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Top1. Introduction
Viral Marketing has become an effective way to promote a brand via digital media, and its success largely depends on customers’ interest in sharing content in their networks. Marketers are finding newer methods to motivate customers to become their torchbearers. In recent years, social media conversations and conversations in online product review forums increasingly drive customers to e-retailers . E-retailers such as Amazon provide options on their websites to engage in word-of-mouth (WOM) and viral marketing activities (VMA). For example, Amazon offers an opportunity for its buyers to share their buying stories on Facebook using the share button. Thus the customer acts as an advocate of a brand through such viral marketing activities.
Moreover, customers can give reviews and ratings on eCommerce websites. These are an example of WOM. WOM is more effective in persuading new customers to visit the e-retailer than many other marketing techniques such as coupons, offers, and advertising. WOM diffuses product information and catalyzes product adoption and sales(Akpinar and Berger, 2017). Therefore, brands are finding various cheaper and more cost-effective ways to increase WOM communication (Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels, 2009). VMA - unsolicited electronic referrals - is found to be very useful in creating awareness, triggering interest, and generating sales or product adoption (De Bruyn and Lilien, 2008). Since WOM and VMA can influence customers better than other traditional marketing techniques, it is essential to study the boundary conditions which can help e-retailers to induce WOM and VMA and thereby improve sales.
Prior research suggests that brand loyalty can positively influence WOM and VMA (Casidy and Wymer, 2015; Rialti et al., 2017). Although loyal customers share their buying experiences and talk about product merits on social media and review forums, recent research has identified that it needs high levels of motivation to engage in such activities online (Eelen, Özturan, and Verlegh, 2017). As positive WOM and VMA are inherently unsolicited, intrinsic factors such as social benefits, concern for others and self-enhancement are motivating customers to engage in WOM and VMA (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004). But, marketers have a limited role in instilling such motivations. Past research suggests that effective content or messaging strategy on social media or in review forums can evoke a customer to involve in WOM and VMA activities voluntarily (Berger and Milkman, 2012; Roy et al., 2014; Akpinar and Berger, 2017).
Since consumers need a higher level of motivation to indulge in WOM and VMA in online conditions as compared to offline situations, we studied the difference between online and offline environments. A study on the differential effects of WOM in online and offline settings found that brand loyalty is less positively related to WOM in online conditions as compared to offline circumstances (Eelen, Özturan and Verlegh, 2017). People may refrain from electronic WOM and VMA because permanent records of their conversations or activities will be stored in digital media, whereas no such thing happens in offline communications. Another finding is that perceived risk in online transactions is very high as compared to offline transaction (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004; Matzler, Grabner‐Kräuter and Bidmon, 2008; Ortinau, Babin and Chebat, 2013; Soto-Acosta et al., 2014), and that perceived risk has significant effects on the sender’s intention of a WOM spread (Ha, 2006; Lin and Fang, 2006; Huang, Chou and Lan, 2007; Wrench, 2007). Perceived risk online is defined as the feeling of uncertainty, insecurity and vulnerability experienced while browsing an e-retailer website (Alcántara-Pilar et al., 2018). Hence we conclude that to improve intrinsic motivation and engage customers in WOM and VMA, e-retailers have to adopt effective content strategy and methods to reduce uncertainty. The advantage of WOM and VMA promotion is that once a retailer has succeeded in evoking sufficient amounts of positive WOM and VMA, customers themselves will act as a channel to continue the conversation further in their networks. Hence we can infer that there exists a symbiotic relationship between loyalty and WOM and VMA.