Viral Marketing – Give your Advertising a Life of its Own!
Viral Marketing – Give your Advertising a Life of its Own!
Viral Marketing is the creation of a message or ebook that is self-perpetuating and hence distributed exponentially after its release. Each receiver likes the email or message so much that they pass it on to one or more of their friends or family.
The Internet is full of many classic examples, the most famous one being that of the free email company - Hotmail.
Hotmail was a free email service provider so it could control the format of all its outbound messages from every Hotmail account. They came up with a viral marketing campaign that has yet to be beaten and saw their traffic skyrocket and eventually lead to Microsoft buying the company as a result of their exponential growth. So what did they do? Simple. To the footer of each outgoing email they attached a signature file that read: To get your free email account go to "www.hotmail.com".
As more and more people received emails from existing Hotmail account holders so the word spread about their free email service - unheard of at that time and the rest, as they say, is history.
You can copy this format by adding your own signature to your own emails. Include a short advert about your company and add your web site. Make it about 3-5 lines.
In more recent times there was the Jib Jab email - providing a very humorous, but cruel, musical cartoon lampooning the USA presidential candidates. It spread like wild fire around the world and even appeared on international news programs. It was so popular that the servers were bought down several times.
Have a look at the reports on the "Butterfly Marketing" to see a similar recent campaign. Mike Filsaime himself received numerous emails telling him to buy the product. This was not only superb marketing - and Mike is the genuine, successful marketer as well as being a nice guy - but also viral marketing powered by a great product and good affiliate programming.
So how do you start your own viral marketing campaign? Get yourself a great message, mp3, ebook, article or set of pictures. At the bottom of the email, in the ebook, were put your company details and web site. Put your own links in the ebook or on the mp3, put a great resource box on the article - so that they are passed on as your product takes on a life of it’s own.
What kind of subject should you choose then? Humor is the number one - but also great poems and stories work well. Have a look at "Interview with God" for a great poem that built up a web site business purely on viral principles. Of course, Morgan the owner works very hard marketing it now, but people telling people about the web site was how it grew so very quickly.
Viral ebooks are also very popular - try and make the information unique, catchy and of interest to many. Put your contact links inside of it and encourage people to share it. If you do it well then people will pass on your ebook and thus details of your web site and products as well.
Articles are also viral marketing tools - write a good informative article with a catch headline - make it the right length and submit it to article sites. If you do it right - then others will publish it on their web sites and in their ezines. As more and more see your article and read your resource box - then more people will see your web site and products.
When used properly, nothing can match the power of viral marketing. It is so effective because it is based on personal opinion, much the same way as an editorial carries more weight than an advertisement because it's coming from a trusted source. You trust your friends and colleagues to send you material that is interesting, useful, and pertinent to you personally. Trust will always be more powerful than flashy design and expensive ad campaigns, and when information comes from someone you trust, it is much more powerful.
Viral Marketing Give your Advertising a Life of its Own - To learn more about this author, visit 's Website.
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Viral Marketing is marketing that has a life of its own - multiplying it's recipients as it spreads - rather like a virus actually.
Viral Marketing is the creation of a message or ebook that is self-perpetuating and hence distributed exponentially after its release. Each receiver likes the email or message so much that they pass it on to one or more of their friends or family.
The Internet is full of many classic examples, the most famous one being that of the free email company - Hotmail.
Hotmail was a free email service provider so it could control the format of all its outbound messages from every Hotmail account. They came up with a viral marketing campaign that has yet to be beaten and saw their traffic skyrocket and eventually lead to Microsoft buying the company as a result of their exponential growth. So what did they do? Simple. To the footer of each outgoing email they attached a signature file that read: To get your free email account go to "www.hotmail.com".
As more and more people received emails from existing Hotmail account holders so the word spread about their free email service - unheard of at that time and the rest, as they say, is history.
You can copy this format by adding your own signature to your own emails. Include a short advert about your company and add your web site. Make it about 3-5 lines.
In more recent times there was the Jib Jab email - providing a very humorous, but cruel, musical cartoon lampooning the USA presidential candidates. It spread like wild fire around the world and even appeared on international news programs. It was so popular that the servers were bought down several times.
Have a look at the reports on the "Butterfly Marketing" to see a similar recent campaign. Mike Filsaime himself received numerous emails telling him to buy the product. This was not only superb marketing - and Mike is the genuine, successful marketer as well as being a nice guy - but also viral marketing powered by a great product and good affiliate programming.
So how do you start your own viral marketing campaign? Get yourself a great message, mp3, ebook, article or set of pictures. At the bottom of the email, in the ebook, were put your company details and web site. Put your own links in the ebook or on the mp3, put a great resource box on the article - so that they are passed on as your product takes on a life of it’s own.
What kind of subject should you choose then? Humor is the number one - but also great poems and stories work well. Have a look at "Interview with God" for a great poem that built up a web site business purely on viral principles. Of course, Morgan the owner works very hard marketing it now, but people telling people about the web site was how it grew so very quickly.
Viral ebooks are also very popular - try and make the information unique, catchy and of interest to many. Put your contact links inside of it and encourage people to share it. If you do it well then people will pass on your ebook and thus details of your web site and products as well.
Articles are also viral marketing tools - write a good informative article with a catch headline - make it the right length and submit it to article sites. If you do it right - then others will publish it on their web sites and in their ezines. As more and more see your article and read your resource box - then more people will see your web site and products.
When used properly, nothing can match the power of viral marketing. It is so effective because it is based on personal opinion, much the same way as an editorial carries more weight than an advertisement because it's coming from a trusted source. You trust your friends and colleagues to send you material that is interesting, useful, and pertinent to you personally. Trust will always be more powerful than flashy design and expensive ad campaigns, and when information comes from someone you trust, it is much more powerful.
Viral Marketing Give your Advertising a Life of its Own - To learn more about this author, visit 's Website.
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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