Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing, also known as “word-of-mouth” marketing, is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing and also one of the easiest to implement.

Viral marketing is defined as: “any marketing technique that’s main purpose is to increase awareness of a product or service through various levels of referrals.” For example: if one person tells 5 people about Company ABC, then those five people each tell five people and so on, the number of perspective clients learning about Company ABC increases exponentially. 1 – 5 – 25 – 525 – 2625 and so on.

There are many different ways to implement an online viral marketing campaign. Some take a degree of expertise and industry knowledge, some take a significant amount of work, and others can be implemented by anyone anytime.

Here is a basic list of ways that companies can increase targeted traffic to their site and also gain credibility as an expert in their domain.

1) Add "Send to a Friend" links on your website. This can be done through Cold Fusion, PHP, ASP, Perl and other server-based technologies. There are even companies such as “Recommend It” that offers this service for free as long as you display their button with their logo and name on it (another example of viral marketing). This technique is very effective, very easy to implement and encourages visitors to inform others about your site. You can even collect the names and email address of the referrers using this technique (with their consent) and start building a qualified database to distribute your own newsletter to.

2) Write articles on topics that pertain to your business and would interest your target market. Encourage people to post them on their site in exchange for a link to your site. Your link popularity increases as well as your credibility and targeted traffic. (Gee, this is a great idea… Why didn’t we think of that?)

3) Start an affiliate program where you send a commission fee to people who refer clients to you. This can be done through text links on other sites, or banners. This also increases link popularity and can be effective if used right.

4) Launch a press release about your product or service outlining how you are DIFFERENT from your competitors. Start local and expand. The local coverage will start word of mouth and make it easier to sell your story. This works very well when used right.

5) Create printer friendly pages. Many people bring printouts to work, to friends or to meetings. Allowing for a printer friendly site facilitates this task.

6) Post messages in news groups and sign guest books leaving your URL along with a brief specific description of what your company does. This should only be done after providing solid, relevant information to a message board. This strategy also increases link popularity. Do not spam message boards with sales pitches. This diminishes your image and creates bad word of mouth. If you want to advertise, contact the moderator and ask him/her how much they would charge for a banner.

7) Promotional Material (Screen Savers, Desktops, Pens, etc.) This is mainly used for branding and increased exposure, but can result in a high viral distribution.

8) Email signatures should include your URL, contact information and brief message about your product. The best example of this is Hotmail. When MSN launched the "Get your free hotmail address at www.hotmail.com" viral campaign… they achieved the largest spread viral marketing campaign.

9) Launch a Newsletter… Visibility, Credibility, Repeat Visitors. This is an excellent way to increase your exposure and to hit your target market. Your database will increase drastically by month if relevant and helpful information is given. Although this is the most effective viral marketing technique, it cannot be abused. The list of subscribers is not there to be spammed, and the info you send must be relevant to what they want to learn more about.

10) Refined Client/Customer Service. The best way to get repeat-clientele is to give them what they want, and more, the first time around. There is no better viral marketer than happy customer.

11) Banner Exchange. While this may be very useful, you should be careful with who you choose to exchange banners with. Banner exchanges can increase targeted traffic if the companies involved add to your image, but can be harmful if they have a poor image. A luxury vacation site would be complemented by a Rolls Royce banner, but an ad for an escort service may not be quite as welcome.

Viral marketing works very effectively because of the fact that humans are social creatures. Figuring out how to tap into your industry’s particular culture and community links may be the start of a beautiful relationship between you and your (increasing) customers.