Illustration for Marketing Maven Column at Enterprise Magazine

"Viral marketing – using the Internet to circulate funny, informative and promotional videos -- is a bug your credit union will want to catch.

Viral marketing is a new name for an old tradition – referral marketing – but in a new format using email to forward video and Internet links touting brand and product information to friends who forward to friends…ad infinitum.

Forum Credit Union in Indianapolis, Indiana caught the bug. Last November, their website began featuring a monthly online video magazine that they hope will attract regular subscribers as well as viewers who forward the video to friends via email. Riding on the appeal and success of YouTube, Forum’s video magazine is informative and well-directed with high production values. Most importantly, it is clever and funny, the key ingredients to sparking email-generated circulation. (And therefore free publicity.) "

by Diane Luckow