What Is Viral Marketing?

When you purchased an item or availed of a service of a certain establishment
and are satisfied with what you got, don't you recommend that to a friend? And
when you give your recommendation, doesn't your friend buy or avail of it as
well?

More often than not, we express our satisfaction with some product or service
by telling our friends and relatives about our experience. Some of them will
actually try the same product or service that we recommended. Essentially, we
have just successfully advertised the product through word-of-mouth without the
establishment having to spend a penny on it.

That is the idea behind viral marketing. Viral marketing is an advertising
strategy that entices people to pass on a marketing message to their relatives
and friends. It is called as such because of its similarity to an epidemic that
easily spreads out, with an exponential growth, once an individual gets
"infected."

How did this marketing phenomenon start?

The concept of viral marketing, which is passing along a message, has been
around for a long time now, even for centuries. There was just no specific name
for it until 1997 when Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist, came up with the
term "viral marketing" to describe Hotmail's marketing practice then.

Hotmail's practice was to append an advertisement of itself on each message
that is sent using their service. When a recipient gets interested and clicks
on the ad, it will lead to Hotmail's website for him to signup. This will go on
and on, and the growth is similar to an exponential curve.

Types of Viral Marketing

There are different ways to apply viral marketing strategy.

- Pass-along. This is the most common type of viral marketing. Web sites that
ask their users to tell-a-friend about their products and services is an
example of pass-along messaging. However, there is a risk of the message being
labeled as "spam" by email providers. Thus, it is important that the "from" and
"subject" lines do not contain any word that may be tagged as spam.

- Incentivised viral. This is a marketing technique used by companies in which
users are offered rewards when they refer somebody to the company. This becomes
more effective when the referred person needs to take action for the reward to
be given.

- Undercover. The most difficult viral to spot, undercover marketing sends a
viral message that is disguised as just an unusual page or piece of news
without obvious link citations.

- Edgy gossip or buzz marketing. This type is most common in the entertainment
world. A good example is the spread of different controversies, like getting
married or divorced, involving the stars of a movie that is yet to be released.
This is like a word-of-mouth advertising for the movie.

Methods of Transmission

Spreading the viral message can be done in different ways.

- Email. This is the most common type, when people forwards messages such as
inspirational messages, jokes, funny clips and pictures that advertises a
certain product or service.

- Instant Messaging. People who receive links from friends through instant
messaging servers, like Yahoo or MSN, are more likely to check it out because
of the notion of urgency of the sender.

- Web sites. Most of the articles now published online have a link that says
"Send to a friend." This is one way to make the article reach a good number of
people by just posting it in one site.

- Word of mouth. Of course, this is the traditional way of passing on a message
to another person; and most of the time, the most reliable method too.

Though there are several ways on how to do this kind of advertising, there are
also barriers to it. One was already mentioned, which is the risk of the
message being labeled as "spam." Since a lot of companies now are using this
method and promoting their products through email, email providers proactively
created some sort of filter in their system to separate potential spam emails
from the more trusted ones.

Other barriers can be the size and format of the viral message. If the content
is a video clip, its reach may be limited because of size limitations of most
of the email providers. Media format is also one thing to consider because not
all recipients of the message may have the right application to open the file.

But despite of these constraints, businesses are already getting into this
style of marketing. Indeed, this technique helps in dramatically increasing
revenues by reaching a huge number of the target market without having to spend
a big chunk of money for advertisements. Viral marketing will definitely go a
long way, especially in the World Wide Web.

Why Choose Viral Marketing?

The Internet has modernized man's way of living. It has also affected how we do
certain things including business tasks. Marketing has gone a long way and it is
not being revolutionized by the Internet.

Internet viral marketing is a cost effective way to be able to reach a targeted
audience and efficiently convey one's marketing message. Viral marketing outside
the context of the Internet is usually connected with spreading a message
through word-of-mouth. In the context of the Internet, the concept is the same,
but the ways of doing it is diversified.

Internet viral marketing is similar to a virus. Viruses are notorious for being
easily spread. This is the concept behind Internet viral marketing. Viruses, if
not contained, can strike an epidemic. Internet viral marketing behaves like
viruses, it aims at spreading a marketing message to people through other
people.

The mere dynamism of the Internet makes it possible for viral marketing to do
its job quite effectively. In the world of the Internet, viral marketing can be
done in many ways. The whole structure of the Internet has been a tool which has
been used by many to be able to make a statement or advertise a product.

We say that using Internet viral marketing, or viral marketing in general is
one of the best, if not the best way of marketing a certain product or service.
This article tries to lay down the reasons for the claim above.

Here are some reasons why viral marketing is the best way to market:

-It's free!

This is probably the best reason why viral marketing is the best way to market.
There are many ways to market a product or a service. One can utilize some of
the old-school techniques such as the use of print media (banners, posters,
flyers) or audio-visual tools. There is not much argument about the
effectiveness of these methods, given the assumption that they are done with
careful preparation and planning. However, these things cost money, a lot of
money.

An actual example of the cost of these other marketing techniques can be seen
in the pharmaceutical industry. Studies say that more than half of the cost
that people are incurring for buying branded medicines is used to cover the
expenses of marketing the products. This is a reality that reflects how
marketing costs can take their toll on the product itself.

Viral marketing is a free way of spreading a marketing message. One can argue
that it is not totally free (as claimed). However, the only costs for Internet
viral marketing are the costs associated with Internet connection and some
minor tools for getting on track. One can also do an economic valuation of the
time spent for viral marketing, but every other marketing technique consumes
time.

-Availability of techniques

There are many ways of doing viral marketing, especially through the Internet.
Literally, there are hundred different ways of spreading a marketing message
through the web. The most popular way is to use affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs gives incentives for webmasters to put up one's banner. The
webmasters earn some profit whenever the banner is clicked by the visitors. One
can also look into the option of giving away free stuff to other people to get
their attention and be agents of the viral marketing endeavor. One can give
away free web space, free articles, free newsletters, free software, free
graphics, free screensavers, etc. This is the concept which was employed the
developers of hotmail. If one can remember, hotmail became a craze when it was
launched. People who signed up for the free email literally became marketing
agents for hotmail. They carried the marketing message which was simply
embedded into their email addresses.

-Impact of viral marketing

Viral marketing, if done properly, will not only convey a marketing message, it
will let the message stick to people's minds. Creativeness comes into play when
using viral marketing as a strategy. Everything starts with a bright idea and
this idea is then put into operation with careful planning and execution.

Viral marketing is the way to go in these modern times of marketing. It is a
very cost effective and efficient way of conveying a marketing message towards
a target audience.

Viral Marketing Techniques

Viral marketing can be defined as any technique or a set of techniques that
encourages persons to pass on marketing messages to others, which will produce
exponential increase in the awareness of people towards a particular brand,
enhancing the visibility and effect of the marketing message. It involves
dispensing free products or services along with the advertisement, and in
return, the recipients will pass the product along to other users.

This strategy is very attractive to businesses limited budget for marketing and
advertising. It can deliver very desirable results with minimal cost in a short
period of time. Of course, viral marketing also has its downside. There are
times that messages related to viral marketing can resemble e-mail spam and
this can create damage to the brand.

Some viral marketing strategies are more functional than the others. To help
advertisers decide as to which ones are to be considered, here the elements of
an effective marketing strategy:

1. Products and services are given away free of charge

2. Makes use of existing communication networks to the maximum

3. Takes advantage of common human behaviors and motivations

4. Has a medium that enables users to transfer the message to other people

5. Can switch from small scale to a large one

6. Utilizes the resources of others to carry their message out

Having these elements in mind, advertisers should carefully select the viral
marketing technique that will work well for their business. Here are some
popular examples:

1. Articles

Articles can be written by an advertiser about the business, making certain the
site and the advertiser's contact information will be included, and placed at
the byline, and the message at the end of the article. Permission will be
granted to people who wish to print the articles, with the condition that the
name of the site and contact information will remain intact on the page. The
advantage of the technique is that people who like the articles can email them
to their contacts, or they can publish it on their own newsletters or web
sites. The exposure is a sure thing since other people will get to read the
article, and recognize the marketing message along with the creator.

2. E-books

E-books can be shared to others for free, enclosed with an attractive ad that
showcases the most in-demand product line of the business, of course, includes
the links to the advertiser's web site and the email address. Recipients should
be allowed to share the e-book to others.

3. Software

Free software can be shared with others, be it a trial or a light version. Then
include the ad complete with links to the site and contact information.

4. Discussion boards

A discussion board can be created on an advertiser's web site featuring banner
advertisements.

5. Web hosting

An advertiser can offer free hosting services to small businesses in exchange
for placement of banners that promotes the site of the advertiser.

6. Awards

Awards can be created and given out to other web sites for any reason. For
instance, the advertiser can create a good-looking button that the award
recipient can attach to their web sites, and when others click on the button,
it leads directly to the site of the advertiser.

7. Affiliate programs

Affiliate programs create financial incentive for sites for linking with
others. This can be created to encourage the placement of links that provides
information to products and services.

8. Referral program

A special referral program can be made for frequent visitors for bringing in
new ones to the site. The person who refers a visitors can sign-up for the
program and gets a commission from the advertiser.

9. Newsletters

An advertiser can encourage users to forward a newsletter to friends. It is
recommended to create a newsletter that is funny and attention-grabbing, and
the links to the advertiser's site will be included in it.

10. E-cards

Users can be permitted to post e-cards in the advertiser's web site.

By choosing and utilizing the correct type of viral marketing strategy for
their business, advertisers can expect to gain rapidly from their marketing
efforts in a short period of time.

Principles of Viral Marketing

Viral marketing has definitely gained its popularity over the global network.
More and more businesses are adopting this marketing strategy to gain their
fair share in the market. The approach developed by Hotmail in increasing its
number of subscribers is one classic example of viral marketing.

How Hotmail Did It

Hotmail is one of the first web-based email provider that gives away email
addresses for free. Their marketing approach starts by giving free web-based
email addresses and additional services. Each of the messages sent with a
Hotmail address has an advertisement at the bottom that goes: "Get your
private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com."

Then, of course, Hotmail subscribers will use the service to send messages to
their friends and colleagues. These friends and colleagues will get the message
and read it, and then clicks on the link at the bottom. They will also sign up
and be a subscriber like what the sender did. Then these new subscribers will
also email their own set of friends. The cycle goes on and on.

This is why viral marketing has the power of reaching thousands, even millions,
of people in such a short time and with little effort from the one who initiates
it.

Elements of Viral Marketing

Dr. Ralph Wilson, an e-commerce consultant, named six elements or basic
principles of viral marketing. A viral marketing technique need not have all of
these, but the more principles it follows, the more powerful the strategy will
be.

1. Give away products or services. This is the first and most basic principle
of viral marketing. When a person hears the word "free," it elicits the
interest in him and will avail of that free product or service, for sure.
Having cheap or inexpensive products may also do the trick, but "free" will
give much faster results.

Patience is important in viral marketing. Giving away products for free may not
earn profit today but if the business gets to develop customer base by giving
something for free, it will soon generate income for them.

2. Easy transfer to others. The medium used to carry the marketing message to
other people should relatively be easy. Viral marketing has been powerful over
the internet because of the ease of communication the technology offers. Email,
web sites, software downloads are just some examples that can be used in viral
marketing.

Also, it is better that the message be short for easy copying and transmission.
Simple and short but straight to the point is best, just like Hotmail's
advertisement at the bottom of each email sent out.

3. Scalability from small to very large. When viral marketing is used as a
marketing style, it is best that the business is prepared for rapid growth. In
cases of increasing web traffic thru viral advertising, the web owner should
make sure that the host server is prepared enough to handle the expected
increase in traffic within a short period of time.

This should not be taken for granted; else, it will defeat the purpose of doing
viral marketing. Once people notice that the site takes a long time to load,
they will just leave and forget about it. That means an automatic loss of
potential customers.

4. Exploit motivation and behaviors. A marketing strategy that builds on
motivation and behaviors of people for its transmission is a definite plus.
People love to be popular. This motivation will drive them to communicate to
more and more people to be known.

5. Utilize existing networks. According to social scientists, an average person
has about 8 to 12 members in their close network of family, friends and
colleagues. Moreover, internet gives way to creating a bigger network circle.
Learning to use these existing networks in viral marketing will yield better
results.

6. Take advantage of other's resources. Viral marketing need not consume all
your resources away. Using other web sites in posting your articles, for
example, will get them read by a large number of people without the need of
creating your own web page.

It is best to learn these basic elements or principles of viral marketing first
before actually doing it. Being to aggressive without doing your homework may
just lead to damage instead of success. Try to adopt those that may be
applicable to your product. Use all of the principles, if possible, for a more
successful output.

The Many Facets of Viral Marketing

In the beginning, e-mail was the one way that viral marketing was started.
Since that long ago day, viral marketing has gone from a marketing strategy to
an art form and there are many ways to accomplish the objective of creating a
successful viral marketing campaign. Seven of those ways are:

1. E-mail: It was first but it is still around and still used. It is, however,
getting a little harder to use as more and more government restrictions are
placed on it. Still: it does work.

2. Newsletters: This is an extension of e-mail but it a very effective tool. If
you include enough timely and valuable information, a good newsletter can drive
up the number of visits to your website.

3. Blogging: Providing the tools on your website to enable bloggers to interact
with one another is a terrific way to get the message about your product of
service out there and being talked about. Bloggers have their ears to the
ground for new products and services.

4. Chat Rooms: A chat room on your website can and does encourage interaction
among your customers and that can't be a bad thing. Also, you can use the chat
room to schedule special events like having an expert available to answer
questions on a given day at a given time.

5. Tell-a-friend Script: If you add this with a statement saying that e-mail
addresses supplied will never be shared with third parties, you can increase
your potential customer list greatly.

6. Video Clips: Including cool video clips on your website will keep the
interest up and increase traffic.

7. Flash Games: Although they are a little costly to start, they are an
extremely effective tool to get your viral marketing campaign going. Once they
are launched, they require nothing more from you.

B2B Marketers Do It, Too

They use viral marketing by e-mail as a marketing tool... what did you think I
meant? Viral marketing can work well for B2B providers, as long as the
following is true:

1. The product or service has to add value for the sender, as well as, the
receiver.

2. The offer has to be deliverable. You don't want to offer a product that you
can't deliver if demand grows rapidly.

3. The offer has to be easily transferable to others. E-mail and Web pages
provide the best medium to facilitate this.

4. The vest viral marketing campaigns use existing networks to move the message
along.

The basis of viral marketing has been around for a long time. The idea is that
you incite your customers or referral sources to pass on something about your
business to their network of colleagues and friends. Those that pass on your
information get something in return. The something might be a gift or service
related to your business.

Using e-mail makes it incredibly easy to pass information on to a friend or
colleague, especially if it involves something fun or free. With millions using
the Internet worldwide, the potential for exponential growth is tremendous. The
great things about viral marketing are that it is free and works virtually by
itself. Once you make an offer and provide the facility for referrals, viral
marketing spreads like: well: a virus: but the good kind.

To implement viral marketing at your business; first, start with your customer
base. Incite existing customers to refer new ones. Second, go to your referral
sources. Service providers, your outside network and colleagues can be
encouraged to provide referrals that lead to business.

If your customers are stressed business owners, offer a reward that provides
relaxation and leisure... like a weekend away.

Why and How E-mail Viral Marketing Works

What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any
strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others,
creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and
influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication
to explode the message to thousands and then to millions.

Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: stay away from people who
cough, wash your hands often, and don't touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses
only spread when they're easy to transmit. Viral e-mail marketing works great on
the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive.
Digital format make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must
simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without
degradation. Short is better. Remember the K.I.S.S. standard: .Keep it Simple
Stupid. The shorter and easier to remember is always better than long and
complicated.

Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. The
desire to be cool and greed drives people. So does the hunger to be popular,
loved, and understood. The resulting urge to communicate produces millions of
websites and billions of e-mail messages.

Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science grad students
are the exception. Social scientists tell us that each person has a network of 8
to 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. People
on the Internet develop networks of relationships, too. They collect e-mail
addresses and favorite website URLs. Affiliate programs exploit such networks,
as do permission e-mail lists. Learn to place your message into existing
communications between people, and you rapidly multiply its dispersion.

If you can design a marketing strategy that builds on common motivations and
behaviors for its transmission, you have a winner.

E-books and Affiliate Programs

Some E-books combine very well with an affiliate program. When the affiliate
receives some extra benefit from promoting the viral message, like being able
to brand your E-book with his affiliate links, the affiliate makes a sale when
a reader buys through a branded link. You benefit from increased traffic on
your website because the affiliate is willing to promote the E-books for you.

Be absolutely certain that your message includes a clear call to action. There
shouldn't be any doubt whatsoever about what you intend recipients to do. Make
sure that the instructions are perfectly clear so that recipients know HOW to
act. The action that you require should be simple and obvious as well. Don't
make things complicated or it will confuse the reader, such as by adding
numerous links.

Remember the K.I.S.S. principle Keep It Simple Stupid! The incentive should be
clear to those you want to take an action. Readers will look at your offering
for about seven seconds before they move on. If it takes longer than that for
them to figure out what it is you want them to do, they will move on. Don't
make your message vague or difficult to comprehend. If you do, chances are you
will lose them. You must respect your readers enough to express your message
clearly.

Once you are sure you have an E-book that will be of value to
an affiliate program, approach them with your idea and be able to show that it
will be mutually beneficial.

Viral Marketing using E-books is one of many techniques that all together have
a cumulative effect in attracting customers and subscribers to your business
and in attracting targeted visitors to your website. You will very soon find
out that this is an excellent way of increasing sales, subscribers and
referrals.

Successful Forum Viral Marketing

In order to be successful using forums to do viral marketing there are some
things that are required.

Do Your Homework: Prior to joining any forum, you must do some research.

1. Join relevant forums that are in some way related to the promotion's primary
sales market. For example, someone involved with a health related product, many
types of forums could apply: .everything from holistic medicine to stay-at-home
moms.

2. Choose popular forums. There is no point in wasting your time and energy on
forums that few members and few posts. Page raking and the amount of active
members are two good ways to check for this.

3. Choose forums that allow sig tags. If it's possible read the rules before
joining and pay attention to them. Your time is important, too. It is better to
find out that a forum doesn't allow posts with sig tags before you go to the
time and trouble of joining.

After You Have Joined: OK: you have chosen two or three forums that meet your
requirements: now what?

1. Keep your sig tag short and update it regularly. The ideal thing is to limit
yourself to one link, preferably to your main website.

2. Never create posts that are nothing more than an advertisement. This all but
a universal rule and only displays the marketers lack of experience if he does
so. At best this kind of post will be deleted by the monitors: .at worst, it is
grounds for being banned.

3. Work the room. Be an active member on the forum. Plan to spend at least an
hour each day there and take the time to get to know the users. Take the time
to introduce yourself with intelligent questions depending upon the forum's
topic.

As a marketer becomes a regular member, they will hopefully develop a good
reputation and without saying a word about their promotion, those who are
interested in their product will approach them.

The Subservient Chicken

Created for Miami Advertising Agency Crispin Porter and Bogusky by The
Barbarian Group, the Subservient Chicken is a viral marketing promotion of
Burger King's line of chicken sandwiches.

The campaign is based on a web site that features a person in a chicken
costume. The actor performs a wide range of actions based on a user's input,
showing pre-recorded footage and appearing like an interactive webcam. The
takes literally the advertising slogan "Get chicken just the way you like it".

There are more than a hundred commands the chicken will respond to, including:

- Michael Jackson dance moves such as moonwalk 
- River dance 
- The elephant
- Lay an egg 
- Walk like an Egyptian 
- Yoga 
- Rage 
- Spank 
- Taco Bell
- Fight

When told to do anything the Subservient Chicken thinks is offensive, like
perform sex acts or take off his mask, the chicken walks up to the camera and
shakes a scolding chicken finger in disappointment. If he is told to east food
from rival fast food places like McDonald's he approaches the camera and places
his finger down his throat but when told to eat Burger King he has a more
positive response. The chicken responds to the command "smoke crack" by smoking
but when told to "smoke a bong" he waggles his finger scoldingly.

Burger King's Chicken Fights campaign was recently introduced. The two
cockfighting chicken characters are modeled off this chicken. There seems to be
no end to the variations on the theme from Burger King. There has also been a
lot of criticism leveled at the chain about the Subservient Chicken but for now
it looks like Burger Kind is crying all the way to the bank.

A successful viral campaign isn't always in good taste: maybe that's what makes
them so tasty.

What Works & What Doesn't in Viral Marketing

Stop with the enforced e-mail forwards already! Trying to force or bribe people
to forward your info to a friends or family in order to be rewarded or win looks
skanky in today's ultra-permission-based world. Especially when you tell
visitors nothing about their friend's or family's privacy in the space directly
next to the e-mail form.

A true viral campaign gets forwarded because consumers are compelled to do so
by the glory of the content, not because you bribed them with points or
something else.

What absolutely will not work:

Suggesting that e-mail recipients forward your message to their friends and
family will not work. Adding a line at the bottom of your e-mail that reads
"Please feel free to forward this message to a friend" is more likely to get it
deleted than forwarded.

What absolutely will work:

Offering something worthy of sharing like a valuable discount, vital
information or offering an incentive for sharing like additional entries into a
sweepstakes or an added discount or premium service will work.

Relevant or timely information, research, or studies that are included in your
e-mail might encourage the recipients to share with their family and friends.
Interactive content like a quiz or test, especially if it's fun, will inspire
forwarding.

Jokes and cartoons are almost always forwarded to everybody the recipient
knows. Why? Because they are entertaining and entertainment is meant to be
shared.

A really cool multimedia experience is always going to achieve a lot of
pass-along. Rich media is new and the novelty and tech factors alone are often
enough to make the e-mail recipient eager to share it.

Oops! Almost forgot one really important thing: .You can craft a brilliant
e-mail following all the rules, but if a consumer visits your site and has an
experience less that what was promised, you are going to achieve viral
marketing, alright: the bad kind. So be certain that your product or service is
ready and is as advertised.

Viral Marketing Strategies That Will Not Fail To Let The Word Out

Viral marketing provides astonishing results to almost any online business,
products or services. It is a vast source of "one-way" links, sales leads and
targeted traffic. Yet, still several marketers are either not familiar with
these techniques or does not recognize their capabilities or not taking
complete advantage of what they call the "viral factor" in their online
marketing efforts.

Viral marketing refers to the method of giving away or supplying something for
free then permitting individuals to distribute or send out to others. Viral
marketing's main purpose is to circulate your message or promotion to as
various individuals as possible yet not spending any money for promotion or
advertising.

Generally, viral marketing strategies can be utilized by any online business or
web site, be it small or big. Any online marketer can use such strategies
provided is willing to devote some time to set certain steps into position.
Viral marketing strategies done the right way will produce numerous benefits.

Simply put, the basic concept of all viral marketing strategies is to include a
freebie in your ad that people can use or giveaway.

Benefits of viral marketing:

* Increase link popularity

* Increase or improves targeted traffic

* Builds brand recognition

* Generates targeted leads

* Automates marketing efforts

Types of viral marketing strategies:

1. Writing articles with resource box. Write articles pertaining to your
service or products. Permit your recipients to reprint or copy your articles in
their newsletter, website, e-zine, magazine or e-books. Your article must
include or display your "resource box" as well as the option for reprints of
articles at the bottom. When you have any affiliate program, then let your
visitors add in an affiliate identification in your "resource box".

2. Using forums and discussion boards. When you are capable of setting up a
bulletin board or a forum, then you actually have an efficient marketing tool.
You can invite and permit online users to utilize your "discussion board" in
their website since many internet users do not have these tools.

Just remember to incorporate your banner at the board's uppermost portion. If
you are not capable of setting up a bulletin board or a forum, then you can
browse the internet for hosting services that allows you to put up one for free.

3. Providing free website. When you are making use of a "dedicated server", you
are able to permit internet users to register for a web site for free on your
own server. And because you gave away some space, you can oblige them or demand
that they display your "banner ad" at the uppermost potion of their site.

4. Distributing free software. Permit your website visitors to distribute your
software for free. Simply include your online business ad within the software.
The internet provides numerous available tools that permit you to "brand" your
software with messages and your contact information.

You can pay for the rights and then you have your own software for free! Or,
there are programs available that permits you to make your very own software.
Just search the internet!

5. Offering free graphics, banners, templates, etc. If you have the skill and
talent for web design, then you can be able to make graphics, templates,
banners etc., upload all to your website and allow your visitors to pass on
your fonts, graphics, templates, banners etc., for free, of course. Simply
display your ad onto your designs or oblige recipients that they "link
directly" to your site. Also be certain that you incorporate a "link back" to
your website in your "copyright notice" and oblige your recipients to hold
intact your "copyright notice".

6. Free redirect service. Permit your web visitors to impart your "free online
service" to their visitors, web site, e-zine or newsletter subscribers. It can
be a free e-mail, "search engine submissions", e-mail consulting, etc. Let your
imagination soar and think of things that you can offer for free.

Keep in mind that your marketing message that will be relayed or transmitted by
any type of viral strategy should be brief and clear; likewise it should be
simple for your visitor to obtain your free offer.

In the same way each free item should carry a very simple course through which
a recipient is able to inform his links or friends about it, in order that they
also can obtain your free offer and simultaneously be able to view your message
then supply you with their email address and names.

Viral strategies are very powerful marketing tools; nonetheless, these are
tools that require to be carefully used with substantial thought. When you are
offering something for free, note that it needs to be of good quality, of value
and targets the needs of your prospects.

A Guide to Viral Marketing Techniques

Viral marketing has garnered much attention today. The way it spreads a
marketing message can be very effective. Internet viral marketing behaves like
a virus, as the name implies. The marketing message has a tendency to be spread
through virus-like activity.

There are many well-known ways of creating a fuzz through Internet viral
marketing. One can utilize site links, referral programs and other viral
marketing techniques to be able to reach his target audience. A bright idea is
the start of the viral marketing venture and this is made operational through
the right techniques.

This article tries to explain some of the other viral marketing techniques that
are out there on the Internet. These are tools which can sometimes be overseen
by the marketer because his vision of viral marketing is limited.

Here are some of the techniques which can be effective in spreading a marketing
message:

Create an award

Awards catch attention. When someone or something is given an award, it creates
fuzz in the target audience. One can look into award creation to be able to
attract people and be successful in spreading the marketing message.

Distributing a free software

Everybody loves freebies! If one is competent in creating software programs for
different applications, he can actually use them to as marketing tools. One must
make sure, though, that the software contains some kind of advertisement
containing the marketing message.

Providing free email account

This is the technique that was employed by hotmail when it initially started.
Every person who signed up for their free email account carried the marketing
message. This simple idea turned hotmail into a craze and its owners into
millionaires. Although doing the same thing today may not emulate the results
which were generated by hotmail, but it still is an effective way of marketing.

Providing free web space

Again, freebies are loved by everyone. If one has the option to give free web
space to enthusiasts, he can do so. This is a way of effectively marketing a
message since people will be intrigued and enticed by the free web space offer.
One can make a deal with the people who would want to get some free web space.
One can demand to put up his logo, or the marketing mechanism in the website
that will be developed by the one who availed the free web space. Creating a
top 100 site

Viral marketing can be seen as a game of getting hits from the Internet users.
A "top 100" website is very popular for people who are researching for
something or engaged in plain web surfing. They would like to get quick
information about the best websites that are out there. The problem of too much
information on the Internet can be used as an effective tool for viral marketing.

Offering free e-cards

The keyword here is, again- Free!

Offering free graphics, banners, templates

If one is involved in doing artworks, he can publicize his works and offer them
to different people who might want to use them for their own purposes. Again,
one must be creative in using these media in marketing.

Offering free consultation

If one is a specialist in a certain area, he can offer free services for a
certain period of time or for a certain topic and use this opportunity to relay
his marketing message.

Offering specialized link directory

People are always looking for specialized link directories. This is connected
to the problem of having too much information in the Internet. Sometimes,
people just want to get information faster.

Free newsletter with bonuses

Newsletters can directly contain the marketing message that one would want to
convey, but of course, people should have some incentive to look at the
newsletters.

Free redirect service. Linking with other websites can be used as a viral
marketing tool. There are many people who are doing this right now.

Free screensavers

In using screensavers, one should have a general theme so that people can
identify with them.

Free autoresponder service

An autoresponder service is a program which automatically responds to emails
that are sent to the responder.

Free email course

A free email course can be used by marketers since it is a good way to learn
and get information about the basics of getting connected through the net.

Writing articles and distributing them for reprint

If one is a good writer, he can write articles and use them to be able to
convey his message. The articles may not necessarily contain the message itself
but arrangements should made by the marketer with the other party.

Using forums and discussion boards (using signatures)

If one has a discussion board in his website, he might as well let people use
it for free. An advertisement at the top of the discussion board will
definitely be an effective way to market the website.

Start your own affiliate program (one of the best method to generating traffic
and sales!)

Affiliate programs give incentives to webmasters to put up your banners into
their websites. This is one of the most popular viral marketing techniques
today.

Joint Ventures

Special arrangements can be made with the webmasters so as to maximize the
potentials of the banners and minimize the cost of putting them up.

Provide free guestbook

Providing a free guestbook will attract people because it is an avenue where
they can share their ideas and these ideas will eventually be read by others.

Provide free forum

Forums are quite popular. People love to have conversations and forums are one
of the main reasons why people visit a certain website.

These are just some of the ways on how a marketer can spread his message
through the Internet. There may be other ways of doing viral marketing and
marketers are encouraged to look at these possibilities.

Viral Marketing -- Why is it so Powerful?

Viral marketing is the new marketing and advertising trend right now,
especially in the online scene. It takes advantage of the internet's network
effect to be able to reach a great number of people in such a short time.

Benefits of Viral Marketing

Viral marketing strategies offer several advantages to businesses.

- Easy to execute. There are several methods of sending viral contents or
messages and all of them are easy to do. Among those methods are sending email,
instant messaging, and using web sites. Sending viral messages through these
media will not take much effort and time.

- Low-cost. As compared to sending direct mails, viral marketing proves to be
cheaper and a more cost-effective method. With just a little investment on
viral advertising, its power can reach even hundreds of thousands of people as
compared to spending the same amount of money to traditional advertising
methods. That is because the only money to spend is for sending the initial set
of viral contents, then forwarding or replicating the message will not require
additional costs anymore.

- Good targeting. With viral marketing, there is a huge probability that the
message will reach people that are interested in it. Since the concept of viral
marketing is essentially passing on a message from a user to another person,
most likely, the user will pass it to a person whom he knows will be interested
in it. Thus, the percentage of wasted advertising, which is sending the message
to the wrong market, will be reduced.

- High and rapid response rate. Since viral marketing reaches a good number of
the business' target market, there is also a big possibility to have a high
turnover ratio. Even if the responses will not immediately convert into
profits, there will still be huge traffic that the business will receive which
is what most web owners want.

These are indeed great benefits a business can get by adopting this marketing
technique. But what really makes it more powerful than other marketing or
advertising strategies?

Let us take the example of Hotmail, where this viral marketing term really
started. Hotmail was able to spread over the internet at an amazing rate. It is
like an epidemic that quickly spreads out to others once there is a single
person infected by the virus. That is why this technique was named as such.

According to Hotmail's statistics, its number of subscribers grew from zero to
twelve million users in just 18 months. Imagine that! What's more amazing is
that the company spent just $50,000 on advertising to achieve that number of
subscribers. Compare that to Juno which spent $20 million on traditional
advertising during the same time period as Hotmail but got much less output.

With those facts about Hotmail, viral marketing's main strength is indeed
reaching a huge number of the target market at a considerably low cost. Hotmail
did not even have marketing or advertising presence in most countries outside
the United States but it got to be the major email service provider in these
places like India and Sweden.

What adds more power to viral marketing is the fact that the viral message
passed on is like an endorsement from a friend or somebody who can be trusted.
People have this way of thinking that "if my friend uses this product and is
happy about it, what stops me from using it as well?"

In Hotmail's case, when those people who received an email from their friends,
relatives, or colleagues using Hotmail learned that it works and their friend
is a user, they quickly signed up and became members as well. These people
wanted to belong in this group where their friends are also in. This technique
is also a matter of association or affiliation.

Hotmail's case is not an isolated one, though. During the same time that
Hotmail is gaining its popularity, so does ICQ. ICQ is like a buddy list and
instant messenger, much like MSN and Yahoo Messenger now. ICQ also used the
same technique and marketing campaign and it gained almost the same number of
subscribers as Hotmail within the same time frame.

Viral marketing is indeed one powerful tool to increase popularity of a product
or service. However, just like any other things, proper use of the technique is
necessary. A single mistake of misuse of it may mean permanent damage to the
product or service being promoted.

6 Ideas for Viral Marketing

Here are six ideas to help you start your viral marketing campaign:

1. Purchase the branding rights to a viral E-book. Allow people to give away
your free E-book to their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it
away. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the Internet.

2. If you have the ability to set up a forum or other bulletin board, you
really have a great tool. Allow people to use your online discussion board for
their own website. Some people don't have one. Just include your banner ad at
the top of the board.

3. Do you have a knack for web design? Create some templates, graphics, etc.
and upload them to your site. Then, allow people to give away your free web
design graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad on them or require
people to link directly to your web site. Make sure that you include a link back
to your site in the copyright notice and require them to keep your copyright
notice in tact.

4. Write an E-book. Allow people to place an advertisement in your free E-book
if, in exchange, they give away the E-book to their web visitors or E-zine
subscribers.

5. Write articles that pertain to your product or service. Allow people to
reprint your articles on their website, in their E-zine, newsletter, magazine
or E-books. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at
the bottom of each article.

6. You can easily find products on the Internet that will sell you a license
allowing you to distribute the product free of charge to other people. Look for
those products that provide "branding rights". That is where you can include
your own name, website, and contact information.

Simple techniques for Viral Marketing

The internet boom has made mass communication achievable with just a click of a
mouse. Together with this development, the internet has become a vast market
that people are taking advantage of. One of the best strategies to get those
customers to buy your product is through Viral Marketing. Most advertisers
believe that this type of strategy is the most effective way in hauling in
customers. In a can, Viral Marketing is really imitates a virus. It moves on
its own, multiples sporadically, and only needs little effort for its
dissemination.

A classic example of this strategy is the Hotmail e-mail service. Hotmail
offered a free e-mail account, and then on every message sent, a short message
below every e-mail has a commanding line asking the receiver to sign up to
Hotmail. It has grown like bushfire in the internet, and today Hotmail has
become one of the leading providers of free e-mail service. They are also
getting advertisements by the bucket. However, viral marketing nowadays are
more complicated, and it takes some of strategy and a lot of creativity to make
one. Here are some simple techniques that you can use to stay ahead of the game.

Create a 'fun page' on your website If you are a serious marketer, and you
don't have enough funding for a major advertisement, this is one of the best
techniques that you can use. Make a little sub-page on your site with funny or
interesting videos or images, or even create a mini-game that is focused on
your product. Be sure to include a 'tell a friend' link to ensure that your
'fun page' gets disseminated. Creativity is the key. If your 'fun' page is cool
enough, you can be sure that this page will sell like pancakes, and you'll get
more hits for your website.

Think Weird Creating a 'weird gossip' is another strategy in viral marketing. A
sample of this is the subservient chicken website that Burger King created. The
page contained a 'video camera' with a command line below it. On the site, just
type what you want the subservient chicken to do, and voila, the chicken will do
it. People were born curious. If you have some idea in your head, do it. The
subservient chicken became so popular that people forwarded the links to their
friends, and all Burger King had to do was to maintain the site. Although the
downside on this strategy is that you might create 'bad' publicity. But as the
old saying goes, a bad publicity is still publicity.

Spam it! An E-mail can also be used in this type of technique. Create a message
with funny pictures or a video, and then send it to your friends. If it is funny
enough, you can be sure that this little message will reach a lot of people.
Remember that the images or video should contain at least a brand logo or a
website address. The best thing that you can do here is to include your 'name'
on the video itself, like for example a guy wearing a t-shirt with your brand
name on it, or a bunch of funny pictures dealing with your products. Most
forwarded e-mails are viral marketing strategies. In this technique, you can
always be sure that your e-mails are going to be opened, because they came from
the friends of the e-mail owner.

Give Some Free is always good. Most people search the internet with 'free' as
one of their keywords. Free stuff can boost your website's popularity. There
are a lot of cheap items out there that you can give out for free. Creating a
downloadable Flash game is one of the most used today. But of course, you
should make it interesting, and make the people think that without this free
stuff on their desktop, they're missing out a lot.

If you're serious about your business, be sure to apply these techniques in
your ad campaign. This may not answer all of your promotional needs, but this
will surely help you a lot in creating a buzz. It's cheap, it's easy and it's
effective. Remember, think like a virus!

Different Elements of Your Viral e-Book

Once you have all the resources and information to put in your e-book, it is
now time to think how your e-book should look like. As much as possible, you
would want to keep your e-book at a professional level. This would earn your
e-book more credibility which can mean increase in returns.

The first thing that you have to think about is how your e-book cover should
look like. Although you are just making an online document, meaning no papers
and printing necessary, electronic books still need a good cover to attract
more readers.

Having an inclination to arts and graphic design will surely help in doing the
layout of your e-book cover. If you are the type of person who is not really
into designing, you can always hire someone to do it for you. You can just give
him the details as to how you want the cover to look like and let him use his
imagination to create a perfect e-book cover.

The color, main and secondary fonts should be considered in making an
eye-catching cover. Here are some general tips to follow when creating the
cover of your e-book:

- Use color combinations among these colors: red, blue, black and white. - If
you think of using yellow, you may use it sparingly with black because it has
the strongest contrast. - A strong font is best to use for the main title of
the book -- it may be Arial Black for short titles and Impact for longer ones.
- Limit the number of fonts used in the cover to three. Having a lot of
different fonts will make it look like a mess. - The cover should contain the
following:

a. main title
b. a good subtitle or teaser phrase
c. author's name
d. URL where the e-book can be found

It is best to keep the cover as simple as possible. A small image and a short
title will do just fine. Putting a lot of information in the cover may make it
unreadable and unpleasant to the eyes.

Now that you have a good cover for your viral e-book, let us talk about what
should be inside it. First of all, your e-book should show first basic
information about the book itself such as its copyright information and
author's name with a short biography.

Then, to serve as a guide to the contents of your e-book, you should have a
table of contents. This should, more or less, outline the different parts of
the book so when a reader wants to go back to a certain portion of the book, he
can just jump to the page indicated in the table of contents.

No matter what your purpose is in creating your viral e-book, try to keep it
short but contains enough information as much as possible. You would not want
to bore your readers reading hundreds of pages on your e-book. This is more
applicable when you are creating a viral e-book that serves as a preview of the
full-version. This e-book should only contain enough relevant information to
gain the reader's curiosity and make them purchase the full-version.

The layout of the pages on your e-book should be the same all throughout. The
pages should be also made as simple as possible yet with a touch of
professionalism.

Other than the actual contents and links that you will put on your e-book, you
should also add a page that discusses in detail the instructions on how an
affiliate can customize the links on your e-book. You would not want to be
bothered by a phone call in the middle of the night just to be asked how to
rebrand your e-book.

Clear and full instructions on rebranding and customization should be included
in the contents of your e-book. This way, the readers can just sign up as your
affiliate, then once they have their own affiliate identification or code, they
can do their own customization with the instructions you have placed in your
e-book.

When you are creating a viral e-book, simplicity is the key. Having a simple
yet interesting and informative e-book will increase its chance of being spread
to more and more people over the internet. Adding the good rewards and
incentives that an affiliate can get in distributing your e-book will
definitely give you huge returns in no time.

Viral techniques to increase web traffic

The term viral marketing seems to have a negative connotation due to its
identification with the word virus, something that no one would want to catch
ever. However, viral marketing is one of the most efficient tools made
available to internet email marketers nowadays.

Viral marketing is an internet marketing tool which is made in such a way as to
be capable of being passed on from on e person to another. It is called viral
due to its ability to be passed on to a growing number of internet users
through the email. Through viral marketing, an email message can reach
thousands if not millions of people.

To the layman, viral marketing can be equated with network marketing or word of
mouth. The use of viral marketing can be likened to a small fire but which
catches everybody's attention due to smoke which reaches every nook and cranny.

To be successful, viral marketing makes use of a product that has a universal
appeal and which is freely and readily available to most people. Aside from
easy transmission, the product must also be easily accessible to the receivers,
for it to become viral.

Marketers who avail of viral marketing usually offer free products like e-book
or e-videos which cater to the needs and interests of their target market. The
product is usually passed on by the original target to his own set of friends
or clients and the clients do the same until the product has reached millions
of email users.

Viral techniques can be as easy as sending free email courses to target
clients. Wanting their friends to benefit from the said service, the original
targets pass on the free email courses until it creates a multiplier effect.
Using email signatures can also increase traffic to your website. This is
easily done by adding your website address and some comments below your name.

Offering free screensavers to computer users is also one way of creating an
email database since those who want to download free screensavers are required
to register using their email addresses. Once the client has logged in his
email address, the internet marketer can do his job by sending emails
redirecting the recipients to his website.

Setting up an affiliate program is also a viral marketing technique. This can
be accomplished by allowing users to refer customers to your site and giving
them a certain percentage for each sale. Affiliate programs can be easily
searched in the internet as these sites are submitted to affiliate directories.

Other website owners hire people to participate in discussion boards and forum
and require them to use signatures that are linked to their websites. This
method is quite effective because people from all walks of life participate in
the forums and most often, they are redirected to the signature link. However,
make sure you use forums that are related to your website to keep the interest
of the forum posters. To achieve the desired goals, you respond to questions
affixing your signature link.

One of the best viral techniques is the use of articles to increase website
traffic. Under this technique, numerous articles of different topics are
created and are redistributed for reprint in other websites but with a resource
box which serves as a link to the original website. This way, the website owner
who lacks articles and materials for his website benefits from the free
articles. On the other hand, the article owner gets to advertise his website
link for free in exchange for the article.

Among the most popular articles are do it yourself articles, how to articles,
self employment articles and usually articles about beauty, health and money.
People will always be drawn towards anything that will give them the most
benefit at little cost.

Having a good website is a start but it is not the be-all and end-all of
internet marketing. A website owner has to take advantage of email marketing
tools to generate more traffic to his website. These marketing tools like the
viral technique, does not cost much but requires creativity and persistence.

Another method to increase website traffic is to exchange links with other
website owners who have products that are different from your website. By
agreeing to interlink your websites, both websites benefit from the exposure
they will get from their own clients. No matter what viral technique you have
chosen for your email marketing, you have to make sure that you generate enough
interest to increase traffic to your website.

"Folksonomies" -- a New Viral Marketing Tool

A new consumer phenomenon is called "tagging" or "folksonomies" (short for
folks and taxonomy). Tagging is powerful because consumers are creating an
organizational structure for online content. Folksonomies not only enable
people to file away content under tags, but, even better, share it with others
by filing it under a global taxonomy that they created.

Here's how tagging works. Using sites such as del.icio.us -- a bookmark sharing
site -- and Flickr -- a photo sharing site -- consumers are collaborating on
categorizing online content under certain keywords, or tags.

For instance, an individual can post photographs of their iPod on Flickr and
file it under the tag "iPod." These images are now not only visible under the
individual user's iPod tag but also under the community iPod tag that displays
all images consumers are generating and filing under the keyword. Right now
Flickr has more than 3,500 photos that are labeled "iPod."

Tagging is catching on because it is a natural complement to search. Type the
word "blogs" into Google and it can't tell if you are searching for information
about how to launch a blog, how to read blogs, or just what. Large and small
sites alike are already getting on to the folksonomy train. They are rolling
out tag-like structures to help users more easily locate content that's
relevant to them.

Although tags are far from perfect, marketers should, nevertheless, be using
them to keep a finger on the pulse of the American public. Start subscribing to
RSS feeds to monitor how consumers are tagging information related to your
product, service, company or space. These are living focus groups that are
available for free, 24/7. Folksonomy sites can be also be carefully used to
unleash viral marketing campaigns -- with a caveat. Marketers should be
transparent in who they are, why they are posting the link/photos and avoid
spamming the services.

Viral Marketing Technique Contagion

Everyone who's involved in marketing or advertising must master the art of
reaching their target consumers in a fast, effective, easy and even cheapest
way. There are lots of ways and means on how to touch prospective clients and
the television is proven to be the most effective yet expensive way.
Nevertheless, with the fast boom of technology, the Internet is now also
considered as one of the easiest and comfortable avenue to disseminate product
awareness.

The word "free", perhaps, is the most compelling word in a marketer's
vocabulary and this is basically what Viral Marketing is all about. From the
term itself, which is coined from the word "Virus", viral marketing is a
marketing technique which is similar to the spread of an epidemic that can
reach others through word of mouth to increase brand consciousness.

Viral Marketing has been popular because it's been proven to be more efficient
than the others. It makes advertising easier, and it can obtain a high and
rapid response rate at a relative low-cost. Remember, if one likes a particular
service, a person will tell it to his friend then his friend will pass it to her
friend, therefore, a word or mouth marketing starts. However, one main weakness
of this technique is that messages, which are usually send through e-mails may
look like spam mails, thus creating a bad impression on the brand and without
knowing it, the said promotional messages will just be sent to the e-mail's
trash bin.

One typical example of viral marketing is the Hotmail.com wherein the tactic
goes like this. They give away free e-mail service, then every message they
sent has a simple tag at the bottom which says "Get your private, free email at
http://www.hotmail.com". On the other hand, those who receives the e-mail will
be able to see the note below the message and it will encourage them to get
their own e-mail address with hotmail since it is just for free then the list
goes on, the propelling of message to reach a number of recipients hence
increasing social networks.

There are several types of viral messages and methods of transmission. One type
is the pass-along message which encourages users to pass the message to others.
One example of this is chain letters which prompts readers at the end of the
message to forward the e-mail to a number of users believing that they'll get
good luck if forwarded and bad luck if done otherwise. Another form would be
the infamous anonymous matching on ecrush.com which requires a user to create a
list of friends or acquaintances they secretly crush on. A match only happens if
the object of their affection responds by logging in and does the same. Most of
these services allow users to email anonymous messages notifying them that a
concealed person fancies them. Hopeful romantics become hooked up on this
marketing as they aim to find out if their crush also feels the same for them.

Also, the process of dissemination can occur in various ways. It may be through
word of web where it converts web-based information into an e-mail. One classic
example is the article from CNN.com wherein there's a link that encourages
someone to send a particular article to a friend. Another sample would be the
word of email, which is considered to be the most common type. It's just the
simple forwarding and exchanging of e-mails such as jokes and the like. But
perhaps, the fastest mode of transmission would be through instant messaging
such as Yahoo messenger, ICQ, Google and MSN since this is the most popular
among young people and a link referred by a friend is more likely safe than by
some unknown sender through e-mails.

Sometimes marketing companies even offer rewards or special offers for
referring customers, encouraging the use of the aforementioned methods.
Freebies and discounts can be music to the ear of everyone especially if
acquiring them is just as easy as counting from one to three. This is probably
one of the main reasons why marketers prefer this technique among others.

For a viral marketing technique to be successful, an effortless transfer of
marketing message to others is important and this works famously on the
internet because on the spot transmission is a lot undemanding and less costly.
Also, from a marketing point of view, it is essential that the message to be
transferred is simple to avoid degradation. In short, the principle of KISS
must be followed. Keep it short and simple so that marketing message would not
trigger the recipient to aim their mouse pointer to the "report as spam" button.

How Do Name Squeeze Pages Generate Profit?

There are many ways on how to earn money from the Internet. Many people have
claimed of having gained certain millions from using the Internet as a
marketing tool. Emails, ezines, affiliate programs, these are just a few of the
most popular ways of earning through the Internet.

Marketing itself has made a dramatic shift towards the use of the virtual world
of the Internet to be able to reach a certain market to promote a certain
product or service. Most Internet marketers are familiar with what are called
"squeeze pages." However, many of them fail to use them effectively to be able
to translate the marketing effort into hard sales and eventually to realized
profits.

For those people who have no idea what squeeze pages are, they are simply
websites which asks people to act upon a certain "opt-in" towards another
action. When people come across these web pages, they will be asked if they
would want to continue with a certain business endeavor or not. Some name
squeeze pages only have two options for the readers, one is -- "opt-in" and the
other one is "leave."

Other squeeze pages, people are actually provided with options one how to
continue to explore the business opportunity, although these types of squeeze
pages are argued by some as not belonging to the category of squeeze pages.

Rational

Why bother putting up a website just to ask people whether they would like to
continue with the transaction or not? The underlying principle behind squeeze
pages is that marketers who promote their products or services through the
Internet know that people will not avail their products and services during
their first encounter with them. Squeeze pages are actually intended to be able
to gather the email addresses of people who are interested in a certain product
or service and to get their consent as well. With these components are at the
disposal of the marketer, he can then proceed with providing these people who
are interested with sales proposals and other marketing materials.

Components

An effective squeeze page squeezes a lot of valuable information in a single
web page while getting the attention of the reader. It usually contains a lot
of enticing bullet points about the next steps after one clicks on the
"proceed" button. Curiosity will kill the cat and will get people to click on
the "proceed" button as well.

Email Usage

The most efficient and effective squeeze pages employ emails to be able to
garner traffic. These emails contain interesting facts which are hard to
resist. These emails are propagated by the agents of the product or service.
The basic concept is that the email will lay down the foundations for selling
the product, just like a "pre-sale" effort.

Leaks

Many squeeze pages experience what one might call as leakage because visitors
know hot to get around the squeeze page without clicking the proceed button. To
prevent this from happening, one should have the knowledge on how to encrypt the
folllow-on page's URL. Another way of preventing this leakage is to use email as
a tool to do what is promised on the name squeeze page. This is to ensure that
people would provide their email addresses to be able to avail what is behind
that mysterious door that is the squeeze page

Personalize A good squeeze page should be seen as a personalized website which
is specifically targeting the person who is accessing it. There are softwares
out there that are available in the markets which will help a marketer to be
able to generate a squeeze page which will look personalized. Some squeeze
pages actually contain information about a person's life such as what kind of
pet or television he owns, and other such things.

Name squeeze pages are also known as lead capture pages. They are generally
popular in multi-level marketing and has been proven by many people to generate
down lines and eventually profits. They are particularly effective because they
generate a list of interested people who become prospects and clients.
Effective squeeze pages provide information that is valuable to those who will
be reading it. They are also relatively easy to build because one just need
some technique to get people to visit the site.

Some may be doubtful of the capabilities of name squeeze pages in terms of
marketing a business and generating profit. However, the basic foundations of
these pages make sense and the effectiveness of these pages are proven by
millions of Internet marketers.

Need More Subscribers and Huge Traffic? Produce Viral e-Books

Viral marketing, when done correctly, can produce very good results. These
results can be in the form of site traffic, subscribers to your mailing list,
or increased sales of your products and services.

One of the best ways to do viral marketing strategy is the production of viral
e-books. This is not just an ordinary e-book. These are books that can be
freely passed on by someone to another person with added benefits to both
parties.

How does it work with viral e-books?

Aside from having an interesting topic and a wealth of information, the main
purpose of the viral e-book is containing links to the site and products the
author is promoting. These links can be modified from one person to another by
changing the affiliate ID in the link. These links still lead to the web site
of the author but credit will also be given to the affiliate which is like a
commission.

The author can allow rebranding rights of the e-book to its readers. That means
the reader, who would also want to earn from the e-book by becoming an
affiliate, can replace the links with his own affiliate code to earn
commissions. With this incentive or reward, he will surely pass the book to
more and more people. That's where viral explosion begins.

To be able to maximize the purpose of producing the viral e-book, have an
explosion of traffic and have huge number of subscribers, we must have the
following factors in place.

- Wide distribution. There are several ways on how you can offer your e-book.
You can offer it for free or for a minimal amount. If you allow rebranding, you
can also charge for it and have options such as full customization or just part
customization rights. Resale rights can also be offered for a certain fee.

However, if a certain amount is tagged to your e-book, its spread will be
limited as not everyone is willing to spend money on these e-books. So to have
the widest possible reach of your e-book, it is best to offer it for free and
the rebranding rights, maybe the part customization, for free as well. Anyways,
what we are after is for the e-book to reach a huge number of potential
customers and get the most commission from the attached affiliate links.

- Quality affiliate links. To be able to maximize your e-book and give its full
potential, it should have good and legitimate affiliate links. But how do you
make the readers really click on those links?

If your e-book bombards the readers with
lots of affiliate links instead of quality information, they will probably stop
reading your book, deletes it and forgets about it. Likewise, if the links lead
to affiliate products which are totally not related to the e-book's theme, you
will just lose a good number of potential customers.

The best way to include the affiliate links in your e-book is to make them
appear as natural as the other statements in your book. Try to weave them into
the content in such a way that it is not obvious to the eyes of your readers.
For example, when you want to readers to learn more about a certain topic
discussed on your e-book, you can then mention the link as a source of
additional information.

- Maximum return for all parties involved. Since you want wide distribution of
your e-book, you will offer it for free as well as the rebranding rights. But
what will you benefit from it? Of course, just the fact that people will sign
up as an affiliate for them to be able to rebrand the links with their own
codes means that you will gain more and more subscribers to your list.

Having more and more people who would want to rebrand the links means that more
chances of your e-book getting distributed to others because of the incentives
these people would gain. And the more people who will get to receive your
e-book, the more traffic you will get on your site.

It wouldn't really matter now if you are not earning from the rebranding
rights. What is more important is the increased traffic and subscribers you
will get which will eventually lead to more and more sales and success for your
business.

Other Viral techniques

In the world of internet marketing, the more people who go to a website
theoretically have an upper hand in getting more revenue, recognition, and
maybe even a lot of friends.

Traditionally, this would take a lot of marketing capital to pull off. Large
companies with a huge warchest would have the advantage, overwhelming the
market by sheer repetition. What's important was that the message came across.
With more people connecting online, however, the rules changed dramatically.

Thinking out of the box, some companies started taking advantage of people who
manage to "infect" other people by word of mouth. If the next people like the
message, then they pass it on to "infect" others as well. Growth of the "virus"
becomes exponential, infecting others with the message in epidemic proportions,
until everyone has caught the bug.

Something we commonly do when we see a good movie, tasted good food, and read a
good book has finally been adopted by the advertising industry for its own
purposes.

What's important now is that the message comes across enough to be passed on.
This marketing technique is called viral marketing.

Done right, viral marketing, multiplies the marketing budget of a company many
times more. It's method is offbeat and, as mentioned above, takes advantage of
our irresistible urge to tell somebody about a good experience.

The usual viral methods involve the use of these forms of electronic media:

1. Online. Recipients are encouraged to fill a form on the company website with
more contact information. The web page may usually contain useful information
such as a feature article or news. Included at the bottom would be a link to
send these items to a friend.

2. Email. One of the most common mediums available for information
dissemination. One click of the mouse sends the same message to a batch of
contacts.

3. Instant Messenger. Currently the fastest spreaders of information available.
This even can manage to bypass the "junk mail" stigma of emails as the messages
sent by IM are sent from a recognized source, which instantly appears on the
recipient's screen prompting a more immediate response.

With a little out-of-the-box imagination, a great number of ideas can be
generated in these methods to encourage users to patronize a site or a product
online, all at an economical but highly effective standpoint.

Some suggestions would include:

1. Free newsletters with incentives. Users who seek information can get it in
an electronic newsletter format. Depending on solicitations from affiliate
companies or from the host company itself, a slew of promotions or incentives
to participate can be inserted along with the articles in the newsletter,
encouraging users to pass it along, etc.

2. Free web space. For the price of personal information and valid referrals,
users can receive some web real estate to set up shop. Condition can be made
with the host company that it can place adverts in strategic areas of the site
or encourage the user to create a site in line with host's policy for free.

3. Free autoresponder service. This encourages users to use the company's
service for the ease it will give the user to follow up on their referrals. The
system it uses automatically generates a set of responses to the user's message
cascades, leaving the user with less work to do distributing his messages. The
host can benefits by piggybacking some adverts or promotions along with the
responded or sent messages.

4. Free email accounts. The most used and abused viral technique that still
works. Users are invited by friends, family and acquaintances to join the email
service as its feature ensure better service, storage, or retrieval than other
companies in the market. In exchange the host company may collect data on its
users and can create profiles for future marketing purposes, depending on the
responses of its campaigns.

5. Free e-cards. Some companies offer customizable cards that appeal to the
user and encourages them to send as many e-cards as possible to friends and
other contacts. Attached to the e-card are encouragements for other users to
join the network to be able to send the attractive e-cards to others as well or
to provide referrals in exchange for points.

6. Shareware. Users are offered shareware in exchange for referrals or
feedback. Depending on the software's usefulness to the user, it popularity can
skyrocket to the most number of people at the most economical means possible.
Evidence also shows that some people who use the software send feedback that
can pave the way for a quicker release of a newer version of the software,
decreasing debugging time because of added manpower.

Using Videos in Viral Marketing

More and more advertisers are adopting video as broadband continues to rise and
ad-serving technologies become more sophisticated. Online video advertising is
really taking off. Users' attention can be captured and ads stand out from the
crowd in an increasingly ad-cluttered online environment. It is true that video
formats cost five to ten times more to serve than standard banners and they
involve a lot more production and implementation work but they may well be
worth all of that if they achieve greater response rates.

Where to use online video if wishing to maximize its effect, is what
advertisers must carefully consider. Video to be used on the Internet should be
information and communication focused while video to be used on television
should be focused on entertainment.

Like everything else, there are good ways and bad ways to use video
advertising. Right now most marketers are incorporating their audio-visual
content into existing embedded ad formats like banners or over-content formats
like pop-ups. Though this could reach a potentially large audience, viewers are
likely to be less captivated and more annoyed by these disruptive and
distracting placements.

Cached or streaming video on a specific destination site offers the best chance
of interesting consumers in brand messages, but it is not likely to reach a
large audience unless it generates a viral outcome.

Whatever you come up with, don't forget to make it easy to open and distribute.
File size is important, as is the media format. If your viral video has been
created for a particular type of software that not many people use, how will
you get people to spread it like wildfire?

Also, if you've made a video the impact will be better if you send the clip as
an attachment rather than stream it. It's cheaper and, if you're not hosting
it, it's more viral, too.

Getting a "Buzz" On

Viral marketing has matured a bit over the years. There seems to have been a
shift to the web not just being seen by agencies and brands as another tick box
for any ad campaign, which is significant enough, but now being the medium where
a campaign is launched to create a buzz before it hits TV and print. Even before
a movie is released which used to be seen as the pre-launch buzz-generation
activity. Big business "gets it".

Buzz works! It can work for small and start-up businesses, as well. The
planning stage of a viral campaign will set out objectives and develop the
viral theme for a buzz. There are three core components to any viral campaign
and businesses of any size can use them. They are:

1. The creative material: the viral agent that embodies the message you want to
spread in a digital format (image, video, text, etc). The trick is to put
together material that people will be eager to share with their family and
friends and people are much more eager to share "advertainment" and
advertisement.

2. Seeding: distributing and placing the agent online in places that provide
the greatest potential spread. Direct viral material downloads or links on
specialist viral third-party web sites in order to create awareness and spread
before users get to the campaign destination site.

3. Tracking: Measuring the spread of the campaign to provide accountability and
prove success. It is absolutely vital that you know what is or is not working.
The only way to get that information is to track the results of your seeding.

Lessons have been learned, trends have been developed and there is definitely
some science involved in creating a buzz successfully. The buzz technique is
here to stay and, if used strategically, it can make a difference to the
success of your e-business.

Other Viral Marketing Techniques

Since its inception, viral marketing technique has long been accepted as one of
the best ways in generating good, "targeted" traffic to your site.

In fact, it has already established its footing in the business since the
"hotmail epidemic" and the "dancing baby" was first disseminated. With the
success of these two primary concepts of viral marketing, most businesses have
already devised some ways on how to make the most out of viral marketing.

For this reason, various viral marketing techniques have been created that can
be used to economically distribute their promotions and marketing messages to
possible customers in a global perspective.

Today, there are as many forms of viral marketing techniques as there are
consumers getting access to the Internet, all of them seeking for information
worthy of sharing to their friends. Hence, for those who are not yet quite
familiar with the other viral marketing techniques that can be twice as good
and effective as the usual forms of viral marketing techniques, here is a list
of the additional techniques that you can make use of:

1. Providing free email account

Getting a free item is an absolute gift. This is because it is not everyday
that people get to hook up in the Internet and get something for free, right?
But the idea of getting a free email account is doubly fun.

For so many years now, emails have always proven its viability to both the
consumers and the businesses. In viral marketing, emails have been one of the
most feasible and effective tools especially to those who are still new in the
business, those who have small business, or any ventures that cannot simply
afford to have big budgets for their promotions or marketing.

The concept behind the wonders of providing free email account is that people,
who would like to be connected in today's "wired world," would find the free
email account as an absolute solution to their Internet needs. This is
especially true for those who cannot afford the high costs of email providers
nowadays.

2. Create an award

In viral marketing, generating awards or loyalty points are very effective in
creating a marketing epidemic. The concept behind this viral marketing
technique is that by creating an award to a "webmaster," which have
painstakingly established and created good graphic designs on your site, you
are actually creating a name for your business.

This happens when the receiver of the award would try to brag about his
achievements and tell other people about the idea. In turn, you get to attract
other people to visit your website. Not only that, with the backlinks that you
have provided on their awards that are being displayed on their own sites, you
can effortlessly lure other people to try what you have to offer on your
website.

Besides, creating awards could only mean one thing -- optimum exposure in the
Internet. The more exposed your website is, the more people will get to know
that your business exist.

3. Distributing a free software

One of the best techniques in generating good traffic through viral marketing
is by means of distributing free software.

By offering a free tryout form of your software to your potential customers,
you can easily instigate the probability of having them avail of the full
version.

Besides, allowing your potential customers to try your software would compel
them to share the "good news" to others if ever they are satisfied with your
product. Hence, you get to market your product without employing expensive
means.

4. Free screensavers

Screensavers are one of the most popular tools in the Internet nowadays. Thos
who wanted to customize the look of their PC's would love to use different
styles of screensavers.

Therefore, by simply giving away free screensavers, you can automatically
generate traffic to your site without the hassle of marketing your website the
hard way. Once an individual is satisfied with your screensaver, he will most
likely share it with his friends, and the rest as they say is history.

The good thing about it is that you get to reach hundred of people with just
one click. Just keep in mind to place your business' name and the web address
in the screensaver that you will make.

You can have them easily made available in your own website or distribute them
to some screensaver sites or software sites that would gladly display your
craft.

5. Write articles and distribute them for reprint

With all the other viral techniques, this is probably the most common and at
the same time, the most neglected technique.

It has been accepted that articles are one of the most viable means of
generating sales and traffic in the Internet. The only problem with some
Internet marketers is that they fail to do the process correctly. What they do
not realize is that making an article is useless if the resource box is not
present.

If you wish to make your site known and you would like others to reprint your
articles, it is extremely important to always include your resource box.
Otherwise, people who will read the articles will tend to miss the fact that
you are an expert on the field and that you could offer more information by
merely visiting your website.

All of these things are boiled down to the fact that viral marketing, in
whatever technique you use, can absolutely generate more traffic to your site,
boost your sales, and promote your website without the hassle of doing really
hard work. It is the best that you can do for your site and for yourself, so
grab one technique and start the ball rolling.

Other Viral Techniques

The Internet is a vibrant community, and everyday, businessmen, entrepreneurs,
and innovators are finding ways and means in order to maximize its potential.
Others opt to create their own tools; others innovate on previous methods.

The same is true for marketing strategies of many companies (both start-up and
established) online -- some employ tried and tested methods, like multi-level
marketing; others create their own methods, at times from the simplest of
inspirations. Viral marketing however, is a newer phenomenon than multi-level
marketing.

Viral marketing was said to have began after a California-based animator
decided to send the graphic animation of the popular 'dancing baby' to a couple
of friends. After a considerably short amount of time, the animated file was
found appended in various emails being passed around online.

What is viral marketing anyway? Viral marketing in its very nature, aims to
utilize existent social networks existent in the Internet. This is done by
sending out product samplers (as in e-books, documents, graphics, etc.) and, in
effect, having the people using the Internet to pass around to people they know
what they would deem to be interesting or useful content.

This means that viral techniques are very much reliant on a word-of-mouth
mechanism. By giving away for free a sampler of a product or service, primary
recipients can forward and refer the company to the people they know; what this
necessarily does is that it allows any party to market over a huge market with
less effort, and provides the benefit of being personally referred by one
person to his or her friend, magnifying whatever credibility that the company
wishes to build.

But what other viral techniques can be considered when deciding to employ viral
marketing? There are a huge number of variations of the technique, but listed
below are some of the more effective methods:

1. Create an award. Many start-up websites, even as small as just
interest-based websites, devised endowing awards on artists, songwriters, or
web masters upon the quality of the work they do on the website. The website
drafts a picture or graphics to represent a particular award, then send out
emails to various entities informing them of their being evaluated for it.
Recipients of the award may then be asked to post the award on his or her
website, including a link to the company's website.

Creating this sort of award creates a semblance of expertise on the part of the
company, making even the more skeptical potential customers find a level of
acceptance for the product or service. Moreover, the website of the award
recipient will end up being another one of the many portals and access points
through which the company's website can be accessed from. More importantly, the
company will inevitably receive the positive perception it wants to solicit from
a word-of-mouth method when it distinguishes truly remarkable and award-worthy
entries; this way, the company will inevitably be associated to the idea of
excellence and quality. 2. Providing an email account is one of the most
logically appealing choice when it comes to viral techniques. By providing an
email address, the company is in fact building a level of patronage from users,
and creating the need for continuous access to the website.

What makes it suitable for viral marketing? Aside from simply marketing
content, providing an email address is an almost automatic advertisement for
the company. Every time each person writes his or her Internet address, it
would be inevitable to necessarily advertise the company by the domain name
appended to the email address (i.e. john@domain.com)

3. Offering a free newsletter with bonuses is actually another effective viral
technique. This not only gets the attention of people, but even makes people
who would have otherwise been indifferent to the marketing strategy consider it
because of the compensation in the form of the promise of the bonus.

Aside from this attractive feature, newsletters achieve something that other
techniques do not -- to directly communicate to potential customers while
forwarding useful information to them. Newsletters also afford the company the
enjoyment of having people read more attractively written and information
packed pitch of their product or service.

4. Offering free e-cards is a service-based viral technique, wherein the
website provides various designs and styles of e-cards that users can make use
of when sending e-cards to their friends and loved ones. Within the service,
users have the ability to modify and personalize the messages in the e-cards,
send it to their intended recipients, and receive a copy of the e-card as well
to confirm its content.

What is unique about offering free e-cards is that it is a viable service that
is popular among Internet users. One user can make use of the service, and when
the e-card arrives to the recipient, he or she receives it with an option of
sending the sender an e-card as well. In effect the recipient ends up using the
service as well in order to return the regards sent by the sender; otherwise, he
or she may recommend the service to others.

5. Using forums and discussion boards by advertising in a user's signature when
posting is a tool that has been used aggressively by many Internet users,
particularly those simply plugging a personal venture. Basically, a picture or
video or sound file that serves to advertise a product or service, alongside a
link back to the company's website is added to a single user's signature.

This is effective because of the sheer longevity of the post in the discussion
board or forum. Moreover, people of similar interests religiously visit these
online avenues for discussion, assuring the regularity of traffic around this
viral technique.

At the end of the day, a viral marketing technique is called such because of
its characteristic spreading through the Internet population the way an
epidemic or a wildfire does. By maximizing these low-cost strategies, one may
end up minimizing costs and maximizing profits with increased traffic and
positive perception.

Viral Marketing Goes Mobile

Mobile devices, mobile phones and PDA's are one of the last great frontiers of
viral advertisement opportunities. However, we have become experts at filtering
everything, our air and water, our e-mail and pop-ups, and our mobile devices as
well. We are good at filtering.

The very idea of unwanted advertising streaming through our Blackberries is
abhorrent. Mobile devices are the ultimate opt-in medium and, therefore, a
great way for marketers to connect with users: if that's what the users want.
"WANT" is the key word here. How should marketers approach the medium?

There are three main ways to achieve this. They are:

1. Offer exclusive content. Anyone can offer ring tones. It's the unique
content, such as exclusive mobile images of new brand concepts, that drives
interest and calls them out in other media like e-mail campaigns, newsletters,
websites, etc. So a wireless campaign is most effective when it offers
exclusive content for wireless devices.

2. Make it useful and timely. Think about what would be handy and helpful to
have on a mobile device. Last year, for example, Food Network enabled Sprint
customers to download shopping lists for their Thanksgiving dinners. There was
a lot of "Sprint-envy" going around among non-sprint customers.

3. Clearly define objectives. Usually, one of two business objectives drives
successful mobile experiences: incremental revenue of brand intimacy. On the
intimacy factor, a text message usually takes priority over almost any other
form of communication. Why? Because we haven't yet been saturated with mobile
spam, and this is what causes us to prioritize wireless messaging over voice.

Mobile marketing has been out there for a while but we marketers have new
territory to explore. Video offers fantastic opportunities for engagement.
Consumers already bypass their filters for highly useful or entertaining
content and will do so for rich exclusive, compelling content.

Using Forums in Viral Marketing

Recently, forum marketing has been touted as a kind of free, organic, viral
marketing. But because so many marketers go into forums purely with the
intention of marketing products or services, their actions and attitude
unwittingly causes the exact opposite of the desired effect.

Forums aren't marketplaces but when used as such, the marketers' actions become
offensive and will only inspire the wrath of fellow members and marketers, not
to mention moderators who can ban them from the site with the click of their
mouse.

In order to be effective, this kind of marketing carries a certain degree of
commitment, responsibility and respect. The first requirement is to take a
personal interest in the main topic of the forum. Not only does that mean
visiting it regularly, but it also means developing a good relationship with
both other members and the moderators, as well as taking an active interest in
helping others. Of course, it also means abiding by and all rules that exist.
By doing this, one can develop a reputation and, since it is human nature to
work with a trusted colleague, business will naturally develop from this.

This type of marketing has already suffered some abuse and because of this,
many forums have recently developed stringent rules designed to protect their
members from abusive or overly-aggressive marketing tactics. One forum grants
.sig files only after a member has created one hundred valid posts and another
has disallowed ads in sig files altogether.

Marketers must respect that the purpose of a forum is to be a platform to
exchange ideas on a given topic. It is not there to advertise products and
services. By focusing on the topic and posting questions and answers, a
marketer's reputation will grow and this creates the potential for sales
naturally.

Your E-book is your Viral Salesman

E-books are the future and the future is now. The printed word on paper and
bound into books used to be the only way information was given and received.
They were great, you could take them with you and put them on shelves and they
do still exist and will continue to for the foreseeable future but the time of
the E-book has arrived.

The marketing E-book is a slightly different animal from just an E-book.
Marketing E-books contain text, images, links to web pages and navigation
controls. The marketing E-book has become a very important part of marketing on
the Internet.

With a marketing E-book you can present your story in an effective way and
include links to your web sales pages. Your E-book can become your best
salesman.

First, your E-book needs to be interesting and informative. It always has links
back to your web site and to your sales page.

Next, be sure that you have a prominent section telling readers that they are
free to give your E-book away. Let them know that they can post it on their
site as a free download, that they can use it as a bonus, and that they can
bundle it with other products. This is the way to create viral marketing for
your products or services. Remember those links back to your site contained in
the E-book?

Last but certainly not least before you send your E-book out to the world,
double check spelling and grammar and be sure that you have tested every link
to verify that it goes where it is supposed to go. Obvious errors will reflect
badly on you and will not be of much value to you, it could even by damaging.

Post your E-book to some of the E-book directories. Many let you post it for
free, or will let you post a link on their site to your E-book.

How to Make Your Viral e-Book Known?

So you already have your e-book. You are amazed at the wonderful work you have
done. But it is still just in your possession. You will not benefit from it
unless you let others know that you have that e-book. You have to make the
online world know about your e-book and start making it viral.

So how do you exactly make your e-book known to as much people as possible? How
do you advertise or promote your e-book?

Promoting Your Viral e-Book

The main purpose of producing a viral e-book is to generate sales and increase
your revenue within just a short period of time. For that to happen, your
e-book should have maximum exposure as possible. But if you try to do it all on
your own, that would definitely take all of your time and is not efficient.

The first thing you should do is clearly define your target market. Having a
well defined set of audiences will make your promoting time more effective and
efficient.

The next thing that you should do is create a newsletter or an ezine that will
reach your target market. Start to build a list of subscribers for a newsletter
that might interest your potential customers. This newsletter can have articles,
tips, news and other updates related to your e-book and your product.

This ezine should prominently feature your e-book. It will be useless to create
an ezine if your site and products are not promoted in there. But promoting your
e-book or products within the ezine should be done in a not-so-obvious manner.

Once you have thought of what to put in your newsletter, it is now time to
gather subscribers for your ezine. One way to get a subscriber is to include a
page in your web site where people can subscribe. Having a small pop-under box
where people can place their email addresses to subscribe also works, no matter
how terribly annoying it may be.

Have your newsletter listed on group subscription forms and on the inside pages
of high traffic Web sites. Signing up for a free publisher account on sites such
as Idea Marketers will also be beneficial because you can add your newsletter in
their directory.

Other than newsletters or ezines, you also have to actively promote your e-book
on your own web site. A good way to have it seen in your site is to devote a
single page, or even more, just for the e-book. Listing in together with all
your other products will do no good.

Make it easy for your visitors to find information about your e-book anywhere
in your site. Feature the e-book on all the pages, if possible, or add a
navigation bar just for it. Featuring some good excerpts from the e-book will
also arouse their curiosity and most likely lead them to get your e-book.

As the author of the book, include information about yourself as well. The more
people know about you, the more they will build their trust on you. Having a
picture also adds more credibility to your personality.

There are also a lot of e-book directories out there. Make sure that your
e-book gets listed in every single e-book directory there is to gain more
exposure. Joining forums that talk about the same topic as your e-book is also
one way of actively promoting it. You can post threads or reply to other
people's concerns that may be related to what your e-book is offering.

If you want to maximize exposure, apply one of the principles of viral
marketing. Give your viral e-book for free to people who might find it useful
and interesting. You just need to gather a list of potential customers then
send the e-book to them for free. Just make sure that it will not appear like a
spam message; else, it will just damage your e-book and may not reach its full
potential that you would desire.

These are just a few examples on how you can promote your e-book. There are a
lot more possibilities that you can explore. You just have to be imaginative
and creative. But these methods can be sufficient enough for you to start
promoting your viral e-book.

Using E-Mail to Achieve Objectives

Viral marketing is an integral part of a campaign strategy that is used to
achieve objectives. It is not the objective itself. If the main objective of an
e-mail campaign is branding, in order to achieve greater branding success
exposure you craft your message or offer in a way that it encourages pass-along.

Producing a message with a quality offer or an incentive for pass-along is what
viral marketing is all about.

Just suggesting that e-mail recipients forward your message to their friends
and relatives is not viral marketing. A message at the bottom of your e-mail
that reads "Feel free to forward this message to a friend" is nowhere close to
viral marketing at its best.

On the other hand, if something worthy of sharing, such as a valuable discount,
vital information, additional entries into a sweepstakes, an added discount or
premium service, a joke/cartoon, or a hilarious video, is included in the
e-mail, viral marketing happens naturally and quite successfully.

The bottom line is that your message must be perceived as having value.
Relevant or timely information, research, or studies are all good examples of
content that might be viewed as potential pass-along material. Interactive
content like a quiz or text can inspire forwarding, especially if it is fun.
Personality tests, fitness quizzes, or compatibility questionnaires are all
things that have been passed on by many people many times. Why? Because they
are entertaining and entertainment has value.

A multimedia experience is always going to achieve some pass-along. Someone is
always touting the benefits. It is a bit more of a time and money investment
but the messages have a great appeal and rich media has the advantage of being
new. The tech factor alone is often enough for the message to be perceived as
valuable.

How to Write Your e-Book's Content?

When producing a viral e-book, you have to consider a lot of things before
going into the nitty gritty details of writing it. Your viral e-book is your
key to succeed in the online market. It should help you increase your site
traffic, client base, and sales, of course; else, it defeats the purpose of
having a viral e-book.

First thing that you have to plan is what your viral e-book should be about.
The topic should be interesting and it must be related to the product or
service you are promoting. Once this is done, the next step is choosing a good
title for your e-book.

People look at the title or the label of a product first before anything else.
Thus, the title that you decide for your viral e-book should grab the attention
of as many people as possible.

Once you have accomplished these things, it is now time to think about what to
write on your e-book. What should it contain for it to be really interesting to
the readers?

What to Include on Your e-Book

When you are in the process of choosing the topic for your e-book, you should
also have considered the amount of information you can write about that topic.
So it is better to choose one that you are very knowledgeable of, something
that you know by heart, especially if you will be the one writing.

The content of your viral e-book is like its heart; without the content, your
e-book will not survive. And even if it does have content but not that
informative and useful to anybody, it will eventually fade out since there will
be less and less people who would want to pass it on.

If you are writing your e-book yourself, it is best to write about something
that you really know very well. When you write the contents yourself, it will
add to the credibility of the information included and will have a personal
touch. You will be able to control the information included since you know what
you want included and not.

If you think that you cannot do it yourself because you are busy with other
things or just do not know how to write effectively, you can always hire a
ghostwriter. Ghostwrites are those who write articles and other materials in
behalf of another person. The reason for such a name is because the identity of
the real writer remains anonymous.

Hiring a ghostwriter is beneficial since most of these people do have a wide
experience in writing things about different topics. With this, you can focus
on more important things while being assured that your e-book will have its
quality content because another person is doing it for you.

Before choosing the right writer for you, you can ask them for their portfolio
or any sample work. This way, you will have an idea about how they write and if
it would fit your requirements.

Also, make sure that the writer clearly understands the topics to be written.
If you have certain instructions that should be followed, make sure it is clear
and well understood by the writer. Having a bad relationship with the writer
that you chose will only ruin your viral e-books success.

Your viral e-book should be interesting and informative at the same time.
Depending on the topic, you can add research studies, current statistics,
interviews with professionals or expert on that field, results of surveys you
may have conducted, and a lot more. With these things, your e-book will not
look boring and monotonous to the readers.

Writing the contents of your e-book can be the most enjoyable part in producing
this viral marketing technique. This is where you can show your creativity and
imagination. Even if you are not the one writing the contents and articles, you
still have some control over the write-ups by providing the instructions on what
you want to include in the article and not.

You indeed have several options on how to add contents on your e-book. Whatever
option you choose, you should make sure that the content of your e-book will
serve its purpose. It should be able to make you reach your goal of producing
the e-book.

How to Tempt Customers to Read Your e-Book Just By Its Title

So you have already decided about the topic that you think many people would be
interested in. You already formulated an outline of the things that you need to
put in your e-book to make it more interesting to read. But how do you make
these people actually get your e-book and read it?

When people try to find books to read, the first thing they look at is the
title. In fact, this is applicable to any product, not only to books. The title
or the label is always the first thing seen by consumers.

Most of the time these people buy the product based on its title or label. Some
take time to scan the contents and other things they can find out about the
product. But, still, the major factor that affects the decision to purchase the
item is the title or label.

Try to test yourself. Let us say you are trying to look for ways to generate
income over the internet. Then you came across a couple of e-books that talk
about that same topic that you want to learn about, but with different titles.

The title of the first e-book is "Different Ways to Generate Money Over the
Internet."

The second one is called "How Did I Make $30,000 In Just One Month of Using the
Internet?"

With those titles given, which one do you think would you choose and read
first? Both of them will definitely give you the information you need but the
e-book that is more tempting to read is the second one, isn't it?

From the title of the first e-book, it promises to show you the different ways
to earn money over the internet. It may give you the techniques, the programs
or job offers over the internet that would give you sufficient income. And,
yes, you can definitely learn from it and try those ways that the book suggests.

However, the second e-book seems more appealing and definitely grabs your
attention. It is because the title implies that the person who wrote the book
indeed earned a huge sum of money over the internet and is willing to share it
to other people. This e-book seems more credible as the techniques or programs
that the book may suggest are tried and tested.

The second title, indeed, is catchier than the first as it promises to give you
what you want and what you are looking for. At the end of the day, what you
really want is something that will show you a tested way on earning a big sum
of money, not just tell you the different things that you can try but there is
no guarantee.

Both titles may be used on a single e-book but using the second one will be
more successful than the first. People are most likely to buy something that
would be beneficial to them. People buy benefits, not just features.

To succeed in marketing, you must keep that principle in mind: that people buy
benefits. So every time you think of a title to your e-book, sales letter or
advertisement, always consider that fact.

The title you choose should: - catch the attention of your potential customers
- clearly show what your e-book offers and what it is about - arouse curiosity
and interest of potential customers - most of all, promise benefits to these
customers

To be able to do that, try to place yourself in your potential customer's shoe.
What do you think would tempt you in a title? Check out other e-books that cover
the same topic, if there are, and pick one that you think has the best title.
Then analyze why you think it is the best among others. You can also ask a
friend who may be interested in the subject you are going to write what title
would interest him.

Another tip is to keep your title as short as possible. Short titles, but
straight to the point, are the best. Adding a sub-title will also help in
providing much more benefits to your potential customers.

Always remember that the title of your e-book is critical to its success. An
e-book with a title that catches the attention and promises benefits to your
potential customers will prove to be easier to sell and distribute than those
with just a simple, descriptive title.

So start thinking of the title that will promise the most benefits to your
target market. Again, people don't just buy features, they buy benefits!

Using File Sharing in Viral Marketing

There are probably ten million people online, looking for downloads at any
given time. Of course, a lot of them could be looking for pornography or free
software but still, reaching a minimum on a million people on any given day
does offer some rather intriguing possibilities.

People like using file services to download music for two simple reasons,
they're free, and there is an incredible selection. The fact is Pandora's Box
has been opened. In Napster's wake, other quasi-legal services quickly emerged:
a lot of them. Even if they are closed, others will succeed them.

Major record companies would like to thing otherwise but they are never going
to stop file sharing. Net users are file sharers: plain and simple. Long before
the Internet came into being, people made cassette tapes of their favorite music
for their friends: cd burners are so much easier and faster.

So how can you use this to help your viral marketing campaign along? Think
about this. Once someone downloads your MP3 files and those files are available
on that listener's hard drive, viral marketing begins. After two users start
sharing your files, suddenly, your music is on the hard drive of a second
computer: then a third: and on and on. When users are searching and they find
your music on a lot of different computers, they are more likely to download
the files. It's just a matter of time before you'll find your files showing up
in more and more places.

No matter what genre music you play: Rock and Roll, Country, Tejano, Mozart
sonatas, Heavy Metal, of Brazilian Jazz, there is an audience for it somewhere.

In this new paradigm, you aren't hawking a product, you are offering free music
via a medium that lets you be directly connected with your audience.

How to Make Sure Your Viral e-Book will be Read

One of viral marketing's principles is to give away something for free. This
will definitely catch the attention of a huge number of people. Free items are
always the best when trying to introduce something new in the market.

Most businesses and individuals who adopt this marketing strategy have found
different ways of giving away information and other things for free. One of
those methods is coming up with an e-book and sending it to potential customers.

There are a lot of e-books available for download over the internet. Almost all
of these can be obtained for free. But even so, it is not assured that everyone
will read it, much less get it. So how do you make your own e-book popular and
be read by the most number of people possible?

Tips on Producing an Effective Viral e-Book

Your main goal in producing a viral e-book is to get your product or service
known to a huge number of people or to get huge traffic to your web site. But
you don't have to do all the work on your own.

The way viral e-books work is to initially inform a sufficient number of your
target market. Then these first-hand customers will send your e-book to their
own set of friends and colleagues, so will these second-generation customers.
The cycle goes on and on.

But the question is how will you make your first-generation customers send your
viral e-book to other people? What should entice them in distributing it?

First of all, you have to make sure that your e-book is of good quality. It
should look professional and not like compilation of links all around the
pages. It should not have the first impression of being an advertisement; else
others will think of it as a form of spam messaging.

Your e-book should also contain valuable and interesting information about
something that concerns the vast majority of your target population. It should
be reader friendly in such a way that the format is consistent and the words
are not so technical. Remember, you do not have control as to who will get a
hold of your e-book and read it.

Of course, it's not all about being interesting and informative. The most
important thing that will make people distribute your e-book is when they know
that they will also earn from it. It should be a mutual relationship. You
should be getting something from it, as well as those who will help you pass it
on to others.

This is what internet marketers usually call affiliations. Your first-
generation customers are your first set of affiliates. They should be able to 
edit the links included in the e-book to add their affiliate ID or change the 
link to their affiliate URL. When the links are clicked, they will lead to your 
site but there is also credit given to the affiliate who sent the e-book.

With this, your site will get the traffic it needs; at the same time, your
customers or affiliates also get something from it. That will give them the
motivation to read through your e-book then distribute it to other people.

One thing to make sure though when you allow for rebranding or modifying the
link is still maintain some sort of control over it. As the author of the
e-book, you have the control as to what should be changed or modified. Make
sure that the modification is just the affiliate ID or affiliate URL and not a
totally different link which you may not have control of.

Finally, you have to keep in touch with your customers. The key to having a
huge client base and maintaining it is to have a good relationship with your
customers. Following them up will not harm you. It is actually a good thing to
do to make sure that they read your e-book and pass it on to others.

You may also want to provide a few add-ons to your e-book. Additional
information, updates and related articles to the topic you discussed on your
e-book will continue to encourage them to spread the word about your book.

So before going into the nitty gritty details of writing the e-book itself,
make sure that you have done these things, or at least gave a thought about
them. Writing your e-book without defining your goal and coming up with a plan
may be a waste of time and effort on your part since it may not be able to
serve its purpose.

Start Viral Marketing Campaigns Using E-books

Viral Marketing sounds like something bad but it is actually something very
good. It is, also, a powerful way to generate traffic to your website.

Think about how a virus spreads from on person to another. One person gets sick
and just by sneezing they can give the virus to many more people: those people
get sick and share their germs with everyone they know and the next thing
anybody knows is that there is an epidemic. That is the very concept of viral
marketing. The idea is to get everyone to spread your marketing message around
because they want to.

Now let's look at using an E-book to start your viral marketing campaign. First
you create an E-book: a really good one that has links to your website, to your
sales page and affiliate links to products and services that you recommend: and
you give it to three people. In the book you encourage those three people to
give it to their friends and family.

Before you know it the E-book is spreading across the Internet like wild fire.
Digital information duplicates easily and quickly so before you know it,
thousands of people could be reading your free E-book.

Make certain that you let people know that they have permission to forward the
E-book around the Internet. When you create the E-book, you have the right to
give people certain rights. One of those rights could be that you allow them to
give the book to other people. Make it clear that this book is free to give away.

You can write the E-book yourself, use private label content or you can hire a
ghostwriter to prepare the content. There are a lot of ways to create an
E-book. Once you have your E-book written, use software to create your E-book.

How To Write A Convincing Sales Letter For Your e-Book

Have you ever been in a situation when you are so convinced in an ad that you
are already convinced to buy after just a few minutes of reading it? That ad
must be so effective to have persuaded you immediately in buying the product.
Don't you want to have that same convincing power for your e-book?

Having a killer sales letter is a plus in promoting your e-book. But how do you
do it especially if you do not have the writing skills required?

Steps in Writing a Sales Letter

1. Before starting to write anything on your sales letter, you must first
determine your target audience. Who do you think are the people who will be
interested in your e-book? Let us admit that not every person in the world
would be interested in your product.

Knowing your target market will make your letter more effective. Also, you will
be able to write your letter as if it is talking directly to your prospects,
thus, gaining you more profit.

2. You have to know what sets your product apart from its competitor. Determine
the edge and the advantages of your product from others. Make this your selling
point.

If you can tell your potential customers that your e-book offers several
desirable benefits that others do not have then there is a huge possibility of
you making that sale.

3. You should make your potential customers believe you. It might be difficult
to it because of the many scams and false information in advertisements right
now. You should tell them every single reason why they should believe you.

Adding more data and statistics to back up your statements will add to the
credibility of your letter. Prove to them that what you are saying is true from
the beginning.

4. Provide your potential customers all the benefits your e-book has to offer.
Even the not-so-obvious benefits should be included.

After you have identified your target market, the next things that you should
determine are the issues and concerns your target audience may be having. Make
a list of these problems and determine the benefits of your product that will
solve each of these problems.

Problems are always there, it is the solution to the problem that is lacking.
So if you can show them that you have the right solution to their problems,
then you will be in for huge sales. Having a long list of benefits that your
product offers gets you better chance of turning these readers into buying
customers.

5. Write your sales letter in the way you would want it as a reader. Once you
think that you are almost done with it, read it from the viewpoint of a
potential customer. Ask yourself if you would say yes to the offer.

As much as possible, try to find a loophole or something in your letter where
your potential customer would probably say no. If you find one, then you may
want to consider revising your letter in such a way that it would address that
objection. By answering all possible objections by customers, you will
definitely have a killer sales letter. Needless to say, it will also bring huge
profit.

6. The last thing that you have to consider is getting your potential customers
to take action as soon as possible. Give them the reason why they should buy
from you now. If you miss this step, you may have just missed a sale altogether.

Provide a realistic reason for them to act immediately. Offering special
discounts or bonuses for a limited time period is one way to make them buy your
product now. Telling them that your product is limited and would not be offered
anywhere else once sold may get them to make the decision now. You may come up
with other strategies but just make sure that your sense of urgency should
still sound realistic.

These steps are just the basic ones to get you started writing your sales
letter. It may not be perfect at first but it is alright. Learning to write a
very good ad or sales letter may take some time. But starting now with the
basics may be your first step on becoming a professional sales writer.

Viral Marketing using Forums

There are different types of forums, beyond the obvious topical types, of
"marketing" or "special interest", etc. "Marketing" and "special interest" are
two types of what are commonly referred to as "open forums".

There are, however, business and professional forums, which do not operate
under the same rules and, more often than not, disallow any and all types of
advertising or self-promotion. Forums that have been created to support the
membership of a particular program are especially adamant on this topic and
often demand that all members refrain from all types if advertising on their
sites.

Still, even with all these hurdles, it is possible to successfully advertise in
forums. In all cases a pre-requisite for success is developing a good reputation
and a good relationship and maintaining both. So, while it is true that this a
form of free advertising, it does require a certain amount of investment as far
as time and energy are concerned, not to mention subtly and finesse.

To successfully market on any forum, the first requirement is to take a
personal interest in the main topic of the forum. That means visiting it on a
regular basis and developing a good relationship with the members and the
moderators. It, also, means taking an active roll in the conversations and
being willing to help others. Of course, it goes without saying that it means
abiding by any and all rules that exist. In this way, one can develop a
reputation, and business will just naturally develop because humans tend to
work with people they trust.

Since the main purpose of a forum is the exchange of information and/or ideas,
marketers must respect that objective and abide by it. Marketing forums, where
everyone there has something to advertise and sell, usually have even more
stringent rules.

Humor Turns E-Mail Viral

A study by Sharpe Partners, an interactive marketing agency, revealed that 89%
of adult Internet users in America share content with others via e-mail. This
is excellent news for those companies who use self-propelling word-of-mouse"
e-mail techniques to sell their products.

The study generated some interesting results regarding the type of content that
is most often forwarded, as well. The most popular content is humorous material.

The second most popular category is news, followed by healthcare and medical
information, religious and spiritual material, games, business and personal
finance information and sports/hobbies: in that order. So it is easy to see
that humor is the best content for your viral e-mail campaign.

Cartoons, jokes and funny video clips are among the things that can be added to
an e-mail to insure that it will go viral. People will want to pass along
something that makes them laugh.

They are a lot more likely to hit the forward button and send your email to
their friends and relatives if it is an "advertainment" rather than an
advertisement.

Not along ago, about 35 million people got an e-mail containing a picture taken
in Disneyland. It took a minute to see it but there was Donald Duck lying prone
in front of the famous Cinderella Castle. The title of the picture was "Bird
Flu has hit Disneyland". It was a viral e-mail advertising Disneyland and used
the edgy strategy of making light of what's serious: and it works.

I'd guess that most people who own a computer have seen that picture: and thus
the advertisement for Disneyland. The bird flu epidemic is newsworthy and has
the potential to attract an enormous amount of attention to any brand that
might, for whatever reason, associate itself with it.

Remember that people are much more likely to share a joke or a funny picture
than anything else so you would be well advised to include humor in your e-mail
campaign.

What an E-book Can Do for You

An E-book that includes your marketing message and a link to your website is a
proven technique in viral marketing. This method uses the multiplication effect
to "explode" the distribution of your message by willing participants.

This is the basic principle that was used by Hotmail to get established. When
the two founders set up their free email system, all the messages that were
sent by subscribers had a text message at the bottom which identified Hotmail
as the origin. People who sent emails to their friends advertised the free
email site.

Using viral E-books as a marketing method is cheap. It doesn't take long to set
up and it's even quicker if you use rebrandable E-books that have been written
by others. Just use your favorite search engine and do a web search. You will
find many rebrandable E-books that are available on whatever subject you are
interested in and that apply to your e-business. One method of distributing the
E-book is to offer it to visitors in exchange for subscribing to your
newsletter. If they pass it on to their friends and family it will promote your
business for you.

E-books are capable of reaching a large audience and are limited only by the
enthusiasm of the participants.

E-books are fairly easy to create. It's possible to produce your own E-books by
combining articles that you have written or have gotten from public domain
sources, such as directories.

A common approach is to use material that has Private Label Rights, including
articles and reports that have been written specifically for that purpose, for
that niche. Using a portion of a larger work that you have prepared such as the
first three chapters of a large E-book could also be used as a viral E-book.

How to Make Your Readers Pass on Your Viral E-book

Producing a viral e-book can be the most important aspect to determine your
business' success. Most people consider it the number one internet marketing
strategy at the present time. Most businesses, especially online, have adopted
this technique and used it to their advantage.

A viral e-book is a book that can be downloaded over the internet and most of
the time, free. This e-book is also one that can be freely given away by
readers after they have finished reading it. It is termed viral because of the
fact that people would be willing to give it away to others for the benefit of
the author.

What would make readers give it away?

As a consumer, what makes you recommend a product or suggest a service to your
friends or relatives? Or what makes you do otherwise?

When you buy a product or use the service of a certain shop or establishment
and are happy with your experience as a customer, you are most likely to tell
your friends and relatives about it. People have this instinct to share what
made them happy and feel good for others to experience the same thing.

Likewise, if you are dissatisfied with something, you will also tell others
about the bad experience to warn them. This attitude of consumers is well-known
to marketers and uses it to their advantage. And this is basically how viral
marketing and your viral e-book works.

If your e-book is something that is really interesting and contains several
information a person can benefit from, there is a high probability that the
reader will pass it on to others who he thinks will be interested as well. It
is similar to chain emails that contain jokes and funny stories that are
continuously being passed around over the internet.

Another thing that will make your readers pass the e-book to others, and
perhaps the most effective, is through affiliate links. If you make your reader
be someone like a business affiliate, that would encourage him more to pass it
on because he knows he will also benefit from it.

Let's say you go into a membership shop and buys something. When you are
already in the check-out counter, the saleslady tells you that if you bring in
a friend next time who also becomes a member, you will receive $50 gift
certificate. Wow! That will surely encourage you to invite someone to become a
member, wouldn't it?

The same concept can be applied in your e-book to make it more "viral." You can
give rights to the readers to include their affiliate IDs in your link. That
would mean more sales to you because these people would register under you as
an affiliate, at the same time make them earn with the affiliate commissions of
your program.

However, there are things to be considered to make sure that you still have
some control of those links that will be modified. There might be others who
may place a totally different link which is not in any way related to your
e-book. That will just ruin the process.

You should put clear instructions as to how these people can distribute your
e-book with their affiliate links in it. There should also be an agreement in
black and white to prevent some legal issues that may arise.

Also, make sure to control the amount of links in your e-book. Something that
looks like a compilation of tons of affiliate links will discourage readers in
proceeding with your e-book. It is also best to place the links in such a way
that is not too obvious to the eyes of the readers. Try to sneak them in a
clean way within the statements of your e-book.

Always remember, when you are trying to produce your e-book, your main goal is
for it to reach the most number of potential customers in a short time and with
a little effort on your part. So make use of your readers to help you achieve
this goal. Utilize them wisely and give fair rewards to better entice them in
passing your e-book on to others. Anyways, this is one of the principles of
viral marketing.

Other Techniques to Make Viral Marketing Work

Word of mouth is one way that some professionals do business. People who have
availed of certain services and are impressed with it can refer it to others
especially since those who pushed it will be rewarded for making the business
grow.

Giving people incentives for reaching a quota help out since those who do it
part time can use the extra cash for other things instead of using money from
the regular job.

If the business is new and there are a lot of companies who have been doing it
for years, the best way to start is to give the service away for free. When it
has established itself in the market, then customers can be charged to maintain
the business.

The computer age has helped expand the way viral marketing can be accomplished.
The only thing needed is for the person to be resourceful to be able to get new
customers hooked.

Some internet sites first started out by giving the user one or a number of
email accounts for free. A good example is hotmail which offered a limited
amount of space per account. People who want more will have to pay a
maintenance fee to enjoy this service.

Another benefit of being a member is that the person will be informed of new
products and services in the form of a newsletter that may come out monthly or
quarterly.

The internet is like an encyclopedia but better. New information is always
there and should the user have difficulty in doing anything such as creating an
email account or need consultancy services for a certain problem, that person
can be redirected to someone who can answer that question.

A good example are some websites that are designed to help people who are not
good with computers troubleshoot certain problems.

If the user is experienced some problems with the service or isn't satisfied
with it, the member can also post questions and the developer will get back to
the person to answer that query.

Having a website is a great way to reach a larger market. Since not everybody
knows how to make a website, those who want to sell products can advertise for
free. An arrangement can be made where the developer will earn a little profit
for every product sold or charge these people a small fee for maintenance costs.

There are a lot of people who surf the net and those who have no idea will use
a popular search engine to find it. The developer can advertise in these by
using important keywords so that users will be directed to the site.

A problem some people face especially those who are studying is researching on
a topic. The developer can provide a service to help these people out.
Satisfied users will surely recommend it to those who are also having
difficulty.

The internet has changed the way people send greeting cards and letters. A
person does not have to send a card anymore using the post office but simply
sign up for one site and use it.

Some of these sites will require the user to add other people, the birthdays
and the email addresses which can be used later on by the developer to also
send messages and other special offers.

Pop-ups is another way to get the attention of people. When the user logs on to
a site, it will appear and those who like it may click on it to avail its
services. This may be in the form of banners, smileys, and screensavers that
people may download for free.

Those who are not interested to sign up yet can come back later. The user just
has to leave certain details so the developer may contact the person in the
future for new items that the customer may now be interested in.

The developer may also be a good Samaritan and help those who are just starting
a website. In order for these people not to make the same mistakes or go through
similar hardships, an agreement can be made where a joint venture may take place.

Both parties will use the services of the other and money generated will be
shared. This will also create a link directory that the two entrepreneurs can
use to increase traffic and sales.

Using an affiliate program is another way to make the business grow since there
are lot of businesses under one umbrella looking out for everything.

The developer can establish a blog site for people to voice out certain
opinions. This creates debate among members which makes the site interactive.
The developer can easily advertise products to the people and make some money.

There are many ways that viral marketing can used to generate traffic and
sales. The person has to find what people need and work on it.

Four Good Reasons to Use Viral E-books

It is a well known and widely accepted fact, that E-books: .FREE E-books: are
one of the best weapons in a viral marketing campaign arsenal. Here are four
good reasons why this is true today and will continue to be true for the
foreseeable future:

1. E-books are cheap to produce and don't take long to set up. If you have
articles that you have already written about the subject you are promoting, you
can simply combine these articles into an E-book. If, on the other hand, writing
isn't your forte, you can use rebrandable E-books that have been produced by
others. Just use your favorite search engine and do a web search for
"rebrandable E-books". You will get a lot of hits and have many to choose from.
One way to distribute these E-books to visitors to your website is to give them
as a free gift for subscribing to your newsletter. If your E-book contains
material that people will want to share with their friends and family, they
will pass it along to them: they will pass it along to others: and you will
make money.

2. E-books are capable of reaching a large audience. The only limiting factor
is the enthusiasm or the participants. Therefore, it is absolutely vital that
your E-book contain something that people will want to share like timely
information or humor. Remember that people like to know something that the rest
of the world needs to know. They will pass along something that makes them look
like they are in-the-know.

3. E-books are a way to sell other products other than the one you originally
targeted. For example; if you are selling garden products, your customers could
also be interesting in E-books about lawns, trees landscaping, etc.

4. E-books are effective in building your reputation. It is an implied
recommendation if you give a quality E-book and users willing pass on to others.

Your Viral e-Book -- Should It Be EXE or PDF?

The main purpose of creating a viral e-book is to pass it on to as much people
as possible with only minimal effort on the author's part. To be able to pass
it on to others, it should be in the form that can easily be accessed and
opened by other people.

After you have accomplished authoring your viral e-book, the next thing you
have to do before it actually gets to the hands of other people is to compile
it. There are two ways that you can do it, either to compile it as an exe file
or as a pdf file.

EXE, which means executable, is the file extension for files created by e-book
compilers. PDF, or portable document format, is the extension of files created
with Adobe Acrobat. In the World Wide Web, PDF e-books are considered to be the
industry standard.

Advantages of PDF over EXE files

1. If you choose to compile your viral e-book using Adobe Acrobat, you do not
have to create an HTML web page for every page of your e-book. A simple MS Word
document will do.

2. When you compile using Acrobat, the PDF file automatically numbers each of
the pages. EXE compilers do not have that function.

3. PDF files are relatively easy to edit. New pages can be added; you can also
delete or replace pages. Page numbers will automatically adjust itself once you
modify the pages. EXE files are actually fixed once compiled and cannot be
edited. You have to compile a new one to be able to change your e-book.

4. You can print PDF files a lot easier than EXE files.

5. PDF files have a bookmark tab on the left side of the page. Using this
feature makes navigating around the file much easier than in an EXE file.

6. When PDF files are compressed, the file sizes are significantly smaller than
EXE files because PDF converters compress better.

7. PDF files are not at all susceptible to viruses since they are just simple
files, unlike EXE files which are like programs or applications. EXE files are
more prone to carrying and transmitting virus and end up being corrupted.

8. Last but not the least, PDF files are universal. As long as the computer has
an installed Acrobat Reader, PDF files can be opened and viewed, whether the
computer is a PC or a Mac. EXE files are not read on a Mac computer.

Since your main goal is to expand your target market, considering this fact
would not harm. According to the Nielsen Netratings, over 8% of the US online
population use Mac. It may not be a huge number but can still be significant in
the increase of your potential customers.

Advantages of EXE files over PDF files

On the other hand, EXE files also have their own set of advantages over PDF
files.

1. e-Book compilers, the software that create the EXE files, are just a
fraction of the cost of Adobe Acrobat. Though there are a number of PDF
creators recently released that are also cheap, e-book compilers still have the
advantage in terms of price.

2. The most important advantage of EXE files over PDF files is its ability to
allow rebranding of the e-book. Some of the e-book compilers such as e-Book
Generator, e-Book Edit, and e-Book Paper have built-in rebranding function.

If viral e-book is your tool for doing viral marketing, granting rebranding
rights is the key to your success. Allowing rebranding of your e-book will
guarantee increased promotion and distribution because people can modify the
book with their affiliate codes to earn incentives.

If you want increased exposure by having more people able to view and read your
e-book, then go with PDF files. Not only that it is readable with a PC or a Mac,
it also has relatively small file size compared to EXE files.

But if your main concern is giving out free customization and rebranding rights
to your e-book for wider distribution, then you must better go with e-book
compilers to produce an EXE file.

Given the different advantages of one type over the other, it is really up to
you, the author, to choose which one you think will work best for you. Both
types have their own good sets of advantages. It is just a matter of
determining your priorities for your e-book and basing your decision from those
priorities.

Your Master Resell Rights e-Book as a Viral e-Book

So you have finished writing your own e-book. Everything is already polished
and it is now ready to be distributed. You have already done some promotion
about it here and there. And you are now waiting for results to pour in.

However, there are some more ways that you can do to increase your sales
through your e-book. Being the author of your e-book, you have all the rights
to do whatever you want with it. You have the control over the contents of your
e-book. With that fact, you have the master resell (or resale) rights of your
e-book

Gaining the master resell rights of an e-book means huge profit and a return of
investment that is unheard of in the outside world. If you have the master
resell rights of an e-book, you have the right to sell the e-book to other
people, and those who purchase it will also have the same right to sell it
again to others.

How does master resell rights earn you a lot of money? Let us say you purchased
an e-book with master resell rights for $47. Since you have the master rights,
you will resell the e-book for the same price. Having just one sale already
makes you break-even. Of course, you wouldn't stop with just one customer. If
you sell 11 more copies, that means a whopping 1000% profit just on that single
e-book.

If you want your e-book to be viral, which means to spread out exponentially,
applying the concept of master resell rights can be helpful. However, for it to
get distributed easier in a short time, we must apply one principle of viral
marketing. That principle is giving away something for free.

You may ask -- how can you earn when you give away your e-book for free? Being
the author of the e-book gives you full control on what is inside it. You can
have as many links as you want inside your e-book. But just do not make the
links too obvious for readers not to get skeptical about your e-book.

Those links that you put on your e-book lead to your site. So once a reader
clicks on a link, it is already one possible customer for you.

But how do you make it viral? Giving away your e-book for free is just one part
of the strategy. Yes, you can earn from there but not as much as you would of
your e-book gets viral. So for that to happen, you can offer master resell
rights of your e-book to your customers.

You can give an option to your customers to either get your e-book for free or
add just a very minimal fee to obtain master resell rights for the e-book as
well. But why would they pay for the master resell rights? It is simply because
with that right, they can customize all the links of your e-book and change them
with their own affiliate code.

Having their own affiliate code on those pages of your e-book will earn them
commissions from your site. Other than that, having master resell rights will
allow them to sell or give away your e-book to their customers, and those
customers can do the same with their own set of customers.

With all those possibilities, they will definitely be motivated to pass more
and more of your e-book. Not only do they earn commissions from your site, they
also get some income by also selling master resell rights or just resell rights.

Once that happens, you will just realize that your e-book indeed has gone viral
and your site gaining more and more traffic with increased sales as well. And
all these happened just by giving away your e-book for free and adding master
resell rights for a minimal fee.

There is no doubt that viral marketing is really the future of internet
marketing. It guarantees huge outcome with only little effort and small cost on
your part. Viral marketing will soon overcome all those traditional marketing
and advertising where one should spend thousands of dollars just to gain
maximum exposure.

So once you already have your product and have finished creating an e-book for
that product, better start distributing it now and make it viral to maximize
your profit to its full potential.

Starting a Viral e-Book? Choose a Good Topic

Viral marketing is the most popular type of marketing strategy in the online
industry at the moment. Why is it so? Because it can give a huge number of
potential customers in just a short period of time with very minimal cost. Of
course, if there are a large number of potential clients, the turnover
percentage will also be bigger.

Viral marketing can be done in many ways. There are newsletters sent thru
email, web sites, invitational emails and much more. One effective way to do it
is by producing an e-book, or the so-called viral e-book.

What is a viral e-book?

E-books, or electronic books, are the online or electronic version of books,
newsletters, publications, manual, etc. E-books are downloadable files from the
internet and can be installed to one's computer. Some of the popular books, like
Harry Potter, actually have an e-book version. Some of these are free; some are
available for a minimal cost.

The concept of e-books has been adopted by marketing people because of the ease
of distribution to a huge number of people over the internet. They incorporated
advertising and marketing strategies with e-books to boost revenue, at the same
time giving useful information to other people.

That is how the term viral e-book came about. Viral e-book is, basically, an
e-book that is passed on to other persons which brings several benefits, mainly
profits, for each individual. These e-books are free, most of the time, to
encourage more people to get them and pass them on to others.

Viral e-books contain useful information about something related to what the
marketer is promoting. And since it is a marketing tool, these viral e-books
contain links that lead to the marketer's web site. Thus, if a person reading
the e-book becomes interested and clicks on the link, that will already be a
potential sale to the one who originally sent the e-book.

If you are planning to start making such an e-book to promote your products or
services, you should consider several things before jumping on to it. The very
first thing that you have to think about is the topic.

How to choose a topic?

An e-book can talk about anything. But, of course, if you are planning to make
profit from it, your e-book should talk about something interesting. It should
deal with things that most people are concerned about. People want things where
they can benefit from in whichever way it may be.

The first thing to consider when thinking about the topic for your e-book is
your main goal. You have to define your purpose of writing the e-book. If your
goal is to increase sales of your product or service, then your topic should be
something related to those things.

You, as the maker of the e-book, should also be interested in the topic you
choose; else, it will feel like a burden doing something that you do not really
like. Also, it will be easier for you to write things about a topic that
interests you so you can express yourself better.

To better help you in selecting a topic, you must set an ample amount of time
thinking about it. Go in a place where you can concentrate. Try to think of the
things that interest you, things that you are comfortable with. Then list down
all those things that come to your mind, even the crazy ones.

Once you've listed them, select those that can be related to your product or
service, if you are promoting these things. If not, select the topic that you
think will be most profitable. Also, make sure that you can have a lot of
resources for the topic you choose. More resources would mean more information
to put in your e-book, and the more interesting it will be to read.

Having a good topic is the best way to start your viral e-book. A topic that
interests you, as the author of the e-book, will make the journey of creating
it be enjoyable and fun. Other than that, more valuable and quality information
will be incorporated since you know the topic well.

So start brainstorming now with yourself. Choose the best topic that you can
think of. And make that vision of increased profit turn into reality with your
own viral e-book.

How to Get and Use E-Mail Addresses for Viral Advertising

Viral marketing has an array of possibilities and ways to achieve your overall
goals. However, just like everything else, preplanning and the right setup to
create success are the things you will need to make it work for you and your
e-business.

The first thing you want to be sure you don't do is get over-zealous. The one
thing you need to avoid at all costs is spamming. Spamming is still used
widely, but with the government establishing more restrictions and fines you
don't want this to be a problem for you. The professional image of your site
will also suffer if you send mail blatantly.

Spamming requires a database that contains a huge list of e-mail addresses set
up so that the message can be delivered with one click. The problem with it
(aside from the governmental restrictions and associated fines) is that it
irritates the recipients and kills the validity of your campaign, which in turn
kills the factors that would motivate someone to refer your site.

You need to personalize by creating your website with personal appeal. You must
see to it that your website makes your customers feel safe, secure and cared
for. E-mail is important, because it is going to be one of the most affordable
ways to keep in touch with your customers.

The proper way to handle email permission is to first let your customer know
that you will not transmit their e-mail addresses to third party companies. The
next thing to do is to attach the need for their e-mail addresses to benefits
they can receive.

For example: Coupons or discounts that are only available to members who
receive e-mail notifications. With each e-mail you send the viral marketing
effect takes place.

What Are Namesqueeze Pages and How Can Internet Marketers Benefit From Them

It has been a well-accepted fact that in sales, leads are very important simply
because without leads, there will be no sales. But then, acquiring leads these
days can be very tedious, especially when it comes to online business.

However, some strategies are built specifically to address the issue. One of
the best techniques ever known to help Internet marketers build quality leads
is the lead capture page or the namesqueeze pages.

Since the inception of Internet marketing, more and more people have come to
realize the importance of leads and making lists. That is why the creation of
opt-in lists has been a major breakthrough in the world of virtual marketing.

In the Internet, it is simply illegal for a marketer to send emails that are
not solicited, whether they are for commercial or even personal purposes.
Spamming, or sending out unsolicited emails are now considered as illegal.

Hence, most Internet marketers consider opt-in lists as highly valuable
marketing devices. With opt-in lists, you can send emails to people who have
opted to subscribe in your business' promotions and advertisements through
emails. It is for this reason that opt-in lists are deemed as "gold" to most
Internet marketers.

In order to get a good opt-in list, some info-tech genius has created a device
that will easily generate names and emails. This is known as the lead capture
page or the namesqueeze pages. It refers to a particular page in one's website
that is built to acquire email addresses as well as names of the visitors on
purpose.

The main purpose of a namesqueeze page is to compel people to join the list or
opt-in to subscribe for the lists before getting an access on the main website.

The problem is that most Internet marketers are so desperate in boosting their
sales that they often misunderstood the purpose of namesqueeze pages. Most of
these people have the propensity to create some well-written scripts that would
require the website visitor to answer some questions.

Unfortunately, the visitors are not aware that they are already being lured to
provide some information that would coerce them into joining a website's
mailing list even if it is against their will. This is completely unfair and
against the principles of Internet marketing. Besides, the emails that the
consumers will receive will be regarded as spam because they are not aware of
such emails, and that is extremely illegal.

Hence, it is important to create quality namesqueeze pages that would generate
quality leads as well. This means that these leads are not compelled or obliged
to do anything that is against their will.

Consequently, a quality namesqueeze page or lead capture page can generate
leads that are interested to find more information about the business. However,
one should keep in mind that it is important to send emails that are packed with
good and feasible information. After all, that is what the consumers are after
that is why they have provided you with the information that you need, right?

When done right, namesqueeze pages can absolutely guarantee your online
business growth. Why? It is simply because consumers who opted to get into your
lists are interested to whatever concept you want to tell them. Hence, creating
massive opt-in lists would be very possible if you know how to use namesqueeze
pages correctly.

What matters most here is that if you know how important lead generation and
list building is to your online business, then, using namesqueeze pages could
be the most workable device you could ever have.

Here is a list of some of the benefits that Internet marketers can derive from
merely using namesqueeze pages or lead capture pages:

1. Massive list building

One of the best reasons why namesqueeze pages work is that they compel people
to make some actions. The problem with the other websites that are not
generating enough sales is that they do not motivate or oblige their visitors
to make some appropriate actions.

The problem with those sites is that even if they have created a good "sales
letter," but it was not able to coerce people to subscribe to the site's
mailing lists, it will not work as it was expected.

With namesqueeze pages, people are moved into actions. This can be done by
offering freebies that can only be acquired if the visitors will opt to be
included on your list.

2. Get an overall insight on the visitors' interests

Using namesqueeze pages will allow you to have an insight on the customer's
individual interests. This is because customers, who have opted to subscribe to
such namesqueeze pages, are most likely interested to particular information
that you are offering.

Hence, you can change your topics from time to time and identify what
information are highly saleable to the public. This will give you more ways to
generate better leads by providing in-demand information.

The bottom line is that generating good traffic is useless if you will not be
able to convert your visitors into potential customers; and the only way to do
that is to include them on your list. That is why if everything counts in,
namesqueeze pages really matters.

Using Chat Rooms in Viral Marketing

Spamming chat rooms or instant messaging systems with undifferentiated
marketing messages is certainly not a very good idea. But if they are used the
right way, these channels can be great to communicate with the market --
especially to establish a dialogue with customers.

Have you ever been to a chat room and posted a message. If you have then you
may learn some free web-advertising secrets on how to market your products and
service in chat rooms. Chat rooms are usually broken into categories. You will
need to find the right chat room where your targeted audience would gather. If
there isn't one, them you may need to create one.

It will be of no use to create one that is obviously for the sole purpose of
selling your product or service. Rather, it needs to attract people who would
be interested in your product or service. For example: If you sell garden
products, your chat room should be on the subject of gardening and not the
brand name of the products you sell.

Another way to use a chat room to promote your business is to include a chat
room on your web site. Host a free online seminar in your own chat room about a
subject of your expertise. Use your chat room to meet with your current
customers and answer any questions or address and problems they may have.
Regularly schedule free events in your chat room and be certain that your
customers are made aware of when they will occur.

For example, you might have an expert in the field available to answer
questions on a certain day and between certain hours. You might, also, host
other people's chat rooms as an expert yourself. You, of course, could charge
for this but it might be wise to do it free to gain publicity.

How Can You Generate Sales With Your Viral e-Book?

Viral marketing is an effective way of promoting your products and services. It
can extend its reach to thousands, even millions, of people who might be
interested with your offer. This also entails huge cost savings as it does not
require all your time and money to do what it has to do.

One way of applying this viral marketing technique is by producing a viral
e-book. After you have come up with the topic you want your e-book to talk
about and have chosen an attractive title, it is now time to think about the
content of your e-book.

What are the things that you need to write on your e-book for you to achieve
your goal? Remember, your aim is for your products to gain popularity and
increase sales in the shortest time possible.

Different Ways to Generate Sales

There are several things that you can do for your viral e-book to generate
sales for you.

Having affiliate links on your viral e-book will help you reach your goal of
reaching as many people as possible. Yes, you can offer rebranding or
customizing the affiliate links for free. However, you also have an option to
charge a very minimal fee for customization rights.

If your rewards offering or commission for the affiliates are really desirable,
these people would not mind paying a small amount in exchange for the huge
incentives they will get if they become an affiliate. That is already one way
for you to earn income just by releasing your e-book.

Writing a viral e-book about a topic that you know very well will help you gain
respect from the readers. Once they realize that you are like an expert in your
own field, they will build trust on you. If this happens, they are more likely
to buy your products and services without any hesitations.

Of course, having your own product or service is the best way to generate more
sales thru your e-book. The links that you add on your e-book should lead the
readers to your own site where they can find more information about your
products and services.

Leaving something to the reader's curiosity is a good way to generate more
income. Let us say you have an e-book that contains 101 ways in making money
over the internet. This is the product you are selling for a fee. You can make
your viral e-book discuss a few, like 10, of those tips that they can find in
the full version, then neatly interject the link where they can find the full
version and purchase it for a minimal fee.

Same goes when you are selling tangible products. You can make your viral
e-book talk about the features and benefits of such products to entice the
readers to buy. You may also want to include testimonials from other people who
have purchased the product. Then include the link to your site where they can
purchase the item.

Keeping in touch with your customers is also a plus. It doesn't mean that once
a customer already purchased your product that you have to stop from there.
After-sales service adds more value to your product and credibility to you.
Once these customers realize that you give them importance by constantly
keeping in touch with them, they are more likely to buy again once you have new
products to offer.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

For you to generate more sales, some precautionary measures need to be taken
when writing your viral e-book.

Since you will be allowing rebranding or customization of the affiliate links
included in your e-book, make sure that the links to be modified are still
valid and still points to your site. There are some e-book compilers that allow
you to do this for your protection. So better to scout for these software and
use them in creating your viral e-book.

When you are promoting your product on your e-book, avoid including
time-specific discounts and freebies. Remember, you do not have control as to
whom and when your e-book will be passed on to. It may reach a person a year
after the discount offer has passed. That will just make that potential
customer mad and it will be a loss for you.

When producing a viral e-book with your links in there, make sure that your
links would open in a new window instead of using the same browser. With that,
you can make sure that the reader still goes on reading your e-book, at the
same time, browsing the site where the link was pointed to.

These are just some suggestions on how to make your e-book really do its job
for you. There are other ways that you can try. Always be creative and success
will follow!

Houston Museum of Natural Science Went Viral

The Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) was one chosen to showcase the
world-famous Exhibition for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. HMNS quickly
realized that while the exhibit was expected to generate a great deal of
interest, it didn't have a lot of appeal for their core audience. The success
of the exhibition, therefore, would rest in how it was marketed.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science quickly called in Spur Digital to help
reach the targeted demographic audience and generate interest in the Exhibit.
HMNS was, also, hoping to acquire new patrons and members to further their
future revenue.

Spur digital worked with HMNS to identify the target market for the campaign
and developed an integrated online media plan to reach those audiences. The
campaign featured an online contest that was marketed through targeted online
media outlets including relevant Web sites, Search Engines and third party
E-mail lists. Viral marketing was an important component of the campaign, so
Spur developed an innovative strategy to get people to refer their friends.

Spur identified the target audience as males 18 to 34 years old who were fans
of action and fantasy films, frequent video game players and movie renters,
tech-savvy who generally didn't hang out at museums. Based on this information,
Spur chose search engine advertisements that would accompany specific search
words, dedicated e-mail advertisements, sponsored e-mail advertisements, banner
ads on web sites targeted toward the desired audience, and e-mails to the HMNS
list.

Did it work? You bet! The results were excellent. The impact of the viral
marketing effort was astounding -- over 23% of registrants came originated from
the Tell-A-Friend feature. The direct marketing efforts yielded impressive
results as well. In total, the 12 week, locally-targeted online campaign
yielded more than 2 million targeted impressions, 40,000 unique visits, almost
12,000 and 6,000 invitations sent by friends at a cost per action of less than
$3.00. These contributed to the record attendance of almost 100,000 over 3
months.

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