| bt it is a super feeling to see money coming in from | | | | only going about their normal daily Internet routines, like |
| your internet business. That is, as long as the income is | | | | sending email. |
| greater than your expenses. With PPC advertising | | | | One of the great viral marketing products of all time |
| campaigns having become in many cases quite | | | | was Hotmail. The days of Hotmails explosive growth |
| expensive, as the cost of keywords are bid up, using | | | | was back in the late 1990s when email was just taking |
| low cost viral marketing techniques is an excellent way | | | | off as a killer application for Internet use. Hotmail |
| to efficiently market products. That is if you know how. | | | | promoted itself only by automaticially inserting a link to |
| You may ask what is viral marketing anyhow? And | | | | Hotmail at the end of each email send out by its clients. |
| why can it be so effective? | | | | All the client had to do to promote was to use the |
| The term "Viral" is used to describe the use of | | | | product. |
| marketing methods that once underway tend to | | | | As the number of clients grew so did the number of |
| multiply and spread themselves very quickly; like an | | | | emails sent, each containing a little ad at the end |
| infectious virus of the unwanted kind, say the flu. | | | | promoting the free Hotmail email service. Hotmail went |
| The most common technique used by viral marketers | | | | viral almost immediately and went from zero to a |
| is to create a product that has great perceived value | | | | membership in excess of 30,000,000 within two years. |
| and then give it away for free or at very low cost. | | | | Another viral marketing technique often used to good |
| Those who receive the product are only too happy to | | | | effect is the use of "refer a friend" forms on website |
| recommend it to their friends and Internet associates, | | | | pages. Generally there will be room to refer from five |
| who in turn recommend it to their friends, who pass it | | | | to ten friends on one form. As friends are referred |
| along to their friends. On the Internet this process can | | | | and they in turn refer their friends, and so on, the |
| repeat itself extremely quickly with an ever more | | | | number of visitors to the website content that is being |
| powerful effect as the number of folks making | | | | refered will grow exponentially. |
| recommendations increases rapidity. | | | | Of course, this technique will fail unless the majority of |
| Thus the creator of the product only has to make the | | | | the referred friends feel that there is value in whatever |
| initial marketing effort and with the right product the | | | | it is that they are recommending. |
| product becomes self promoting. The key is that the | | | | Which brings us the the key point about viral marketing. |
| product value has to be great enough, and the benefit | | | | Unless the product is good enought to sell itself the |
| to the referrer great enough, so that folks want to use | | | | promotion will likely fail. |
| and pass along information about the product right | | | | What type of products meet that test today? Judging |
| away. | | | | from the way video is taking off (Youtube for |
| The referrers recommendation may well be only the | | | | example) a funny or interesting video has amazing viral |
| use of the product. Nothing else need be said. A good | | | | marketing qualities. A smart marketer using video can |
| viral product has built in features for promotion. | | | | add a link at the end of the presentation and drive high |
| If you want to really kick up the rate of "infection" with | | | | amounts of traffic to his/her website. |
| a viral advertising campaign make the product | | | | Video seems to be the biggest "killer" application to hit |
| promote itself by the act of the users of the product | | | | the net since email. |