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Below is an informative collection of definitions and information about viral marketing.  WebPaws.com has been developing new online viral marketing services to enhance your current Internet marketing efforts.

Viral Web Marketing
A self-spreading or propagating marketing approach that is created when visitors to your site also promote your site. Promotional methods include software trading, word of mouth and “pass-along” content (URLs or emails).  For example, most administrators of free web based email accounts attach an advertisement at the end of each message each time a user sends an email.

Viral Online Marketing
Viral online marketing has been one of the hottest topics since 2005 and the lack of practical how-to information on viral online marketing is mind blowing.  Viral ads are online marketing campaigns that are intended to spread “like a virus.”  One minute nobody’s heard of it, next minute, it’s everywhere.  The term viral online marketing has existed for almost a decade now, and it has only been until recently that viral online marketing has become mainstream and the topics of all internet entrepreneurs.  Still the majority of internet marketers are increasingly confused about what viral online marketing is, how viral online marketing works, what viral online marketing should cost, and how to measure the results from a viral online marketing campaign.  First off viral online marketing isn’t focused on the brand itself.  A viral online marketing product may raise sales or otherwise help your brand as a byproduct.  The main focus of viral online marketing is on the creative so people feel compelled to spread the word.  The heart of a viral online marketing campaign is the content.  People don’t spread the viral online marketing content because they love your brand, they spread it because they can’t help but spread the word of your viral online marketing content.  The most appealing aspect to viral online marketers is how many people your campaign will reach.  Each campaign has the ability to reach millions of potential customers which can make a no-name marketer to marketer of fame in the blink of an eye.  So the basic and most important function is to create a viral online marketing campaign that is either creative, enlightening, humorous or informative enough that people wish to share with their friends, family, and colleagues.  To find out more on how to successfully market your idea as a viral online marketing campaign contact WebPaws.com

Viral Marketing
Viral marketing or viral advertising is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message promoting information or products that other customers are compelled to give to other friends, colleagues and family.  By definition viral marketing is a way to promote a service or product exponentially.  When effectively done one person will give it to several people who in turn will promote it to several other people.  This is what makes viral marketing so effective. For instance, if I wrote and e book, and then I forwarded that e-book to 10 people, who in turn forwarded that e-book to 10 people. One hundred people have read that e-book.  Now if it is forwarded that same way just four more times ONE MILLION PEOPLE have now read that same e-book.  By definition viral marketing gives the consumer something that they can use for free with the intent of gaining that customer to market other products and to create a brand name awareness.  A great example of an effective viral marketing campaign is Google’s gmail.  It is a free email service that can only be signed up for by invitation only. The only way you can receive an invitation is by another user.  Another great example for the definition of viral marketing is by creating an e-book or an e-zine.  When an ebook or an ezine is effectively written the consumer will want to share it with others who in turn will share it with others as well.  To find out more on how you can create an effective viral marketing campaign for a product or a service click  WebPaws.com.

Viral marketing uses both non-traditional and unconventional ways to spread a marketing message about what is new and exciting.  Viral marketing takes a marketing concept directly or indirectly related to a product, service or company and passes it on to the public.  People then distribute the viral marketing message exponentially.  This attention-getting viral marketing concept is growing in popularity.  The easiest forum for viral marketing is the Internet using e-mail, websites or blogs.  Aside from consulting or development fees, some of the most successful viral marketing campaigns are low to no cost.  Viral marketing can be broken down into two basic concepts: incentive based and attention getting. The simplest incentive based viral marketing is making a referral to a friend; if they purchase or join, you get a premium of either money, product or a discount.  Attention getting viral marketing gives away a free product or service then markets other services.  Before launching a viral campaign, decide if you can develop the campaign in-house or need to outsource for outside expertise.  Viral marketing is trackable and ever evolving.  New styles and methods of delivery are constantly being developed.  If you put together an offer that is exciting, fresh and appealing, your campaign will more likely be a success!  If you decide to outsource or would need assistance in a viral marketing campaign click WebPaws.com to find out how.

Viral marketing Information
Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person.  If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly.  If the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly fizzles.

At the height of B2C it seemed as if every start-up had a viral component to its strategy, or at least claimed to have one. However, relatively few marketing viruses achieve success on a scale similar to Hotmail, widely cited as the first example of viral marketing.

Below is an excellent article written by Frank Fiore, 6-25-99

Viral marketing: Spread a cold, catch a customer

They call it “viral marketing.” Having someone else spread the word to drive more visitors to your site.

Let’s face it. The best kind of marketing is the kind you don’t have to do yourself. Especially if you’re a small business on the web with a limited advertising budget. Viral marketing is like it sounds. Call it word-of-mouth, spawning, self-propagation — organic.

Great new idea, right? Nope. Viral marketing has been around forever. Spreading the word through word-of-mouth was the world’s first form of marketing. But the Internet has taken this organic from of marketing to new heights by making communications better and communities of people tighter — thus making word-of-mouth even more effective.

When you use viral marketing as a tool, you’re using the Net the way it was meant to used. Viral marketing on the Net has a long history. The first use was by Netscape. The small “Designed for NETSCAPE” icon was first used as a status symbol by webmasters to show that their site was the latest in web-page design. It didn’t take Mr. Gates very long to see the power of viral marketing and soon “Designed for MS Internet Explorer” icons quickly spawned next to Netscape’s.

A couple of years later, the creative marketers at Amazon took viral marketing beyond this simple link. When Amazon created the first affiliate program on the Net, they spawned a whole new generation of viral partners eager to promote Amazon’s book site to their web-site visitors.

Today, they have more than 100,000 affiliates promoting Amazon and gaining a small commission on each sale directed to them.

Affiliate or associate programs are now one of the hottest viral marketing programs on the web. There are hundreds of small, medium and large companies offering their programs to any web site that wants to earn a few extra bucks.

But you don’t have to have a costly or complex affiliate program to use viral marketing in your business. There are other ways to motivate your customers and visitors to do the marketing for you.

Here are just a few.

• Pass this on, will ya: The granddaddy of the new viral marketing has to be HotMail which soon was copied by Yahoo! and anyone else who had a free e-mail service. It was simple. Attach your URL to every e-mail that your users send out. Before they knew it, HotMail had more e-mail users than the largest ISP. You can do the same. Make sure that every e-mail sent out from your company has your URL on it.

• Tell ’em Sam sent you: Reward your steady visitors for bringing new visitors to your site. Create a special “referrer program” that your steady visitors can sign up for. Have them invite their friends to visit and if they do, have them mention the referee’s e-mail address and the referee earns something free from your site.

• I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine: Your site sells cigars. Their site sells humidors. A relationship made in web heaven! Look for sites that sell complementary products or services to your own. Then contact them and offer a reciprocal linking arrangement. You can go even one step further and offer their visitors a discount if they join your referee program.

• Got any good jokes lately?: I don’t know how many times I’ve forwarded jokes or scam and virus alerts I received in my e-mail to friends and associates. So, create a funny newsletter or an e-mail alert that someone would pass on to friends.

• Take my site, please!: This is similar to “Got any good jokes lately” but in this case you give away your best assets. Don’t just send out a notice about new content on your site — send out summaries by e-mail and ask people to forward it on (with copyright and URL attached, of course). A variation on this is to let other sites reprint your content on their site, with appropriate credits and links to yours.

• And the winner is: Create an award for the best sites in your category or subject area. Then send them an e-mail informing them they won the award and where to acquire the award icon to place on their site. I do this with my Mining Co. Online Shopping site.

I award a “Best of the Net” to certain worthy sites and ask them to place the “best of” icon on their site — which is then linked back to my site.

The one downside to viral marketing is that you’re letting others do your marketing for you. Though this will save you money, your message and your brand are in the hands of someone else. There’s a fine line here of spreading the word and diluting your brand.

The challenge is to exercise some control of how your message is delivered and how others perceive it. But when you master this technique, your message and your site can spread as quickly as the common cold.

Finally, don’t expect a viral marketing program to pay off immediately. Like a real virus, viruses don’t become epidemics until they reach critical mass. Your virus must propagate through the host population until it reaches a certain threshold of visibility and scale.

Think of it this way. Suppose a real-world virus doubles every year. In the first few years it’s scarcely detectable. But within a few years after that it suddenly becomes an epidemic. You should understand that you’re playing the same game. Viral marketing takes time. So be patient, be fruitful — and go out and multiply.