Viral Marketing

The Power Of Viral Marketing

2005-04-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

by David Bell

You certainly know by now that the term "viral marketing" is not just another dot-com cliché. Quite the contrary, it describes the incredible, unmatched power of the Web to promote your business by marrying email to the traditional concept of "word-of-mouth."

Viral marketing, the concept of making each customer a marketer by encouraging word-of-mouth referrals, is indisputably one of the most effective mediums of ongoing self-promotion a site can employ. It gives Internet companies a cost-efficient, proven tool to increase traffic and lower advertising costs.

Hotmail originally broke through the mold by proving that companies no longer needed to spend millions on flashy advertising to become the best and biggest in the business. With a simple viral marketing campaign they effectively cornered the market with a budget that spent money on original customer acquisition and not over-the-top Super Bowl ads.

However, instead of just standing by idly and hoping it happens, you can actually "drive" viral marketing by crafting an extremely effective viral marketing program targeted to your audience. This article will provide you with the key steps to create a viral marketing program that will power your business to new heights of success, and do it for a fraction of the cost of other promotional efforts.

-DO EVERYTHING RIGHT FIRST

Your potential customers now have the power to tell colleagues, friends and family about great web site experiences in greater numbers and far faster than we could have imagined just a few years ago. Think of the power of a dense email address book and a few mouse clicks. In fact, that is the "fuel" behind viral marketing. The downside is they can do the same thing regarding bad experiences with the same efficiency and speed. Research has shown that people share bad experiences up to 5 times more often than they tell about good ones. Before you post a site to your server and invite people to visit it, everything should be quality tested and in perfect order. While software makers can sometimes get away with shipping buggy software, you can't issue a "patch" to a site that has already turned off your target audience because in this market, your audience will go somewhere else, fast. And instead of gaining customers "geometrically", you'll be losing them exponentially.

-TWO TOOLS: Buttons and Links

There are two basic tools in your viral marketing arsenal: buttons and links. The idea is that with a single click a visitor can share your site with others, and those people in turn can do the same. The goal in designing and placing these buttons and links is to make them obvious, easy-to-use, and perhaps even rewarding to use. By making your buttons more obvious, you give the visitor a visual cue to pass your site on to a friend and take an active role in the creation of your own viral marketing campaign. You can take an even more active role and move beyond mere suggestion by actually offering your visitors an incentive to pass something on.

-ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS

The analysis is pretty straightforward. For your buttons and/or link to work, you've first got to get it in front of your target audience of potential customers. Second, your potential customers have to be able to readily tell what it is that has been artfully put in front of them. It's that old three-click rule - if you can't find what you want on a site in three clicks, you're going to surf elsewhere, and if you can't understand what you're reading immediately, you're going to tune out. Part of what needs to be clear to potential users is what they need to do and exactly how they can do it. If you fail in any of these elements or if you confuse your message with unnecessary complications, you're potential customer is gone, and you've blown your possibly one shot at a few seconds of their attention.

Your referral tool needs to, at the minimum, accomplish seven critical things:

1. Stand out from the clutter of the page.
2. Be instantly understood
3. Embody a clear call to action.
4. Give clear instructions on how to act.
5. Be placed effectively.
6. Offer an incentive.
7. Make the offer simple, clear and obvious.

-BUTTON VS. LINK

Button: Eye-catching, can be graphical. Link: Line of blue text. Both viable, both serve their respective purpose. The tool you choose will depend on two factors: 1) what you want your visitor to share with others, and 2) the context in which your visitor will be sharing. If you want people to share content items such as articles or white papers, you can use either a button or a link, although a button is more appropriate as it's more attention getting. Also, if the context is your site as a whole or a specific product or a service on your site, then a button is preferable because eye-catching buttons can be designed and placed by using simple code that will load almost regardless of browser or bandwidth. However, when the context is email, whether mailing to your own opt-in list, doing a targeted promotion, or simply sending "Thank you" emails when customers submit an order, you are better off sticking with a link. Many of your potential customers don't have email that supports HTML, and even if they do, a button can easily get chewed to bits in cyberspace when moving across platforms and programs. A good rule of thumb is site = button and email = link.

-OPTIMIZE YOUR BUTTON

To optimize the design of your button, look back to the seven elements of success. To fulfill the first rule, and to stand out from the clutter of the page, the button needs to be small enough not to take up too much above-the-fold real estate, but not so small that it won't be seen. Simplicity is the key here - your button should have a pleasing and eye-catching design, not one that will give the viewer a headache from Flash overkill or frightening color combinations. If your user doesn't know what your aesthetically pleasing button is for, they're probably not going to use it. This is where you need to do what your elementary teacher always admonished you to do: use your words carefully. Clearly spell out in straightforward terms what the button is for, why you want your user to use it, and finally, how they go about using it.

-PLACE YOUR BUTTON

Now it's time to place the button, and there are multiple placement options depending on what you want your visitors to share and in what context the item to be shared appears. Remember that your button is a call to action, so the best placement is at the point in your process where your visitors are the most engaged, and motivated. The number one location for a product referral is the page where the product appears and appears by itself or differentiated from other products. Not only will your visitor not yet be preoccupied with billing addresses and credit card numbers, you also do not run the risk of losing a referral opportunity because you placed the button deeper in the ordering process, where the likelihood of an abandoned shopping cart rises.

If you provide a referral tool for an article or white paper, the best spot for the button is at the beginning of the article or white paper for shorter pieces and at both the beginning and the end for pieces more than a page in length. Like most surfers do not read every line of text on every site, it is likely many of your visitors will also not be reading every single sentence and paragraph of what they might send on, especially if they're doing preliminary research or idly surfing.

Other prime locations for referral buttons, depending on your site and on your needs, are your home page, your product or service pages, and on any special offers. Ask yourself what it is you want visitors to your site to pass along and place buttons accordingly. Place the button close to names, icons, or logos that you expect to catch attention, while also keeping the important basics as close to the top of the page as possible. Web sites, like newspapers have a "fold" (i.e., what's seen before the user has to scroll) and anything considered of paramount importance should be placed above the fold.

-OPTIMIZE YOUR LINK

A link is a link is a link. Not exactly a lot of design flexibility, is there? The best you can do, and what you should do it if you can, is to create links that carry at least a part of your message. A very simple example would be http://www.xyz.com/share. The real key with links is to accompany them with a short, clear, and compelling message. Also, underline or color the text of your link so that it is obviously a link.

-PLACE YOUR LINK

Again we go back to our earlier point that the call to action works best when the visitor has been fully engaged. If you want people to share an article or white paper, the link goes at both the beginning, when they're first interested about the material, and at the end, when they've read it. If it's in an email, you put it at whatever point in your message that you've given your reader the strongest incentive to act. Place it too early in the process, (before that special offer or promotion), and it is like suddenly demanding money from your customer when they are only halfway through the purchasing decision process. You not only won't gain a customer, you will lose one customer with exceptional word-of-mouth potential.

-THE SECRET INGREDIENT

Consider Three Scenarios:

1. People love your site, but you don't give them any tools, much less any incentive, to share it.

2. People love your site, and you give them an easy and obvious way to share it.

3. People love your site, and you not only give them an easy and obvious way to share it, but you actually reward them for doing so.

Which scenario will result in the most referrals? Which scenario would you yourself respond to best? Adding referral tools is a great start, but when you also add an incentive, you've given your visitors no reason not to act, and your response rate will skyrocket accordingly. As e-sales guru David Weltman, successful CEO and former IBM advisor, says, "What you get is referrals on rocket fuel."

But before you start handing out incentives, consider what your target audience will value and appreciate. To a tech-savvy audience, an offer of a free "Outhouse Construction for Numbskulls" manual will be less compelling than, say, free shipping or entry in a contest to win a new monitor.

-IN CONCLUSION

When used properly, nothing can match the power of viral marketing. It is so effective because it is based on personal opinion, much the same way an editorial carries more weight than an advertisement because it's coming from a trusted source. You trust your friends and colleagues to send you material that is interesting, useful, and pertinent to you personally. Trust will always be more powerful than flashy design and expensive ad campaigns, and when information comes from someone you trust, it is much more powerful.

You can employ a team of designers and programmers and copywriters to build you a beautiful and functional site. You can pay for content, buy advertising, and even purchase lists of email addresses. The one thing you can't buy when growing your business is the trust of your users and the recommendations from current customers to potential new ones. That's achieved only with viral marketing.

I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.

About the Author

David Bell is Manager, Online Marketing, at http://www.wspromotion.com/ , a leading Search Engine Optimization services firm and Advertising Agency.

How to Use Viral Marketing for Online Profit

2005-04-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

by Daegan Smith

When Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith founded Hotmail.com they promoted it with a simple idea they called “Word of computer” advertising. Every message sent by a subscriber had a one-line promotional message attached….”Get Your Private, Free E-mail from Hotmail at www.hotmail.com”. Within the first 18 months of business they claimed 12 million sign-ups to their service… more than what CNN and AOL could garner in the same time period. With a cost per acquisition of just 4 cents this was a resounding success and a brilliant use of Viral Marketing Technique.

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, to millions."

It is an extremely effective form of word-of – mouth online promotion strategy used for amazing success by web frontrunners like Hotmail and Bluemountain.com. For a home based or small business, viral marketing is a smart and cost effective way to promote business and generate new sales leads. It is easy and fun.

The biggest benefit of viral marketing is that it helps you maintain a cost effective level of brand awareness at all times. It can reach beyond your target audience and mine for new leads; it creates a buzz around your products and services and provides accountability when tracked.

Also see: http://hackvan.com/pub/stig/etext/viral-marketing.html

Here are some tips for you to get your viral marketing campaign on the right track:

1. Have a great idea: Unless you have a really remarkable idea, it is going to be hard to get people interested in it; much less share it with others. A boring idea doesn’t get passed on. If you have a regular consumer product to sell and still want to use viral marketing, put on your creative hat and craft a promotional message that will make people want to pass it on to others.

2. Identify your core group: your core group or “hive” is a group of people who share a common interest and talk to each other about it. The core group can also be called ‘agents’. These are the guys who will be responsible for sending your ‘virus’ ahead. If your product/idea/ service doesn’t move this group, it isn’t going to get any further.

3. Ease of use: have you ever received an email with a mile long URL in it, asking to be sent to “15 people for a free gift”? if your answer is ‘yes’ then you know what I am talking about. Make it easy for your agents to tell their friends about your company. if they have to download pages of text or heavy graphics, they are more likely to hit the “delete” button and get out of there, fast!

4. Make it persistent: When you have built a sizeable community of converts, keep them happy. It is harder to go out and get new agents than making the existing ones work for you.

5. Referrals: A good way of utilizing viral marketing for your site is through referrals. If you are offering content or service, you can put up a “Tell a Friend” button that lets customers recommend products or Web pages via email to friends. Recommend-It and BigNoseBird.com are some of the sites that offer these services for free. These services allow you to keep track of those who recommend your site and the people they recommend it to.

Once you have started off the process all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
For more information on viral marketing take a look at:

http://www.nmk.co.uk/article/2003/04/02/viral-marketing

About the Author

Perfect Home Based Business Opportunities - The Net’s Top Growing Source for Home Business Information.Attention:Free Web Site Content

Viral Marketing Technique Creates a "Chain Reaction" with One-Time Action! by George Papazoglou

2005-04-11T03:32:00.000-07:00

Suddenly your site's traffic multiplies. You get "Money Waiting" emails from your Payment Processor; more sales than you can handle. Your downline increases radically - potential entrepreneurs join your sales force.

Your leads-list inflates spectacularly.
Your jaw drops as you witness the evolution right before your eyes...

You rub your eyes as you are hooked on your screen watching those figures invading your monitor. Your heartbeat boosts uncommonly fast.

What actually happened?

-- The Chain-Reaction Effect has just Began --

It could happen to you... a 4-digit
($8225 in gross sales) overnight earning was the byproduct of a well-coined viral marketing scheme, which unexpectedly met my wildest crest.

I never thought that a (above any logical suspicion) free e-report would multiply among subscribers so virulently fast.

Just like an epidemic attacks our immune system belligerently, an alike "power" compelled numerous of ordinary subscribers into acting as active bonds of a chain-reaction... multiplying the report to hundreds of thousands of PC's across the nations!

At last... after zealous experimentation, a powerful marketing formula was constituted;all the much-needed critical elements produced an incredible effect in traffic, sales and...ultimate multiplication.

Since then, I never spent a cent in publicity - why throw money down the drain when other potential people feverishly pass my free reports with maniac-like fanaticism?

Even the most fixated group of rebels
would envy of this induplicable contrive.

While it's impractical to expand the components of this "virulent formula" over a few paragraphs, one element awed me - "the power of reciprocation
goaded people into spreading the news with utter willingness."

Can you identify with this "patrol movement"?

The colossal muscle of an intoxicating viral marketing scheme can attribute to your income dramatically.

For a more analytical reference on "viral marketing" and its' importance, refer to http://traffic-engine.net

About the Author

George Papazoglou is the author behind
www.traffic-engine.net and Creator of
the "Hits Tornado Advertising System"
[ www.traffic-engine.net/hits ]

How To Produce The PERFECT Viral Ebook by Harvey Segal

2005-04-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

Viral marketing is probably the number one method for
generating traffic and sales - IF it is set up properly.

Take the case of a viral ebook - which means a book that
can be passed from one person to another bringing
benefits (profits) for each party in turn.

How is this achieved ?

The basic concept is that the book contains links to
affiliate products. When a reader of the book makes a
purchase from a link then the affiliate receives the
commission.

The creator of such a book will allow some of the links
to be 'rebranded' which means a person (who we will
refer to as the rebrander) can replace them with his own
affiliate codes thus collecting commission. This is the
obvious incentive for him to pass the book around and
begin the viral progression.

If we want to maximize the benefits for everyone and
create the perfect viral ebook we need to have THREE
key factors in place.

1) Wide Distribution

There are many permutations in the ways that you can
offer an ebook. It can be free or paid, and for either
option you can charge for rebranding or offer it free;
plus you can have part customization or full
customization. On top of that, for a paid book you can
offer resale rights and even the right to grant resale
rights.

Let's keep it simple.

What we want is the widest possible distribution so that
we get the most commission from the affiliate links.

So we will have a FREE book and FREE rebranding rights.

2) Quality Affiliate Links

It goes without saying that your book should contain
good content on a topic of interest.

But will readers click on those affiliate links ?

The answer is 'NO' if you copy the poor example of many
authors, for instance:

- have you ever opened an ebook and been faced with a
barrage of affiliate links ?

- or seen affiliate products which have nothing to do
with the theme of the book ? For example in a book about
hypnotism you get a link to a web hosting company.

So what is the best way ?

The secret is to have highly relevant links and weave
them naturally into the content in a low key style
without appearing to push for a sale. So when you
discuss a particular topic and want to show where more
detail can be found, or how a particular problem can be
solved, that's where you can mention the affiliate
product as a source of further information. If you want
to see really good examples of how to do this read the
free book at the end of this article.

See - that last sentence was an ACTUAL working example
of how to weave in a link.

3) Maximum Return For Both Parties

You need to get the rebranding balance right.

If you give away an ebook and allow all the affiliate
links to be rebranded that is a great deal for the
rebrander - but what do you get out of it ? No affiliate
commission, just subscribers maybe for your mailing list
if you have a sign-up form in the book.

Conversely if you hand out only a few affiliate links
for rebranding then that provides little incentive for
the rebrander to distribute the book.

Ideally what you want is the maximum motivation for your
rebrander which would be

* to allow free rebranding
* to allow ALL the links to be rebranded

but in a way that you can still benefit.

Can that be possible ?

Fortunately it is, using any of 3 different methods

* if the links in the book are for your own products

* If the links are for products for which you have
resale rights

* If the links are for 2-tier affiliate programs so that
you collect the 2nd tier commission when a rebrander,
who has signed up under you, makes a sale

And so, if you use these techniques you can begin a
viral marketing campaign which will continue to generate
traffic and sales with little on-going effort on your
part.

EXCEPT for two issues we need to resolve

1) What happens if everyone rebrands the book and only
makes purchases from their own copy ?

Well, I have found that in practise only a minority (say
10%) will take the time to rebrand a book which means
that the majority (90%) will be reading your book and
purchasing from YOUR links.

So only 10% will be 'lost' to you . . . or are they ?

2) Suppose you plan to produce a viral book. It's about
a popular topic - so it's bound to have a wide
circulation - but you can't find any of the three types
of suitable links to put in the book, i.e. links to a
product of your own, to products with resale rights or
for 2-tier affiliate programs.

Is there a solution ?

Yes - there are answers to both problems in my book "101
SuperTips" - they are actually tips 100 and 101.

As you might expect this book is free, with valuable
information linking to highly relevant products, and you
can rebrand it, again for free.

By all the rules above it's a candidate, I hope you
agree, for 'the perfect viral ebook' and a profitable
source of revenue for you.

About the Author

Harvey is the author of several viral ebooks including
101 SuperTips, a collection of unique Internet Marketing
tips, which you can collect at
http://www.supertips.com/101/

How To Use Viral Marketing To Grow Your Opt In Email List by Stephen Warren

2005-04-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

If you have read my article called "What is Viral Marketing" you should already have a fairly good idea of it's potential.

In this article I'm going to discuss how it can be used to grow your all essential, opt in mailing list.

As you already know, Viral Marketing is a great way to get the word out about your product or service, so you can see a huge surge in sales.

But what about subscriptions to your newsletter? Can they too be effected by this type of Marketing?

YES they can.

But how? This depends on how difficult and successful you want to make it. Not that these two factors necessarily go hand in hand.

The most basic form of using viral marketing automatically, is probably a tell-a-friend script. I'm sure you've seen them, you've probably used them as well.

All you have to do is type in someone's email address into a form, and the website will usually have text pre inserted into the form telling the person how great you think the website is, but you could always add your own instead.

Your friend receives an email which to them looks like you are telling them about this fantastic new website and hopefully he will sign up to the newsletter to find out more.

This can be manipulated in other ways. For example what if you did a questionnaire, then, to get the results of the questionnaire, not only does the person have to sign up to your newsletter, but they have to fill out a tell-a-friend script for three friends, telling them about this questionnaire. Then, those three friends sign up, take the questionnaire, and oh look, they have to sign up to the newsletter to find out the results, oh well, lets tell three more friends each.

This has a huge snowball effect, and should see you exponentially growing your opt-in mailing list.

This isn't too hard to create either. Just go down to elance.com and ask a programmer how much he would charge for such a thing.

However, you must remember that you must start your marketing efforts with some fuel, and that fuel is people. You have to start with at least a few people filling out this questionnaire for this to even begin. 0 people telling 3 friends each still equals 0.

Another way to grow your mailing list, is to pay people for every subscriber they send your way. This isn't exactly the type of marketing I've been discussing throughout this article, but it will grow your opt-in list quite well if you pay enough and enough people start doing it. I think that 10 cents per subscriber is fair.

If people start sending you more subscribers than you can afford to pay, then you can always stop it for a while. But remember this, is you treat your subscribers well, then you have a life time value of them, which is worth far more than 10 cents.

Hotmail.com used this form of marketing in a small way that produced big results. At the bottom of each of the emails sent, they included a small line that said something like "Get your free email account with hotmail.com". This meant that every time an email was sent from hotmail the recipient would read this and perhaps think, "Hmm free email account huh? Better check this out. This resulted in hotmail's huge growth in a relatively short period of time. Eventually Microsoft brought hotmail.com for an obscene amount of money.

About the Author

Stephen Warren, the creator and webmaster of http://www.marketershandbook.com , a completely free business and marketing resource which anyone may use.

Powerful Insider List Building Secret Is Out... by Craig Perrine

2005-04-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

I can still remember the day every list building technique I had in my toolbox suddenly became obsolete.

I was blown a way when I discovered that top marketers have an insider secret list building method that almost nobody knows about.

While I was definitely excited (now that I was in on the secret), part of me was a little bit ticked off.

Why? Because I had been led to believe that it takes a long time to build an opt in list of any significant size.

The experts say you have to submit articles, drive traffic to your site with Pay Per Click and master search engine optimization so your site
ranks well in Google.

Geez. That's a lot of work! I know, I've done it.

It's true it can take months or years to build up even 10,000 names using these 'slower' methods because it takes a lot of work to drive the traffic and convert it into a meaningful number of subscribers.

That's why I was stunned to find out that the big players don't just rely on those methods --they have a secret way to get huge numbers of subscribers to opt in all at once. I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of subscribers here (even millions).

So it's about time you knew what they're doing because if you're serious about your marketing this could be the most cost effective way for you to build your list of subscribers in a hurry.

And I say cost effective in terms of money and TIME.
The sooner you have a responsive list that buys enough from you to support you, the sooner you can quit your day job and live the Internet Marketer's dream. Live on your own terms and create cash every time you click 'send'.

For many who struggle to build a list for months and years, this is an impossible dream. But I'm going to change all that and blow the lid off this secret list building method and level the playing field so you can focus on your marketing,not your list building.

What the insiders don't want everyone to know is that most of the guru's who have lists of 50,000 to 500,000 or more didn't write articles or use pay per click ads exclusively to get the bulk of
those subscribers.

Nope.

They just went out and paid someone else a dirt cheap fee to do it for them.

Literally, in a matter of weeks, tens of thousands,even hundreds of thousands of names, can be opted in to your list.

That's right, so why should you struggle to add 50 to 100 names a week or less to your list when you can pay a nominal fee (cheaper than pay per click, usually) to just build the list for you?

Imagine how much time you would be able to save on all the list building efforts if you could just go out and buy one. Now, there is nothing wrong with traditional list building methods and you'll want to keep up with them in the future, too.

But if you can go out and get thousands of targeted subscribers to opt in to your list for cheap all at once, that's a no brainer.

And that is what the insiders do. They place ads on sites with traffic geared toward what they are selling and they agree how many names they want and at what price each (typically about 10 cents or less per name).

Then people visiting the site see the 'ad headline',typically when they are requesting information on something else or registering for something.

What you end up with is a list of opt in subscribers that have just requested more information on your topic so you can follow up with them over and over with content and offers.

These lists are called 'coregistration lists'because the subscriber was registering for something on the site where your ad was placed, and they decided to 'register' for more info when they saw what you had to offer.

Because the new subscriber requested to get more information, he or she is an opt in lead on yournew list.If you get your list from a good provider,you will have the time, date, and IP address for each subscriber.

Also, if you get your list from a reputable provider,your list will comply with the new federal anti-sp^am laws, which will give you peace of mind. You will have an opt in list, which is so important in marketing today.

Unlike search engine ranking, which seem like the equivalent of Internet alchemy, or the mercenary pay per click ranking battles you have to fight to buy traffic - coregistration lists are simple.

They eliminate the hassles of traditional methods by allowing you to pick any size list you want,determine how much you can afford up front,pick any target market you want to reach,and acquire a list within a few weeks.

Now, you could try to entice a JV partner to offer your killer product to their "goldmine" list,but you better have a proven sales process and agree to hand over a hefty chunk of the revenue in exchange. Not only that, but you will in all likelihood need to offer a reciprocal mailing for your JV partner to your list as well.

What’s that? You don’t have a list?
Oh, then you’re back at square one.

So let’s take a closer look at coregistration lists.

Quite simply, you buy them from sites that have the targeted traffic that matches your offer. You place a text ad on the site offering valuable information next to a box the visitors can check off if they want to you to contact them.

They might opt in to your newsletter or you might offer them a valuable report.

Bingo, you have a prospect you have permission to market to.

Sure, you could tinker around with search engines for less up front cash, but only if your time is worth nothing would that be cheaper! It can take months to get any meaningful traffic unless you know the ins and outs of that game.

It can take some work to find the right sites and to negotiate the best rates for your new list.
Which is why I teamed up with NitroMarketing to create a source for coregistration lists -- but we managed to negotiate the best deals in the industry with prices as low as a penny a name!

In fact, check out http://tinyurl.com/5tzhw
and I think you'll be amazed at the turnkey solution for buying and mailing to your new list.

We all know to market online you gotta have a list.

At http://tinyurl.com/5tzhw
we decided that you deserve to be able to build your list as fast and as big as you want.
We offer a turnkey program.

In short,coregistration lists can save you a lot of time, money and headaches. Quietly, these lists are becoming the hottest thing to hit Internet marketing because they are within even the smallest budget and offer targeted prospects for your offers without costing an arm and a leg.

While you’re learning about these powerful list building sources, make sure you are putting together a killer offer because the time to kick your marketing machine into high gear will arrive sooner than you think now that you can just buy a huge list almost overnight!

About the Author

Craig Perrine is the List Profit Coach,
author of "How To Turn Your Coreg List Into A Cash Cow In No Time Flat" and the popular ecourse,"How To Build A Massive Opt In List In Minimum Time".
Craig runs NitroListBuilder -- the best deal on coregistration lists on the Net.

HOW AND WHERE TO USE VIRAL MARKETING TOOLS TO PROMOTE YOUR WEB SITES by Bukaboo.com

2005-04-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

HOW AND WHERE TO USE VIRAL MARKETING TOOLS TO PROMOTE YOUR WEB SITES

Inaddition to search engines marketing,email marketing,offline and online marketing, another very good but essential way marketing your web sites is the Viral marketing systems,I recommend viral marketing to webmasters,website owners,publishers,online marketers in general. The technique is to look for a winner,join it,it may take a little bit of time for it to start working,but the truth is that if you carry out the instructions of the viral marketing well,just make sure you promote and promote your viral maketing,when people join just like you they will help youto bring other people who will help you to drive millions of quality traffic to your web site:

Below are 2 typical examples of viral marketing you can use to promote your web site:

1. http://ultimatetrafficsystem.com/?35886&salesmarketingjournals

2. http://bukaboo.opportunity.com

Best wishes from,
Emmanuel

http://groups.msn.com/moneymakersbusinessopportunists

About the Author

Emmanuel is the Chairman/Ceo of the Bukaboo.com,he is a specialist in online and offline advertising,networking,money making affiliates programs,etc.

The 3 MOST Powerful Forms Of 'Viral Marketing' That PUT Your 'Opt-In' List Building On 'Auto-Pilot'! by Cory Threlfall

2005-04-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it.

"The Money Is In The... LIST!"

I bet you've heard this catch phrase once or twice while
surfing around on the Internet.

I know I have.

But, the question that usually arises is... "How do I
effectively build one that won't cost me an arm and a leg
in the process?"

Well, today's your lucky day because I'm going to highlight
3 of the MOST powerful ways to build your targeted 'Opt-In
List' by using the Power of 'Viral Marketing' as your
engine.

And the best part about using these 3 'Viral' methods I'm
about to mention are... they cost virtually Nothing to
produce, are Highly targeted, give You INSTANT Credibility
and are in constant demand by website owners.

So, with that said, let's move on to what these 3 'Viral'
methods are and how they will benefit you and your List
Building efforts.

1. Writing 'Special Reports'.

- Special Reports work great because they allow you to go
into more depth about the Topic or Problem in question
where you'll then be able to lead them to how your
Product or Service(or Affiliate product) can fix there
current problem.

- They give you Instant Credibility, which builds trust in
your customer that you are knowlegdable in your
industry.

- Website owners are always looking for quality **Free
Stuff** to give away or offer to there Visitors and/or
Subscribers.

This is where you could CASH-IN, especially if you make
your special report 'Brandable'. This gives the website
owner even MORE incentive to give your Freebie away if
they can make Money in the process.

- And your Contact Information will always be inside, no
matter what. Meaning, as your report is being passed
around the Internet you'll always be able to lead your
potential customer back to your website where they could
sign-up for your newsletter and/or read up more about
your Products or Services you offer.

2. Putting Together A 'Free eBook'.

- Free eBooks work great as well and have the same
benefits as I outlined through the special report.

The only difference using this approach is, you can put
together a free ebook in less time then it would take to
produce your special report simply because it doesn't
even have to be your own material inside, it can be
someone else's.

Just make sure you put together a free ebook with
quality information inside.

- And they also allow you to target more then one Product
or Service inside because free ebooks are usually a
compilation of related articles targetting a particular
problem leaving you room to diversify.

3. Writing 'Articles'.

- Writing Articles is probably ONE of the Best and Most
Effective Ways to produce a wave of Viral traffic to
your website because every website owner needs FRESH
content to feed to there visitors and/or subscribers.

- They also allow you to Target your audience's problem
specifically that they're dealing with.

- And at the end of the article you have a spot called the
'Resource Box' to insert your personal Bio and/or
Website information.

Just imagine if your article were to be picked up by
some Newsletter Editor with a large list or High Traffic
website and they use it as a 'Featured Article' in there
publication, you could see an INSTANT Surge of targeted
traffic to your website overnight.

That's where your 'Resource Box' comes in.(Take a look
at how mine is formatted at the end of this article.)

Well, that about sums it up for the 3 MOST powerful 'Viral
Marketing' methods being used today by most Internet
marketers, and for good reason, because they work.

Now, with all that said, what do these 3 'Viral' methods
all have in common that'll put your List Building efforts
on 'Auto-Pilot'?

- They're in HIGH demand by website owners.

- They're HIGHLY Targeted.

- They give You INSTANT Credibility in your industry.

- They have YOUR Contact Details leading to Your website.

...and Most important of all, they're all FREE!

Just think for a minute, by using only ONE of these methods
listed above, how it could put your Opt-In list building
efforts on 'Auto-Pilot'.

This article represents just a summarized version of all
the different List Building techniques available online,
But, in my opinion, these 3 are the most effective.

About the Author

Want 'Targeted' prospects to swarm your site 24/7? It takes
5 minutes to set-up, it's Automated, 'Viral' and FREE! --
http://compactURL.com/bwjm -- Or you can pick up a FREE
copy of Cory Threlfall's New special report called, "How To
Tap Into The TRUE Power Of The... INTERNET!" at --
http://www.internetwondersezine.com/sar_report.html

Viral Marketing - Spread the word. by Judy Webb

2005-04-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

While a virus, in Medicine, is the smallest infectious
agent, it is an extremely potent strategy in Marketing speak
with similar abilities to proliferate. It is an effective
means of advertising and relies on an understanding of what
individuals may accept, should the price favour them.

Viral marketing by definition is any type of a marketing
campaign that encourages those in receipt of an advertising
message to voluntarily pass it along to friends, family and
others that may be interested. [unlike a bad "virus" which
one would not want to knowingly spread or pass along.]

Examples of successful viral marketing are: hotmail and
their simple teaser at the bottom of all their emails that
stated "Get your free private email at www.hotmail.com."

In its first 1.5 years, Hotmail acquired over 12 million
subscribers.

eGroups.com [Yahoo Groups] is a free place on the Net with
tools for groups to share ideas, coordinate schedules and

exchange documents. It reached 4.1 million users at a faster
pace than Hotmail did.

MeMail.com, the Canadian publisher with over 300,000
subscribers, has 97% of its new subscribers from direct
referrals.

Every time a subscriber passes along a story or joke,
attached is a subtle endorsement for MeMail.com brand.

Other forms of viral advertising are based on the idea, that
people will pass on and share cool and entertaining content,
which is often sponsored by an individual or company.

This is looking to raise awareness and use of a product or
service. These viral commercials can take many different
forms: funny video clips, interactive Flash games, images,
or even text.

R.S.S. is not just a gift, but a means to propagate your
brand via incoming links. It will provide content to any who
wish it, but its true purpose is to infiltrate the market,
virally.

Viral marketing is usually carried out by email, although it
is not the same as email marketing.

Email marketing is a message that is sent out by a company
to a database.

In Viral marketing a conventional database is not used. The
idea is to get your reader to pass your message on to their
friends, family or associates. The message then carries a
powerful personal endorsement and is much more likely to be
read and/or acted upon.

When a viral campaign is properly constructed and executed,
you will be rewarded exponentially by the spread.

Example: 2 readers tell 2, which in turn tell 2 more and so
on. It spreads 2+4+8+16+38+64 and hopefully swells to a
reach massive number of readers that act on your offer or
message.

Ironically, even without action or direct financial
participation, a mental impression can be formed through
branding.while no-one will click on the large billboards
that fill the landscape, the memory of it, can prompt
future action with the sponsor in question. Exposure and
impressions have consequences, both on and off line.

Most internet programs including mlm's initiate novices by
impressing them to harvest their "circles of influences".
This involves such novices telling everyone that they know,
and giving the product a personal recommendation, or
endorsement.

Some insist that a circle of influence strategy could spread
the word to an incredible nine hundred people.

Examples of viral marketing can be seen everywhere: free
email addresses, branded software, branded ipods or
accessories, bravenet tools, some newsfeeds, syndication and
other content, jokes (via email and offline), quotations
even, anything that people want for nothing but agree to a
link,like phpnuke or WordPress.

Look at the Marlboro Cigarettes campaign suggesting saving
miles to purchase merchandise. Most items purchased are
branded physically or by word-of-mouth, "I got it from
Marlboro catalogue by saving miles".

Miles that can only be accumulated by purchasing a pack of
their cigarettes.

By offering a simple download with an email or as a bonus to
your offer your branded name will become known. For instance you can go here and download a great set of
tools that will benefit webmasters at any level. This
branded tool will benefit both the consumer and the one
making the offer.

E Books are invariably information products that can be
branded and embedded with affiliate links. These are often
given away as free reports, but with the firm consciousness that
they will be passed on to enhance a viral campaign.

Brand it, and recieve widespread recognition. Embed it with
affiliate links, and recieve any associated revenues.

Indeed, affiliation programs could be considered to be viral
in nature. While the new affiliate may not make a sale, they
will surely be aware of the product and may even purchase it
themselves. This does happen, incidentally.

The most powerful vehicle of a viral marketing strategy is
the one that is carried to the most valuable target of all;
Those that want something, and those that want something else!

Good Luck and happy viral marketing.

About the Author

Judy Webb is a strategy analyst with www.EmarketingExtreme.com. If you want a powerful suite of Webmaster tools (which I still use myself), you can download it here Webmaster Tools Download, with my compliments.

How To Produce The PERFECT Viral Ebook by Harvey Segal

2005-04-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

How To Produce The PERFECT Viral Ebook by Harvey Segal

2005-04-05T18:37:00.000-07:00