Phil Bernstein, a Portland-based marketeer, has just updated his (excellent, by the way!) blog with a piece on the downside of Viral Marketing. In this article, he gives us his point of view on this piece — and I actually feel he’s making sense. :)
He says: “Viral marketing only works if the consumers doing the viralizing (a word I believe I just made up) are happy with what they bought. If they’re not, they’ll take it out on you with blogs, forums, and Amazon’s Customer Reviews. If the product is shoddy or the service is poor, the chorus of consumer voices can quickly wipe out any gains an advertising campaign can make.”
He’s right. Word of mouth is king in the land of the www!