Fe-mail, a fortnightly women's e-zine, more than doubled its subscriber database recently by running a Viral Affinity Marketing Campaign through The E-mail Corporation.
Says Fe-mail's Editor, Shelli Nurcombe-Thorne: "Fe-mail had reached a point where we were looking to increase subscriptions. We realised that the best way to do this would be to incentivise current subscribers to forward the e-zine to their friends and encourage them to join."
The E-mail Corporation suggested running a Viral Affinity Marketing (VAM) Campaign for the month of August. The idea behind a VAM Campaign is simple - make each of your customers a source of future customers. The potential growth of your customer base is enormous because your reach grows exponentially.
Says Angie Lynn, The E-mail Corporation's Online Marketing Manager: "With VAM, a starter mail is sent out, offering recipients an incentivised competition, which they can enter by visiting a Web site. They are presented with the opportunity of entering the addresses of up to five friends they wish to inform about the competition and are informed that for each friend that comes back and enters the competition; they will receive an extra entry in the draw. These five friends are then e-mailed, inviting them to enter the competition and to subscribe to the newsletter in question."
With these five friends now entering, and then referring five of their friends, the potential reach is enormous.
The campaign began in the first week of August. A competition valued at over R10 000 was advertised in Fe-mail, and subscribers were encouraged both to enter, and to provide the names of friends they would like to be informed about the competition.
Says Nurcombe-Thorne: "The results speak for themselves. In the first hour after Fe-mail had been sent, the competition received 268 entries and 829 people had been referred. Two days later, the competition had 2 293 entries and 7 163 people had been referred. A month later, we had received an amazing 6 824 entries and 21 428 referrals."
The E-mail Corporation decided to take the campaign a step further. Says Lynn: "We wondered if we could convert any more of the referrals to entrants. The campaign had continually maintained a 33% conversion rate between people referred and people who actually came back and entered - and we wanted to try and increase this percentage."
The idea was to send out a second e-mail to those people that had been informed about the competition, but had not yet entered. The mail was very light-hearted, explaining that the recipients were being given a final chance to enter. The mail also included a brief sample of Fe-mail as a teaser.
The results were astounding. Two weeks later, the competition had received an enormous 12 475 unique entries, and 37 894 unique people had been referred.
Says Nurcombe-Thorne: "The Fe-mail subscription base, as a direct result of the campaign, increased by 130%. And the base is still growing. The VAM campaign was the boost we needed to see new growth in our subscriber database."
Lynn maintains that the VAM Campaign was an unqualified success. "With the increased number of subscribers, Fe-mail is now able to charge far more for the editorials and advertisements on the e-zine. They were therefore able to cover the cost of the campaign within two months, and substantially increase their annual revenue thereafter."
The Internet is an immediate and often untapped network. Marketers need to understand this power and develop strategies that work for them in this new communication environment. Viral marketing, done right, is a powerful weapon that brings enormous revenue without a massive outlay.
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