Seeding a Message to Harvest Reach. Predicting and Optimizing the Spread of Electronic Word-of-Mouth

Ralf van der Lans (), Gerrit van Bruggen (), Eliashberg Jehoshua () and Wierenga Berend ()
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Ralf van der Lans: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
Gerrit van Bruggen: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
Eliashberg Jehoshua: The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Wierenga Berend: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University

NIM Marketing Intelligence Review, 2012, vol. 4, issue 1, 32-41

Abstract: In a viral marketing campaign organizations stimulate customers to forward marketing messages to their contacts. To optimize a viral campaign it is necessary to predict how many customers will be reached, how this reach evolves, and how it depends on promotion activities. a new Viral Branching model can provide these results. It is based on insights from epidemiology and the spread of viruses and was adapted to a marketing context and an electronic environment. The model is applied to an actual viral marketing campaign in which over 200,000 customers participated during a six-week period. The results show that the model quickly predicts the actual reach of the campaign and serves as a valuable tool to support marketing decisions related to online campaigns

Keywords: Online Marketing; Viral Marketing; Word-of-Mouth; Reach; Branching Processes; Forecasting; Markov Processes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:gfkmir:v:4:y:2012:i:1:p:32-41:n:4

DOI: 10.2478/gfkmir-2014-0039

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