Simple Techniques For Viral Marketing
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Wed, 31 Jan 2007 12:46:38 -0600
Category: Viral Marketing
Views: 84

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!

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