But viral marketing still has its place in my view. Mini viral sites still attract many viewers because people have simply forwarded the link onto others. It’s just the way that we view the content that has changed.

To answer your question, viral email is dead in my opinion. Viral content (minisites/youtube videos) is not.

Nice title. ;)

@ Ezekiel. You seem to dislike viral emails ;-) - have you ever received one that you liked? Maybe a sale or something? Has anybody? Some times I get emails from say Staples to announce a sale and if I am actively thinking about buying something I look at it, but I have to admit that I rarely get people forwarding me emails because they are “cool”. I might get a personal mail to check out a mini site – but in terms of sending me information I think that this type of content is better left on a site. I think we need to make a distinction between email “announcements” and “marketing” email. There is a difference:

An email announcement would be “hey we are having a sale” designed to inform.
A marketing email (true viral in my view) is designed to be sent on – eg “isn’t this picture funny – send it to you mates and win a competition”.

I think the term “viral” is applied to both of these examples – in regards to an email announcement I think a simple email would suffice – not some big clunky thing with loads of pictures. In regards to a viral emails they can work (although I admit I have no examples to hand!) Does anybody else?

Nevertheless, I think that viral email marketing can create front of mind awareness in the consumer who might be given to impulsively pick a vendor for his or her next order of office supplies, for example.

Even though I don’t open unsolicited mail or mail from people I don’t know personally, I have received one item which wasn’t selling anything, it was just a fun tool to put a cropped portrait atop the body of a dancing elf.

Nothing to buy and cute to look at…and therefore cute to send to others who could get a laugh and then try out the tool for themselves with a photo that they had stored on their computer. That works. Inasmuch as it gets spread virally and if people play with it enough they even remember the name of the company that “released” the “virus”. It’s subliminal. Nobody is saying “buy this from me.” And in fact they are offering nothing to sell.

Email marketing that is pushing product per se is probably much less often opened and even less often forwarded to multiple recipients. It’s simply treated as junk mail for the most part.

I dropped by to thank the template designers/developers and I read this post. Also I noticed the “Monetize your website” banner and was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction. I need to display such a banner on my website however even though it show up in the “visual” WYSIWYG mode, after being input in the “code”, it doesn’t show up in the actual published post. I’d appreciate the pointer. Oh and please delete this part of my post which is totally not on point regarding the projected lifetime of this viral marketing bug going around.

I think that the type of email you described (the Christmas Elf) is still a good example of viral emailing. You want to pass it around.

The elf was a “marketing” style which didn’t actually sell anything but its brand. People sent it around for entertainment. If viral does have a future it will be in this regard. Brand awareness associated with fun rather than the negatively perceived information emails.

And what’s more, people often dismiss foreign lookin mail before exploring it.

I think that this is the main reason that viral email is hard to start. It only works if the emails come from a friend or colleague. If it’s from a random person then one is less likely to read it.