Viral Marketing in Hot Deals Forums - Leveraging Word of Mouth Advertising

Everyone is out to find the lowest price, but it is becoming less common for buyers to drive from store to store to find the hottest deals. Instead, many are searching the Web to find the hottest deals.

In the realm of Consumer Electronics devices, a study has found that 73 percent of consumers found it easy to compare prices online. Other studies have found similar results on a range of products. Price search engines such as Froogle have become popular, but consumers often want to find out more about a product than the canned information that these Websites can provide - or they want coupons or other incentives to sweeten the deal.

And this is where the Hot Deals Forums step in. This is not a new concept, as they have been going strong since the turn of the century (you know, for the last seven or eight years). These forums are a place where users post the best deals that they have found. Others reply and comment, often finding ways to enhance the savings. Successful deals are, as a rule, beyond the lowest search engine price and often involve other work besides following a link to buy. Coupons are often involved, frequently with special tactics. Two of the largest players in the US arena are Fatwallet and SlickDeals.

The visitors of these sites are generally willing to work a little bit to save a buck. They will do more than the average consumer - some will even take risks just to say that they purchased something below the normal price. You won't need to make them take any risks, but making them do a little work for a deal just might be a good idea. If it appears too easy, it might not appear as worthwhile.

Too often are coupon codes generic, allowing them to be stripped from promotions and given to others who would have paid full price, but just happened to find the coupon and get the benefit without seeing the promotional materials from which they came. For this reason, code generators are usually a better idea.

Now let's speak about how they are going to get the code. Why not tie it into a flash game or other viral interactive material that would require them to be entertained. At first, they might wish that they didn't have to take the extra step, but with engaging content, and a meaningful reward, they will be glad that they did. These cost-conscious individuals are also very likely to pass the content on, as they tend to be important players in the diffusion process. They are often what Malcom Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point, refers to as market mavens. Mavens are the type of people who gather information intently and go out of their way to ensure that this information is put to use. In this domain, a market maven may go as far as to guide the other party through the process, or in some cases even sign them up or do the shopping for them.

Another consideration that must be made is how this coupon (assuming a coupon is to be used) going to be paid for? Will money be lost in the search of new revenue? Maybe it doesn't have to happen. If the product is sold at retailers, and direct sale is available, why not promote the direct purchase? Money saved by eliminating the middle man may more than make up for the coupon discount. Also, if making a coupon with a value that may drop it low enough to be successful isn't plausible, why not highlight other cost savings methods? For instance, Fatwallet provides a percent of cashback on each purchase (FatCash), as does the Discover Card and many other Websites and credit cards. A cross promotion may even be appropriate.

A hot enough deal with an appropriate process will allow your content to go viral in no time. Sites like Fatwallet are known to bring servers to a crawl with traffic - this is affectionately (or to some, frustratingly) known as the Fatwallet Effect. So another consideration would be to make sure that your servers can handle the traffic that this type of delivery can create. Companies offer extra coverage for this type of event, supplying mirrors of your site to handle the demand. You might want the site to slow a little - so they can see how popular the deal is, ie how good of a deal it really is. However, it could be disastrous if it were rendered inaccessible.

Now, how will it get posted to the site in the first place? Posting it directly is often a big no-no, as is outlined in most forums' rules. There are options to pay the sites to run the post as an AD, but these tend not to be hot deals at all and are usually ignored, sometimes even heckled. Rather, it needs to be contributed by a deal-hunting member, as user-generated content is the heart of the site (most real deal-hunters consider the rest of the sites as fluff and rarely view it, if at all) and it will be taken more seriously that way.

So how does it get to that member? That really is a discussion for another day, but let's discuss a few relevant tips. First, it cannot be too easy to be found, because if it is, then you're probably spending too much time promoting it in that way. The deal will not be percieved of as special or worthy of a hot deals forum post. And obviously, it cannot be too hard to find either, because it MUST be found and posted in a timely manner. Browse the site(s) that you want to see it posted at. Use the search function and find highly rated posts or posts about related products and see how they were found. This will give insight on good options. Or maybe even consider contacting top member(s) directly? Be mindful of possible consequences though - maybe even read up on their post history.

These posts are especially effective for multiple reasons. One is the offline aspect. In many offices and between many groups of friends, there is a ritualistic discussion of these types of deals, allowing them to transcend the Web. For instance, those in IT departments are known to start off the day by discussing the deal of the day on woot or late evening, early morning and overnight posts on Fatwallet. Speaking about products and deals were already a staple of conversation, in the same way as the prior evening's TV shows are. Other media that saw birth on the web are still catching up in the word of mouth domain. If done effectively, Hot Deals Forums posts can effectively drive diffusion of a campaign on multiple fronts.