I recently read an article about the limitations of viral recommendations. A recent study was done showing that the more links a person sends, the lower their conversion rate or the less they’re able to convince friends to check out a link. Another interesting point was that there is a point of saturation. If someone is constantly getting bombarded by the same recommendations, eventually they’ll stop responding to them.
The author of this article suggests that every company should be aware of these facts. I agree, but I don’t think any company needs to really worry about this new information. A “viral recommendation campaign” costs little to no money. The only expense is time. The ROI is unbelievable. If you are getting enough recommendations to saturate an audience, you’re doing a good job. Reaching more people isn’t costing you more money, and it’s rare that a conversion rate will slip so much that you will impact more people with a smaller reach.
Broken down: 80% conversion of 100 people, is 80 people. 85% conversion of 90 people is 76.5 people. 80 is still more than 76.5. Getting more recommendations isn’t a negative thing unless you’re talking about a severe dip in conversion.
On the topic of saturation: it’s something that happens overtime. By the time you have “saturated” any segement of your audience, you have already influenced the “early adopters,” the people that first heard about whatever you’re marketing or sharing. And by then, you should already have something new to share with your audience, something else that they can recommend to friends. There’s no need to beat a dead horse. Let your piece of viral run its course and move on.
Viral recommendations are only part of an internet marketing strategy. A consistent, long-term effort needs to be put into internet marketing. If that is being done, there’s no need to worry about saturating your market. Your market will grow to in order to keep up.
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