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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.

I'm eager to hear your comments...

Posted in Internet Marketing, Viral Marketing | Tags ,

Affiliate Marketing In A Nutshell Yes It’s That Simple

One of the easiest, and potentially most lucrative, online business you can get in to is affiliate marketing. If you learn the tricks of the trade and are willing to invest some time to implement what you learn, you can leverage the automation and sheer volume of the internet to make virtually as much money as you want. To help you get started, I’ve compiled a brief overview of the basics. This is by no means the do all end all, but it is enough to get you started. Consider this your affiliate marketing in a nutshell.

The first thing you really have to remember, and I can’t stress this enough, is that even though affiliate marketing is not a difficult online business that doesn’t mean that you won’t need to learn some new skills…you will. It also doesn’t mean that you won’t have to invest any time in your business. One of the most common mistakes people make is that they don’t treat their business as a business. Instead they do a little work here and a little work there and then they wonder why they’re not rich after a month or two. Don’t fall into that trap. Work your business like a business with intensity and consistency and you can be very rich.

1. The first step is to understand that to become an affiliate you need to sign up with a company that offers an affiliate program. It’s free to sign up and you will receive a commission whenever someone buys a product on your website. Most companies will give you a replicated website that will be identical to all the other affiliate websites, the only difference will be your special code in the URL. That will identify you and whenever someone makes a purchase from your site you’ll get a commission.

2. Next you need to know a little bit about internet marketing or IM. This is the process where you drive traffic, visitors, to your website. There are many ways you can do this, some of them are even free. Generally the free methods will take a little longer, but since they are free you don’t have to worry about making any mistakes while you are learning how to do them (they are very easy, but you might still make small mistakes).

The paid methods for driving traffic will usually get traffic more quickly but only after you’ve mastered the techniques which can take quite a bit of time and since you have to pay while you are learning it will also take quite a bit of money. You will definitely have more money going out than coming in at the beginning when you use this method.

3. Convert as many of your visitors into paying customers as you can. There are many elements to this, everything from copywriting to SEO to using an autoresponder. Don’t worry if none of this makes sense, there are plenty of places online where you can learn these skills.

For right now though, you will want to use an autoresponder service. This is a fully automated system that will allow you to pre-program a series of emails. You can add as many emails as you want and you can choose how often they go out. When someone opts into your list (this just means they sign up and give you permission to send them emails) the whole emails series will be sent out automatically.

For example, let’s say that you have 10 emails loaded into your autoresponder and that you’ve got it set up to send out one email every day for 10 days. When someone signs up they will immediately receive the first email. Then every day they will receive another one until they’ve gotten all the way through the series.

When you write your emails make sure that you include valuable information. Don’t make your emails just one sales pitch after another. Instead help them by giving them information that they can use, related to your website topic of course.

I’ve barely scratched the surface with this affiliate marketing in a nutshell report. Just remember that affiliate marketing is easy, don’t let the jargon throw you off. It won’t take you any time to learn all you need to know to be making a lot of money. If you can read and write you can be a very successful affiliate marketer.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

Posted in Internet Marketing | Tags , , ,

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