THE IMPACT OF ONLINE VIRAL MARKETING ON IMPULSE BUYING

Abstract

Nowadays, in the international marketing world, a new concept called “viral marketing” has gained enormous popularity thanks to the development of electronic media that substantially facilitate interconnections between companies and potential buyers. Viral tools that give international marketing a new dimension also accelerate international trade transactions. Viral marketing seeks to spread information about a good and service from person to person by word of mouth or sharing via the e-mail or internet. Thus, exact like a virus or buzz, information about the company including its brand message, and its products and services is spread to potential buyers. Then those buyers pass the information along to other potential buyers. So that a huge network is created rapidly. On the other hand, there is another concept called “impulse buying” started to gain importance among international businesses and marketers because of its increasing popularity across a wide range of different product classes. Impulse buying which is also expressed as unplanned, unexpected, instant, or sudden purchases refers to the unpredictable purchase action without any thought, and a pre-determined plan. It seems that viral marketing can be a successful tool for effective marketing communication, and it may trigger the sudden purchase decision for certain products. However, there is still a limited understanding of how viral marketing tool works. When effective execution is achieved, viral marketing campaigns can create an instantaneous buzz in the promotion and distribution of the brands and products of the companies. For this reason, it is important to identify the relationship between online viral marketing factors and consumer impulse purchasing behaviour. Therefore in this study, consumers’ instant buying attitudes towards viral marketing factors are searched. Within the scope of this study, which viral marketing factors are determinant in the impulse purchasing behaviour of consumers is investigated through a wide literature review and secondary research findings.