Viral Marketing Explained

As the name implies, the objective of Viral Marketing is to spread a given marketing message (yours!) as widely as possible over the Internet.

Done properly, Viral Marketing can reach a vast audience in a relatively short period of time. It would be of great benefit to have a website from which you sell your product or products.

One of the basic fundamentals of Viral Marketing is the process of giving away something of value for free. Nothing gets consumers’ attention like the opportunity to get something of real value for no outlay. So you need to offer something like an article or a piece of software or a mini-course. Or, perhaps even an ebook to your potential customers.

When they realise what a great free product they have been given by you, they will be all the more enthusiastic to buy from you, in the knowledge that if the free product is that good, how good must the purchased product be?

Tell those who obtain your freebie that they can, in turn, use it as a promotional giveaway of their own, as long as they leave your contact details intact. Your free product should have all of your website etc. details embedded. This process means that you are using the resources of other online marketers to promote your own message. If in turn these people also give your product away for free then you will start to experience the real benefits of free viral marketing.

Benefits of viral marketing

There is any number of ways to get your message out there to this vast online marketplace:

• You may wish to start your own affiliate program, a financial incentive that encourages people to place links to your site.
• You may write an article that you know is of interest to a certain section of the marketplace. Simply contact as many relevant ezines as possible, and offer your article to them for publication for free. They will probably be grateful for informative content for their publication. Of course, make sure that your website and/or newsletter subscription details are embedded in the article. Of course, your article can also be placed on relevant websites as well, providing extra content for webmasters.
• A somewhat more ambitious undertaking is to write an ebook on your chosen subject. Once written, you can offer the ebook for free to all of your subscribers. The subscribers, in turn, can offer it to their friends and customers. Advertise to safelists. It is not too difficult, after all, to promote freebies.
• If you have a piece of software that you are giving away, then once again your website details, etc. are being made available to a wider audience than you probably could have imagined. Utilize the resources of other webmasters to place links on their sites to download your free product.

Remember that viral marketing is so successful because of the ability of technology to communicate instantly. Anybody can download an ebook or a piece of software. The transferral of information products online has revolutionised how advertising and business are undertaken in the twenty-first century, and you can use this to your advantage.