up with effective and strategic marketing plans.

Marketing Builds Company Reputation

In order to conquer the general market, marketers aim to create a brand name recognition or product recall. This is a technique for the consumers to easily associate the brand name with the images, logo, or caption that they hear and see in the advertisements. For example, McDonalds is known for its arch design which attracts people and identifies the image as McDonalds. For some companies, building a reputation to the public may take time but there are those who easily attract the people. With an established name in the industry, a business continues to grow and expand because more and more customers will purchase the products or take advantage of the services from a reputable company.

Ads
Marketing plays a very essential role in the success of a company. It educates people on the latest market trends, helps boost a companys sales and profit, and develops company reputation. But marketers must be creative and wise enough to promote their products with the proper marketing tactics. Although marketing is important, if it is not conducted and researched well, the company might just be wasting on expenses and time on a failed marketing approach.

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INTRODUCTION ABOUT THE LATEST TRENDS IN MARKETING

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MOBILE MARKETING
Mobile marketing can refer to one of two categories of interest. First, and relatively new, is meant to describe marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a cell phone using SMS Marketing. (This is an example of horizontal telecommunication convergence). Second, and a more traditional definition, is meant to describe marketing in a moving fashion - for example - technology road shows or moving billboards. Although there are various definitions for the concept of mobile marketing, no commonly accepted definition exists. Mobile marketing is broadly defined as the use of the mobile medium as a means of marketing communication or distribution of any kind of promotional or advertising messages to customer through wireless networks. More specific definition is the following: using interactive wireless media to provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas, thereby generating value for all stakeholders". In November 2009, the Mobile Marketing Association updated its definition of Mobile Marketing: Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network. Another definition comes from marketing professor Andreas Kaplan who defines mobile marketing as "any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device". Within this definition, Kaplan uses two variables, i.e. the degree of consumer knowledge and the trigger of communication, to differentiate between four types of mobile marketing applications: Strangers, Victims, Groupies, and Patrons. Mobile marketing is commonly known as wireless marketing. However wireless is not necessarily mobile. For instance, a consumers communications with a Web site from a desktop computer at home, with signals carried over a wireless local area network (WLAN) or over a satellite network, would qualify as wireless but not mobile communications.

Mobile marketing via SMS Marketing

Marketing on a mobile phone known as SMS Marketing has become increasingly popular ever since the rise of SMS (Short Message Service) in the early 2000s in Europe and some parts of Asia when

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businesses started to collect mobile phone numbers and send off wanted (or unwanted) content. On average, SMS messages are read within four minutes, making them highly convertible. Over the past few years SMS Marketing has become a legitimate advertising channel in some parts of the world. This is because unlike email over the public internet, the carriers who police their own networks have set guidelines and best practices for the mobile media industry (including mobile advertising). The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and the Mobile Marketing Association, as well, have established guidelines and are evangelizing the use of the mobile channel for marketers. While this has been fruitful in developed regions such as North America, Western Europe and some other countries, mobile SPAM messages (SMS sent to mobile subscribers without a legitimate and explicit opt-in by the subscriber) remain an issue in many other parts or the world, partly due to the carriers selling their member databases to third parties. In India, however, government's efforts of creating National Do Not Call Registry have helped cellphone users to stop SMS advertisements by sending a simple SMS or calling 1909. Mobile marketing via SMS has expanded rapidly in Europe and Asia as a new channel to reach the consumer. SMS initially received negative media coverage in many parts of Europe for being a new form of spam as some advertisers purchased lists and sent unsolicited content to consumer's phones; however, as guidelines are put in place by the mobile operators, SMS has become the most popular branch of the Mobile Marketing industry with several 100 million advertising SMS sent out every month in Europe alone. In Europe the first cross-carrier SMS shortcode campaign was run by Txtbomb in 2001 for an Island Records release, In North America it was the Labatt Brewing Company in 2002. Over the past few years mobile short codes have been increasingly popular as a new channel to communicate to the mobile consumer. Brands have begun to treat the mobile shortcode as a mobile domain name allowing the consumer to text message the brand at an event, in store and off any traditional media. SMS Marketing services typically run off a short code, but sending text messages to an email address is another methodology. Short codes are 5 or 6 digit numbers that have been assigned by all the mobile operators in a given country for the use of brand campaign and other consumer services. Due to the high price of short codes of $500-$1000 a month, many small businesses opt to share a short code in order to reduce monthly costs. The mobile operators vet every short code application before provisioning and monitor the service to make sure it does not diverge from its original service description. Another alternative to sending messages by short code or email is to do so through one's own dedicated phone number. Besides short codes, inbound SMS is very often based on long numbers (international number format, e.g. +44 7624 805000 or US number format e.g. 757 772 8555), which can be used in place of short codes or premium-rated short messages for SMS reception in several applications, such as product promotions and campaigns. Long numbers are internationally

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available, as well as enabling businesses to have their own number, rather than short codes which are usually shared across a number of brands. Additionally, long numbers are non-premium inbound numbers. One key criterion for provisioning is that the consumer opts in to the service. The mobile operators demand a double opt in from the consumer and the ability for the consumer to opt out of the service at any time by sending the word STOP via SMS. These guidelines are established in the MMA Consumer Best Practices Guidelines which are followed by all mobile marketers in the United States. In Canada, opt in will be mandatory once the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act comes in force in mid 2012.

Mobile marketing via MMS

MMS mobile marketing can contain a timed slideshow of images, text, audio and video. This mobile content is delivered via MMS (Multimedia Message Service). Nearly all new phones produced with a color screen are capable of sending and receiving standard MMS message. Brands are able to both send (mobile terminated) and receive (mobile originated) rich content through MMS A2P (application-to-person) mobile networks to mobile subscribers. In some networks, brands are also able to sponsor messages that are sent P2P (person-to-person). Good examples of mobile-originated MMS marketing campaigns are Motorola's ongoing campaigns at House of Blues venues, where the brand allows the consumer to send their mobile photos to the LED board in real-time as well as blog their images online.

In-game mobile marketing

There are essentially four major trends in mobile gaming right now: interactive real-time 3D games, massive multi-player games and social networking games. This means a trend towards more complex and more sophisticated, richer game play. On the other side, there are the so-called casual games, i.e. games that are very simple and very easy to play. Most mobile games today are such casual games and this will probably stay so for quite a while to come. Brands are now delivering promotional messages within mobile games or sponsoring entire games to drive consumer engagement. This is known as mobile advergaming or Ad-funded mobile game.
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Mobile web marketing

Google and Yahoo! as displayed on mobile phones Advertising on web pages specifically meant for access by mobile devices is also an option. The Mobile Marketing Association provides a set of guidelines and standards that give the recommended format of ads, presentation, and metrics used in reporting. Google, Yahoo, and other major mobile content providers have been selling advertising placement on their properties for years already as of the time of this writing. Advertising networks focused on mobile properties and advertisers are also available. Additionally, web forms on web pages can be used to integrate with mobile texting sources for reminders about meetings, seminars and other important events that assume users are not always at their computers.

Mobile marketing via QR codes

QR (or Quick Response) codes have been growing in popularity in Asia and Europe, but have until 2011 been slow to be adopted in North America. Originally approved as a ISS standard in 1997 Denso-Wave first developed the standard for tracking automobile parts in Japan. Paralleling the rise in smart phone adoption, QR codes have become much more prevalent in marketing pieces both on and offline. Acting as a visual hyper-link to a page, QR codes make it easy to jump someone to a mobile optimized offer page and as such, represent a very powerful tool for initiating consumer
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engagement at the time when the marketing piece is likely triggering its most emotional responsethe impulse moment. Its potential for tracking offline sources and delivering the types of analytics previously reserved for online tracking makes another powerful reason that marketers are flocking to QR codes in droves. Some recent high-profile campaigns include Billboards by Calvin Klein in Times Square, Starbucks and Lady Gaga teaming up on a QR code driven scavenger hunt and the recent addition of QR codes for every SKU in Home Depot and Best Buy Stores. QR codes are an open source technology. Companies specifically offering integrated marketing solutions are typically merging code generation with tracking features and a variety of mobile landing page solutions to capture leads, make sales and provide more product information.

Mobile marketing via Bluetooth

The rise of Bluetooth started around 2003 and a few companies in Europe have started establishing successful businesses. Most of these businesses offer "hotspot" systems which consist of some kind of content-management system with a Bluetooth distribution function. This technology has the advantages that it is permission-based, has higher transfer speeds and is also a radio-based technology and can therefore not be billed (i.e. is free of charge). The likely earliest device built for mobile marketing via Bluetooth was the context tag of the AmbieSense project (2001-2004). More recently Tata Motors conducted one of the biggest Bluetooth marketing campaigns in India for its brand the Sumo Grande and more of such activities have happened for brands like Walt Disney promoting their movie 'High School Musical'

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

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Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself. Hence, this form of marketing is driven by word-of-mouth, meaning it results in earned media rather than paid media. Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns.

Social media outlets/platforms

Social networking websites and blogs Social networking websites allow individuals to interact with one another and build relationships. When products or companies join those sites, people can interact with the product or company. That interaction feels personal to users because of their previous experiences with social networking site interactions. Social networking sites and blogs allow individual followers to retweet or repost comments made by the product being promoted. By repeating the message, all of the users connections are able to see the message, therefore reaching more people. Social networking sites act as word of mouth. Because the information about the product is being put out there and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company. Through social networking sites, products/companies can have conversations and interactions with individual followers. This personal interaction can instil a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers. Also, by choosing whom to follow on these sites, products can reach a very narrow target audience. Cell phones Cell phone usage has also become a benefit for social media marketing. Today, many cell phones have social networking capabilities: individuals are notified of any happenings on social networking sites through their cell phones, in real-time. This constant connection to social networking sites means products and companies can constantly remind and update
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followers about their capabilities, uses, importance, etc. Because cell phones are connected to social networking sites, advertisements are always in sight. Also many companies are now putting QR codes along with products for individuals to access the companys website or online services with their smart-phones.

Engagement In the context of the social web, engagement means that customers and stakeholders are participants rather than viewers. Social media in business allows anyone and everyone to express and share an opinion or idea somewhere along the businesss path to market. Each participating customer becomes part of the marketing department, as other customers read their comments or reviews. The engagement process is then fundamental to successful social media marketing.

VIRAL MARKETING
Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through selfreplicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or computer viruses (cf. memes and memetics). It can be delivered by word of mouth or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral marketing may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or text messages. The ultimate goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to create viral messages that appeal to individuals with high social networking potential (SNP) and that have a high probability of being presented and spread by these individuals and their competitors in their communications with others in a short period of time.

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The term "viral marketing" has also been used pejoratively to refer to stealth marketing campaignsthe unscrupulous use of astroturfing online combined with undermarket advertising in shopping centres to create the impression of spontaneous word of mouth enthusiasm.

History
The emergence of "viral marketing," as an approach to sales, has been tied to the popularization of the notion that ideas spread like viruses. The field that developed around this notion, memetics, peaked in popularity in the 1990s. As this then began to influence marketing gurus, it took on a life of its own in that new context. There is debate on the origination and the popularization of the specific term viral marketing, though some of the earliest uses of the current term are attributed to the Harvard Business School graduate Tim Draper and faculty member Jeffrey Rayport. The term was later popularized by Rayport in the 1996 Fast Company article "The Virus of Marketing," and Tim Draper and Steve Jurvetson of the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 1997 to describe Hotmail's practice of appending advertising to outgoing mail from their users. Among the first to write about viral marketing on the Internet was the media critic Douglas Rushkoff. The assumption is that if such an advertisement reaches a "susceptible" user, that user becomes "infected" (i.e., accepts the idea) and shares the idea with others "infecting them," in the viral analogy's terms. As long as each infected user shares the idea with more than one susceptible user on average (i.e., the basic reproductive rate is greater than onethe standard in epidemiology for qualifying something as an epidemic), the number of infected users grows according to an exponential curve. Of course, the marketing campaign may be successful even if the message spreads more slowly, if this user-to-user sharing is sustained by other forms of marketing communications, such as public relations or advertising. Bob Gerstley was among the first to write about algorithms designed to identify people with high Social Networking Potential. Gerstley employed SNP algorithms in quantitative marketing research. In 2004, the concept of the alpha user was coined to indicate that it had now become possible to identify the focal members of any viral campaign, the "hubs" who were most influential. Alpha users could be targeted for advertising purposes most accurately in mobile phone networks, as mobile phones are so personal.

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Functioning
According to marketing professors Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein, to make viral marketing work, three basic criteria must be met, i.e., giving the right message to the right messengers in the right environment: 1. Messenger: Three specific types of messengers are required to ensure the transformation of an ordinary message into a viral one: market mavens, social hubs, and salespeople. Market mavens are individuals who are continuously on the pulse of things (information specialists); they are usually among the first to get exposed to the message and who transmit it to their immediate social network. Social hubs are people with an exceptionally large number of social connections; they often know hundreds of different people and have the ability to serve as connectors or bridges between different subcultures. Salespeople might be needed who receive the message from the market maven, amplify it by making it more relevant and persuasive, and then transmit it to the social hub for further distribution. Market mavens may not be particularly convincing in transmitting the information. 2. Message: Only messages that are both memorable and sufficiently interesting to be passed on to others have the potential to spur a viral marketing phenomenon. Making a message more memorable and interesting or simply more infectious, is often not a matter of major changes but minor adjustments. 3. Environment: The environment is crucial in the rise of successful viral marketing small changes in the environment lead to huge results, and people are much more sensitive to environment. The timing and context of the campaign launch must be right. Whereas Kaplan, Haenlein and others reduce the role of marketers to crafting the initial viral message and seeding it, futurist and sales and marketing analyst Marc Feldman, who conducted IMT Strategies landmark viral marketing study in 2001, carves a different role for marketers which pushes the art of viral marketing much closer to science. Feldman points out that when marketers take a disciplined approach to viral marketing by targeting, measuring and continually optimizing their campaigns based on campaign metrics, viral marketing transforms the customer into a new sales channel, a new lead generation channel and a new awareness generating channel. Feldman's innovative reconceptualization of viral marketers went a long way towards making "viral marketing" a strategy that sales and marketing directors at Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies could legitimately invest in.

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This disciplined approach to Viral Marketing that Feldman first carved out, pointed the way towards measuring the ROI of every viral marketing campaign and thus making a real business case for investing in viral marketing. The customer-as-a-sales-channel approach to viral marketing went on to become the foundation for an explosion of technology enabled viral marketing services offered online, offline and in blended h

Methods

Customer participation & polling services Industry-specific organization contributions Internet search engines & blogs Mobile Smartphone integration Multiple forms of print and direct marketing Outbound/inbound call centre services Target marketing Web services Search engine optimization (SEO) web development

ADVANTAGES OF VIRAL MARKETING

It caters to larger audience through World Wide Web and emails. Viral marketing practices which use internet as the communication media can be accessed by large amount of people worldwide and it can be seen as an advantage over traditional advertising media such as tv and radio advertisements. It uses existing communication among friends and other associations to spread the message. As an example if a product message is spread in Twitter using retweets it uses the existing followers of the retwitter to spread the message.

It is considered to be a cost effective advertising method when compared to traditional advertising modes. Posting a blog post or sending emails potential customers does not cost as much cost of advertising in Television. It works as a faster mode of reaching the customer.

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Helps to build the reputation of the firm fast through increased sales and online promotions. It caters to the exact target market of the product as filtering is possible when using online means. As an example, if a company wishes to introduce a product for teenagers living in New York ans wishes to advertise on Facebook, it is possible for the firm to access basic information of the user and filter the target market.

Tools used in viral marketing can be set up with less effort. Composing an email message or a blog post does not require much of effort when compared to making a TV commercial or bill board campaign. Customizing the message based on user preference and local interest is also possible in viral marketing through data mining techniques.

DISADVANTAGES OF VIRAL MARKETING

Issue of SPAMS- Viral marketing uses means such as emails and commenting on blogs and forums. When the viral marketing in done in a large scale it becomes annoying for the email receiver to receive large amount of emails in their inbox and they are made filtered as spam messages. Viral marketing talks about only spreading the message to potential consumers through online means but spreading the message is not does not benefit the firm. Sale has occur at the end for the firm to benefit but the amount of actual sales made apart from promotions is questionable under viral marketing.

Results directly attributable to viral marketing is unquantifiable as companies use other marketing techniques and purchase motivation of the consumer depends on the consumer black box, not based on viral marketing.

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It very hard to make the people to spread the message by emails and other means as people are more concentrated about their personal work rather than doing marketing for business organizations.

Continuous effort in viral marketing can cause the product message reaching out of target audience which will result in brand dilution by sales occurring at nontargeted users. Viral marketing focuses more on short term success rather than building differentiation to gain long term advantages. It can be easily imitated by competitors as anyone on internet can launch marketing campaigns easily.

Negative publicity is possible at the same speed of positive publicity or even higher speed than that.

VIRAL

MARKETING

STRATEGIES

1. Write articles - allow people to reprint your articles on their web site, in their ezine, newsletter, magazine or e-books. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article. Make sure that the link in your resource box is live so that all people that use your article will link back to your site. 2. Create a free e-Book - give your e-book away to your visitors and other editors or webmasters within your target market. Encourage them to pass it on. Insert ezine subscription links or affiliate links to the products throughout your e-book. Subscriptions to your newsletter will increase in proportion to the number of places your e-book is placed. 3. Set up an affiliate program - affiliate programs provide a financial incentive for other sites to link to yours. Make sure your commission is enough to make this attractive to web site owners. As the number of affiliates increases,
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so

do

your

visitors

and

sales.

4. Getting sites to link to your site - you can receive ongoing traffic from other sites by asking them to link to yours. If its a site that already has lots of traffic, you will see an immediate increase in traffic to your own site. Only contact site owners who have products that compliment the products on your site. 5. Send out news releases - create a free service or product that is available on your site. The most important aspect is to have a truly newsworthy event, contest, free service, or digital download. If your news release is carried by just 5% of the media you send it to, you could have your URL in front of tens of thousands of readers quite inexpensively. 6. Viral software - offering a free download of a script, e-book, calendar, etc is an effective method for gaining of new subscribers to your ezine. You can also market your product by including your logo or marketing message with your download.

7. Create an e-course - give your visitor to respond to your offer by creating an courses. You accomplish this by writing a articles outlining the benefits of your distribute them automatically over several with an auto responder. This can be set for the product or ezine you

numerous chances email course or series of small product, then days or weeks up automatically are promoting.

8. RSS Feeds - this is a relatively new viral marketing method. RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It was originally used by news organizations to syndicate their news stories. RSS Feeds are now used to automatically distribute content to blogs. They can also be used to distribute articles to web site owners and ezine publishers throughout the web.

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DIFFERENCE BEWEEN VIRAL MARKETING 1.

Word-of-mouth marketing is when a business does something and their consumer tells five to ten friends. Word-of-mouth marketing has an echo affect. The initial sound is loud and then it fades into the background.

WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING 1.

Viral marketing unlike word-ofmouth marketing has a compounding affect. A consumer tells five to ten people and then those five to ten people tell another five to ten people. The driving force behind most viral campaigns is the passion a consumer carries. It's like a virus that continuously infects more people and spreads without requiring anymore marketing effort.

2.

Word-of-mouth marketing is a key

component to the growth of a small business. It's often word-of-mouth marketing that keeps small businesses running in the early days of operation when there is little to no marketing budget. The consumer shares their experience with your products or services and they share

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it with their family and friends. This increases your consumer base and increases your sales.

2.

Viral marketing is more about reaching out and touching the passion point of your consumer, so that the passion drives the message and the message continues to reach the masses without assistance from you. You can orchestrate a viral campaign, but very seldom are viral campaigns that are orchestrated as successful as those that are just driven by the passion of a consumer. In order for it to reach a level of success your consumer must feel they have a personal stake and investment in the success of your campaign.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VIRAL MARKETING

-Simply relies on the audience to distribute the objective Uses social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Twitter to help achieve an objectivei.e sales, brand awareness, etc This objective is obtained by a Viral Action. This action is people passing on the content such as video, picture, an application, banner, heck even just word of mouth. Sometimes people dont even realize they are Increasing traffic to a site by links, brand awareness and well attention. You pay attention to what your Its about engaging, communicating via a dialogue and interacting with people. More so customers.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

SM Marketing relies on the audience to distribute and engage in the dialogue and sometimes the creation of additional content.

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passing on a viral marketing message. I did it earlier this year with this video, I did not know it was from Gatorade. I totally fell for it did you? Here lies the big difference between Viral and Social Media Marketing, Viral is sneaky and sometimes you dont even know your passing on a marketing message.

customer/user wants and needs! You do this by listening, interacting, chatting. One does this by having a presence on social networking sites and channels. We are talking about Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogs, Podcasts, Digg and others. The brand interacts and engages with the community, customer or even

Bottom Line: Viral relies on the audience to spread the message with little or no interaction. Its a one time interaction

potential customer. Bottom Line: SM Marketing uses good content to start a conversation with the goal of the relationship to grow, get deeper and keep it going

PERFECT EXAMPLE OF VIRAL MARKETING IN INDIAN CONTEXT

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Apart from the gob smacking popularity of the Kolaveri song just by a simple upload on YouTube, it is also marked one of Indias first super successful viral marketing campaign. The phenomenal success of kolaveri di is now being discussed in marketing sessions at leading management institutes. Professors feel the song is a perfect example of viral marketing which has created a huge difference in the world of publicity. Neither the song had great tune or a great voice nor sensible lyrics, still Kolaveri di encouraged listeners to pass on the marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the songs exposure and influence. Like viruses, it took advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions. It is amazing to see, not just the song appealed to the mass audience across the nation, its remixes and modifications are being used to address matters that are pan-national. Its not the video that speaks or provokes an individual to see it but the netizens who leave no room for a person but to have a click on it. Viral popularity might be great publicity for the song, and therefore for the film, but it isnt necessarily an immediate money maker. Still, kolaveris popularity must be attractive to marketing gurus looking for inexpensive ways of promoting songs. The song has become a never seen sensation in Indian music and makes a tipping point in the social media. The song has found success beyond anyones expectation. Almost a month after its release, it is still being given more airtime than Anna Hazare. Kolaveri di brought to light viral marketing in a broader sense to the world. The song managed to turn a spark into a massive fire. Marketing campaigns can no longer ignore the internet. Campaigners now will have to start thinking to develop promotional content for the social media too. One cant say that

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kolaveri di just happened, as things happen in real life by chance. The strength of the song was the audience that was tired of hearing songs picturised in idyllic surroundings with lyrics that are either sentimental or vulgar. A simple song that has no pretension of being a song may well appeal. Kolaveri di had its audience cut out and the reach was pretty much strategic, appealing to the individuals who had a high probability of presenting and passing the message in their communications with others over a short period of time.

Kolaveri Di song an example of viral marketing, say IIMs

AHMEDABAD: The soup song has become an anthem for the future managers of the country. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are treating the popular song Kolaveri Di from an upcoming Tamil film '3' as a classic example of viral marketing. IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A ), for instance, plans to dedicate a session to Kolaveri Di as part of its course on Contemporary Film Industry: A business perspective. Bharathan Kandaswamy, faculty and co-ordinator of the course, says, "I will discuss Kolaveri Di as part of a session on social media and online tools when my class starts in December. Kolaveri Di is a perfect case of viral marketing, which has created a huge difference in the world of publicity." Why this Kolaveri Di, which means 'Why this rage towards me, girl' has actually become a rage across IIMs with faculty of marketing playing the song during class. Professors of IIMs Bangalore, Rohtak and Lucknow - have played the song in class and later discussed its strategy. The institutes have also made videos of the entire class singing to Kolaveri Di and posted them on networking sites. "Kolaveri has been screened in many classes in IIM Bangalore . The professor sits along with the students and enjoys-... Real Rage," posted Ramya, a student at IIM Bangalore on a social networking site

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CHAPTER 3 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

35

Objective:

To study the latest trends in Marketing. To study the concept of Viral Marketing. To study how the Viral Marketing is different from Word-Of-Mouth and Social Media Marketing.

To know the awareness of Viral Marketing among internet users.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
When we talk of Research Methodology, we not only talk of Research Methods but also take into consideration the logic behind the methods which we use in the context of our research study and explain why we use or why we are using a particular method or technique. The information that is to be needed for fulfilling the objective of study was collected from various primary and secondary sources.

Meaning of Research
Research is defined as a scientific and systematic search for pertinent information on a specific topic. Research is an art of scientific investigation. It is an academic activity. It is a systematized effort to gain new knowledge. According to Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English: Research is defined as a careful investigation or inquiry especially through search for new facts in any branch of knowledge.

Research Design
The research study is Descriptive in nature.

Sampling design
Target Population - The respondents are those who use internet. Sample size 50 persons were asked for the purpose of the study. Sampling Technique - In this study, the respondents were chosen through convenience and judgmental sampling. Sample Area - Mathura Data Analysis Data collection through survey was analyzed with the help of simple percentage, tabular and graphic method that includes both graphs and pie charts.

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CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

Question 1: Do you use internet?

38

Response Yes No

Respondents 50 0

39

Interpretation: - 100% respondent uses internet.

Question no 2:- If you find something interesting on internet, do you share it?

40

Response Always Often

Respondent 30 15

41

Never

Interpretation: - 60% people always share while 30% share often.

Question no 3:- Do you pay attention towards internet advertisement? Response Always Often Never Respondent 28 18 4

42

Interpretation: - 56% people always pay attention to internet advertisement while 36% often pay attention to it.

Question no 4: Do you think advertisement on internet, is more effective?

Rating Highly Effective Effective Average Least Effective No Effective Respondents 25 15 7 3 0

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Interpretation: - 80% people think it effective while 20% people think it least effective.

Question no 5: Have you ever heard about these terms?

Terms Mobile marketing Viral marketing Social media marketing None of these Respondents 48 15 10 15

44

Interpretation: - Mobile Marketing among Viral Marketing and Social Media Marketing is most heard term.

Question no 6: Which of them is more effective?

Terms Mobile marketing Viral marketing Social media marketing Cant Say Respondents 15 6 4 25

45

Interpretation: - 50% people cant say which is more effective among three while 30% say Mobile Marketing. Question no 7: Have you watched KOLAVERI DI song on YouTube? Response Yes No Respondent 50 0

46

Interpretation: - 100% people watched KOLAVERI DI song.

Question no 8: Did you share it on internet, when you liked it? Response Yes No Respondent 45 5

47

Interpretation: - 90% people shared the KOLAVERI DI song.

Question no 9: Do you agree that success of KOLAVERI DI song could not be possible without YouTube and sharing?
Rating Highly Agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Highly disagree Respondents 25 15 7 3 0

48

Interpretation: - 80% people are agreeing that YouTube & facebook played a very major role in the success of the song.

Question no 10: Do you agree that sharing the content on internet through various ways help in reaching to masses, more effectively and efficiently?

Rating Highly Agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Highly disagree

Respondents 25 15 7 3 0

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Interpretation: -80% people agreeing that sharing the content on internet helps in reaching masses while 20% people dont think so.

Question no 11: Do you agree that ANNA HAZARE COMAPAIGN used the same strategy as KOLAVERI DI song did?

50

Rating Highly Agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Highly disagree

Respondents 20 15 7 5 3

Interpretation: - 70% people agree with the statement 14% neither agree nor disagree and 16% disagree.

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CHAPTER 5 FINDINGS

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FINDINGS
1. It is not necessary that, those who uses internet must have the knowledge of Viral Marketing, Mobile Marketing and Social Media Marketing. 2. Internet user anyhow contributes or involve in Viral Marketing but they are not well aware about it. 3. People feel good about sharing content on internet, if they like it. 4. People feel that YouTube and Facebook played a very major role in the success of KOLAVERI DI song. 5. Social media and Viral marketing, both are very close concept but different in nature and use for different purposes.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

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A good project report sells the result of the study, but every project has its own limitations. 1. The study could not be conducted on a large sample size and area because of time constraints. This covers all the academic requirements strictly maintaining organization standards; a sincere attempt has been made to collect information. 2. The number of sample size is 50 respondents. 3. The study is confined only to the Mathura. 4. The study is limited to the time constraint. And was to be done only in Mathura. 5. Some respondents did not answer correctly as they were short of time.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
www.timesofindia.com www.wikipedia.com www.google.com www.marketingmanagement.com www.marketingfacts.com www.aboutmarketing.com

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ANNEXURE

Questionnaire
56

Dear Sir/Madam, I am a student of GLA institute of technology, Mathura as a part of my curriculum; I am doing a brief survey to find out how much internet user is aware of Viral Marketing. I would be grateful if you could spare a few minutes to participate in it. Kindly mark where required. Name: -------------------------------------------------------------- (Optional) Contact No: ------------------------------------------------------- (Optional) Location: ----------------------------------------------------------Sex: A). Occupation: Male Business Professionals Female Service Others

B). Age:

18-25 yrs. 36-45 yrs.

26-35 yrs. 45 & above

1. Do you use internet? a) Yes b) no

2. If you find something interesting on internet, do you share it? a) Always c) Never b) often

3. Do you pay attention towards internet advertisement? a) Always c) Never b) often

4. Do you think advertisement on internet, is more effective?

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Highly effective

Effective

Average

Least Effective

No Effective

5. Have you ever heard about these terms? a) Mobile Marketing c) Social Media Marketing b) Viral Marketing d) None of these

6. Which of them is more effective? a) Mobile Marketing c) Social Media Marketing b) Viral Marketing d) Cant Say

7. Have you watched KOLAVERI DI song on YouTube? a) Yes b) no

8. Did you share it on internet, when you liked it? a) Yes b) no

9. Do you agree that success of KOLAVERI DI song could not be possible without YouTube and sharing?

Highly agree

Agree

Neither or Nor

Disagree

Least Disagree

10. Do you agree that ANNA HAZARE COMAPAIGN used the same strategy as KOLAVERI DI song did?

Highly agree

Agree

Neither or Nor

Disagree

Least Disagree

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