The world’s greatest viral marketing success story?

Aug 1st

Can you name a national, brand-name product with zero advertising or marketing budget, yet serves over 6 million satisfied customers a year?

I took a day off this week for digital de-tox and spent it hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This American treasure may be the greatest example of viral marketing in history.

It is the nation’s most-visited park with 6 million visitors a year. Yet it has no social media plan, no advertising, no celebrity spokesperson, and no search engine optimization plan. It is just a great product. People visit it, tell their friends about it, and come back year after year to experience it all over again. The Internet is filled with hundreds of thousands of product photos, stories and testimonials.

Can you name a better viral marketing success story? 6 million customers. No advertising.

David Breznau

is word of mouth, advertising? and how in the heck do you get a day off?
MARK W. SCHAEFER

Advertising is promotion you pay for. Publicity is promotion you don't "pay" for. While public chatter is sometimes called "word of mouth advertising," it is really a form of publicity, or what is poplar referred to as viral marketing — a buzz that takes off and spreads on its own.

Word of mouth is by far the most effective promotion you can have. Studies show recommendations from word of mouth are 7-10 times more effective than paid advertising.

So there is great power in having an insanely great product, like a national park, or brand, or a company, and letting it generate buzz … as long as it's positive.

The day off was a gift to myself. A day held out on my calendar far off in advance. And while it was filled with rain and I slipped in a creek and broke my thumb, it was so worth it.

Not having a thumb to type with gives a whole new meeting to "digital" communication!

Thanks for coming by, David!
David Breznau

i stand corrected. and you're welcome for serving that one up. sorry about the thumb. voice recognition is right around the corner. keep up the great work.
Ryan Taft

It may be the greatest non-digital viral marketing success in the world. Sounds like it's a great time and it definitely looks really beautiful. I'll definitely consider visiting. I enjoy hiking.

David – Everyone needs a day away from it all to just refresh. Google Dan Pink + Sagmeister & see his post on someone who takes a year off (ever 7 years) in order to refresh. I would have pasted the URL into the comment, but the comments section doesn't allow copy/paste (Mark – Can you look into that?).

Best,

Ryan Taft
http://www.squidoo.com/Catalyst-Marketers
MARK W. SCHAEFER

Thanks for the comments guys. If you ever want to come to East Tennessee, I ahve plenty of room for guests and would be glad to pint you in ther direction of some great trails. The park is just 45 minutes from my house.

Re cut and paste, I am over-hauling my blog and website and it should be live in about a month. Hopefully the functionality will be much better! Thanks for your patience!
Lil Miss

Did you take that photograph yourself?
MARK W. SCHAEFER

I did. It was from an earlier trip, though.
Cindy C.

I miss the Smokies. Sorry about your thumb.
steve_dodd

Great example Mark. And, I'm sure there are others. As an aside, it's interesting to note that Word of Mouth and Social Exchange is nothing new. All the "Social Web" adds to the game is a new, readily available and more easily accessible venue for a centuries old fact of everyday life.
As a matter of interest, on a search for "Great Smoky Mountains National Park" Google returns 788k hits and Icerocket (blog search) returns 1655 blogs. It would be interesting to see a real analysis done on this example to determine the reach / influence of this online activity.

The world’s greatest viral marketing success story?

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