OF SWEET AND SOUR VIRUSES

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LET'S TRY SOME CHINESE FOOD: ACT I
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Imagine going to a Chinese restaurant with a friend.

You walk to the entrance of the restaurant, where you're greeted by a waiter.

Without a smile, he sees the two of you, and asks the both of you to follow him.

He points to a big round table of which there are 3 other couples already seated.

They all stare at you and your friend.

The table seats 10, so there are 4 empty spaces left.

The waiter gestures to you and your friend to sit next to one of the couples.

What? You're not about to share a table with 6 other strangers!

But of course.

So you ask for a private table just for the two of you.

The waiter hears you, and asks you to follow him.

He brings the both of you to a window with a table, which is already occupied by another couple, who are just starting to eat their dishes.

You're wondering what's happening.

The waiter looks at you, points his finger to another restaurant visible through the window, and says to you and your friend in perfect English, right in front of the couple who are just starting to eat their food:

"Why don't you try THAT restaurant over there? THEY can give you your private table."

And he walks off, leaving you with your date staring at each other.

Are you feeling offended? Then leave.

Otherwise join the 3 other couples at the table you've just been shown.

That was the message being dished out to the couple who dared to ask for a table for two.

Don't laugh. It's happening on a daily basis at this Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, London, England.

And you know what?

This restaurant is always full.

Always.

And they wouldn't bat an eyelid treating their customers this way.

Don't believe me? Try it out. It's called, "Wong Kei", and it's found in London's Chinatown.

Just ask any student who's been to London. They'll verify that this one-heck-of-a-Chinese restaurant exists.

Oh, remember that table with those 3 couples?

They didn't know each other!

Each couple arrived at different times, and each had been herded to be seated together with the other couples upon setting foot in that restaurant.

Think cattle. Ah! You get the idea. ;-D

One couple were siting down totally bewildered. Another couple were stifling their nervous laughs, wondering just what they were getting themselves into.

But there they were, sitting next to each other around a table meant for families or friends, total strangers to each other, each ordering their own portions of food, and eating them grudgingly.

With each of them swearing never to ever set foot in that restaurant again.

I know, because my friend and I were two of them.

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LET'S TRY SOME CHINESE FOOD: ACT II
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One couple finished their food, paid the bill and starting standing up to depart, leaving their change on the bill tray.

"Wait!", said one of the waiters.

He picked up the change from the tray and threw it on the table in front of them.

"Keep it", he said. "We DON'T need your small change."

What?

Did I say that this restaurant is always full?

Always?

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LET'S TRY SOME CHINESE FOOD: ACT III
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"Come with me", said another waiter to another couple.

Oh-oh.

"You see that restaurant over there? THEY have forks and spoons for you to go with your food. Over here we eat Chinese food with chopsticks."

Buck up on those chopsticks skills, my friend. You'll need them.

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LET'S TRY SOME CHINESE FOOD: ACT IV
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"So you're ordering a portion of rice with chicken and some stir-fried vegetables?", asked the waiter.

"Yes", I said.

"Is that all?", he asked.

"Yes", I said.

"THAT'S ALL?" he bellowed, apparently not believing what he had heard. Shaking his head, he shouted to his colleague.

"No. 1 & 13, and THAT'S ALL."

It's enough to make you want to throw up on the table in front of you.

But then that would be very rude, wouldn't it?

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LET'S TRY SOME CHINESE FOOD: ACT V
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"Excuse me", somebody in the background yelled out.

Oh-oh.

We were already starting to feel sorry for him.

"Can I have some soya sauce, please?", was the request.

"It wouldn't make any difference", was the answer.

We heard no more.

None of us looked at the person making that request out of respect or sympathy for him.

Because it could easily have been any one of us.

Oh, did I mention that this restaurant is always full?

Always?

But how?

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HERE'S YOUR FORTUNE COOKIE: YOU'LL BE VERY, VERY RICH INDEED
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Word of mouth, my friend. Or in cool, hip, Internet lingo - "Viral Marketing".

Nobody could believe just how this restaurant could treat its customers the way it does - and so most of them couldn't wait to check it out.

And when it turned out to be true, they in turn will relate their own experiences to their friends and families.

Just like what I'm doing to you right now.

I'm telling you this - unless you've experienced this for yourself, you wouldn't really believe me.

I mean, you wouldn't REALLY believe me, would you?

But be forewarned - get ready for some of the rudest waiters on the planet, and an experience of a lifetime.

I had to return to this restaurant with some friends just to prove my point.

And, like a scene from the X-files, I had to re-live my awful memories again for a full 45 minutes for the benefit of some dear friends, who then brought their own friends for their second visit just to prove their own points.

And who would have thought it would work the way it's working for this restaurant?

Viral marketing, my friend, is the most potent form of marketing there is on the face of the planet.

You can spread the word by telling somebody else about it either orally or in writing. And on the Internet, with e-mail, you have the most effective form of communication today - where you can tell a million people you know at the same time what you think of a particular business.

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NOW LET'S TRY SOME INDIAN FOOD
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I went to an Indian restaurant the other day. It's called "Acha's".

This particular restaurant specialises in serving you "banana leaf rice", which is simply servings of boiled white rice on, er, a banana leaf instead of a plate, together with lots of curry, vegetables, chutney, yogurt and other delightful stuff that make a meal unlike anything you've ever experienced in your entire life.

If you want more of any of the items that were served to you, simply ask the waiter who will then serve you some more from his special carrier that everybody gets served from.

There are many Indian restaurants serving banana leaf rice in Malaysia(which is where I live). But this particular restaurant stands out. And boy, does it stand out in a big way.

It's not a fancy set up. It has very basic tables and chairs and no air-conditioning. It is noisy, and it is hot.

But it is always full. Always.

Watch how they operate:

When you arrive, the owner of the restaurant who is usually standing at the entrance will announce your arrival by hitting a gong. You laugh, and the other diners will be looking at you. Somehow the atmosphere is one of fun.

Nobody is embarrassed to be there.

You sit down, the banana leaf is laid out in front of you in seconds, and you are asked what curry you would like with your rice.

You say "Chicken Curry", and he gives you chicken curry. And then he asks you:

"Would you like to try our 'Mother-In-Law' curry? It has lots of pure onions and garlic in it. You can't find it anywhere else in this world."

Would you try it?

Or how about the "Father-In-Law" curry? I don't know what's in it, but it was right next to the container holding the "Mother-In-Law" curry.

Wouldn't you be curious?

Then, as you're enjoying your meal, the owner announces a bet.

"If anybody can make this empty Coke bottle stick to this wall without using anything to stick it with, I will give you a free lunch."

Nobody takes up the offer, and he then proceeds to press the bottle against the wall. It sticks. No kidding - I was just 2 feet away from the action, and all he did was to press the bottle against the wall with some force, while pushing the bottle up against the wall some 3 or 4 inches, before letting go. Apparently friction had something to do with it.

Some minutes later, he places the same empty Coke bottle upside-down on its cap. He challenges anybody to remove the cap without disturbing the bottle in anyway. I had already finished my meal and was leaving when he started that stunt, so I can't tell you how he did it.

But it's a fun restaurant. Most people will enjoy it.

And of course the food's really something too.

But this restaurant has more than good food. It has that extra something that makes it more successful than most. The off-beat way that they treat their main assets - their customers - helps them in more ways than one.

Just like the Chinese restaurant. Except that the Chinese restaurant chooses to go to the other extreme.

And both are full. Always.

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LESSONS FROM FOOD
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The Chinese and Indian restaurants above provide you with a super viral marketing concept in the conventional world that you can adopt and adapt to your own business on the Internet:

FIND A WAY TO TREAT YOUR VISITORS/CUSTOMERS THAT MAKES THEM TALK ABOUT YOU

In other words, be "appealing" to your target market.

There are a zillion ways that you can do this.

You can be the most controversial Internet Entrepreneur or one who leaves no stone unturned to please your visitors/customers. Either way will draw you traffic. Others fall in between with either more/less of one AND less/more of the other. Some combinations work better that the others. And some don't work at all.

Whatever path you choose, you can use your web site, Discussion Board and e-zine to showcase whatever it is that makes you appealing.

Both controversy and good talent sell. Ever seen Discussion Boards with participants flaming each other? Those threads are probably read by more people than we think, who will invite their friends to drop by to check it out.

Of course, being controversial has its drawbacks whether you're on-line or off-line. If you take this path, you'd need to wear the right armour. You'd need to be ready for unwarranted attacks on you and the things that you do.

So beware.

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YOUR PRODUCTS CAN BE YOUR MARKETING AGENTS
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You can create viral marketing power using the products that you sell.

One way is to simply come up with products that are the complete opposite of what your customers are expecting to see or are used to seeing.

For instance, you know those motivational posters you've seen hanging on every wall of every office - with very well-taken photographs of eagles soaring amidst a very blue background and quotes under them like, "The Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With The First Step"?

One poster I have seen many times has the quote, "If At First You Don't Succeed, Try and Try Again".

Well, now go to www.despair.com and find some "Demotivational Posters" you can buy.

Because at this site, you'll find the same quote re-written this way:

"If At First You Don't Succeed, Failure May Be Your Style".

Now that's one of the funniest, silliest quotes I've ever seen in my entire life. And because they're funny, you prospects will have difficulty forgetting them.

But if you were to sell the same posters as everybody else, what's to REALLY differentiate you from the others that would make a significant difference to your bottom line?

Lower prices? Somebody else can easily sell at a lower price than you. Bigger selection of quotes? Well, how many good quotes are you looking for anyway?

But smart-ass quotes that nobody is used to make your products do a U-turn in your prospects' brains.

And Wham! Score One: You Make A Strong First Impression On Your Prospects.

And because you're creating those quotes yourself, you're making it difficult for your competitors to imitate you. Talent, as you know, is in short supply. Most of your competitors are contented with being just the middlemen, preferring instead to simply earn from their margin.

And Wham! Score Two: You Have Built A Competitive Barrier For You Business.

When you make your prospects laugh, cry, angry, hurt, or otherwise affect them in some SIGNIFICANT way, you secure a strong position in their minds. Funny stuff is appealing, as is emotional stuff, as is controversial stuff. Chemicals released by your brain that regulate emotions can be very addictive, and this addiction is what entrenches your business in their minds.

And then they start to tell their friends about you, among whom will be found some potential customers of your products/service.

And Wham! Score Three: You Become A Viral Superstar.

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"I KISS YOU"
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And then you can achieve the Viral Marketing effect by pure, dumb luck.

Check out:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/mahir991217.html

for a report on a true Viral Superstar, where his person and personality is the object that gets talked about.

He became a Viral Superstar by fluke when some hackers changed his home page for the fun of it.

You may have already heard of him. He even has his own fan clubs, found all over the world.

And for some reason, his official site at
http://members.nbci.com/primall/mahir/ has not been accessible for some time now (try it now - it may work). But check out the other sites dedicated to him for a good idea of what real viral marketing power means.

But at one time he simply had no idea on how he can turn his viral marketing machine into cash for himself.

Now watch him make his money by selling singles and videos - of himself!

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LOOK MA: NO WIRES!
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You know Hotmail's famous tagline "Get Your Free, Private Hotmail Account from www.hotmail.com" that attaches itself to every e-mail you send out from your Hotmail account? That one line is responsible for exploding Hotmail's subscriber base from zero when it first started to 1 million subscribers in 6 months and 12 million subscribers in 18 months!

Here's the updated version:

Allow your visitors to send short text messages from your web site to their friends' mobile phones. Of course, every text message sent by your visitors will have your tagline attached -perhaps, "Send Messages To Your Friend's Mobile Anywhere - http://www.yourdomain.com."

It is already happening. Go to http://www.unimobile.com and send a short message to your own mobile phone. Depending on certain factors, you'll get the same message from within a few seconds to a few hours from the time you pressed the "Send" button. It doesn't matter where you or your friends are in the world - unimobile covers most countries.

A portal in Malaysia using this tactic to create the viral marketing effect had to literally suspend their service for some time due to heavy use, before upgrading their infrastructure to take the extra load. This looks like a good thing to have - the more people you have using it, the more people your tagline is going to reach, and the more traffic you're going to get.

And with countries in Asia having a big wireless population, this service helps spread the word very quickly about the site offering the service -bringing it traffic it otherwise wouldn't get. It's also another channel for generating traffic to your website.

Of course, there are costs involved in setting up this system for your site. It may not be affordable enough for smaller entrepreneurs. And it is not appropriate for every type of site. But it's here to illustrate what forms viral marketing can take which need not necessarily take place only if your prospects are in front of a computer.

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THE BASIC Sen Zé VIRAL MARKETING GUIDING PRINCIPLE
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Whatever your Internet business may be, you must always incorporate an element that is "viral".

You can "force" the virus into action by starting an Associate Program for your product where you pay your visitors to spread the word for you (payable after a sale has resulted from their efforts), or you can let your visitors develop it for you for free by using the ideas above in the form of content, zany or unusual products or the way you treat your visitors.

There are so many other possibilities - simply look around you in the real world off-line and analyse what makes those businesses so successful. Then find a way to translate those concepts, strategies or tactics into an action plan for your Internet business.

For good measure, combine several viral marketing concepts, strategies or tactics to create a monster of a virus, and you're well on your way to Internet superstardom.

Warm Regards,

Sen Zé
Uncommon Senzé Internet Marketing Master?


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