March 30, 2001
How To

Emode.com Attracts Three Million Monthly Unique Visitors By Emailing Just 400 People Viral Quizzes

SUMMARY: This is a short article. Tiny, tiny. But oh so sweet. If you care about either viral marketing or the young women's marketplace, read this puppy now.
When Emode.com, a site and email service for 20-somethings launched back in January 2000, the Founders' entire marketing campaign was to send a single viral email message to about 400 friends in the target demographic. This text-only email asked recipients to come check out Emode.com's site and take three fun quizzes:

- What type of flirt are you?
- The celebrity matchmaker
- What's your perfect workout?

Then the Founders sat back and watched what happened. Traffic began to grow steadily, but here's the interesting thing: although the original email was sent to a group about 50/50 male/female, the incoming traffic it generated was 30/70% male/female. As the editors of the Cosmo Quiz have known all along, young women love taking tests!

Since launching, the only further marketing the Company has done is to start sending out regular emailed, personalized newsletters to site members as of January 2001. CEO James Currier says, "Traffic started going crazy when we implemented the emails. It's a feedback loop between the site and the emails." Wanna take a guess at what Emode's 100% virally grown traffic is now?

Three million unique visitors a month, the vast majority of them female 20-somethings still searching for "their identities, values and brands." Which might explain why they like quizzes so much.

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