An Introduction to Viral Marketing
By Silke Stahl

Intro to Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing is the hot topic at the moment, but many don't really understand what the term means. As this is an internet based business, and therefore Internet Marketing, we need to look at it in internet terms.
You know when someone sends you a joke on email and it's a good one you want to pass it on. From your mailbox you open your list of friends names and post the joke on to everyone you know, or everyone on your “joke list”, a list of people you pass jokes on to.
Next time you do this, have a scroll down the email to see the list of people it has come from at the head of each mailing. Each person who sent the joke on will have sent it to everyone on their “joke list”. You'll see quite a few names you'll recognize, some of who will be on your own list.
This is “Viral” – the joke has been passed on like a virus – from person to person. Everyone they come in contact with has passed it on to everyone else they know.
The trick with viral marketing is to duplicate that process with your products and the business opportunity itself – pass your store's website URL on to everyone who cleans their house or takes nutritional supplements, or who might, and get them to do the same with everyone they know.
Also, a lot of people who start using the products are going to want to get the products at wholesale. So they want their own store. So they sign up under you! And you get the commission not only on what they buy, but on anything people they know buy from them, and for anyone who signs up under them, who will be in your second line!
So, just as you send a joke you get to your “joke list”, you need to get the biz opp to anyone who has a biz opp list. Congratulations, you have just been introduced to Listbuilding!

Marketing tools
Why use marketing tools? A lot of people on the Net aren't looking to join a program, they are already in one. It doesn't matter that ours is better than theirs, if they never look at the opp and consider it, they ain't gonna signup.
What we can give them however is a way to market what they are already selling. So we offer them our marketing tools. In doing so, they join our downline for that program, and so does anyone else they sign up. This gives us marketing methods to get our biz opp out to people who DO want to see it!

Listbuilding
Remember the analogy earlier about the joke list? What you have there is a list of people you send jokes to. How did you build that list? Your list of friends who you send jokes to. How did you get on the list of someone else, the person who sent you the joke?
What you need to build for your biz opp is what is known as an “opt in” list. This is a list of people who have chosen to join your list to receive information from you.
Building a list is vital for many reasons.
SPAM is the first and foremost – it is illegal to send spam – unsolicited email to people who haven't asked for it and didn't want it. Junk mail.
Despite the legal ramifications, look at the basic logic. Why send your biz opp to someone who doesn't want to see it? Why send a letter to someone who will just bin it without even opening it? Why send an email with a link to your site if the person receiving it doesn't want to know so won't even go look at it?
You may have the best biz in the world and sell the hottest products but if you can't get people to it, you aren't going to make a sale!
So we use listbuilding tools so that you have people to send your biz opp to! These are known as VLBs – Viral List Builders.
And a great way to advertise your VLB is on a Traffic Exchange program – a TE, Surf Exchange, Surf 4 Hits, etc. (What's in a name?)
Once you have a list of people who opted in to hear from you, and you have made initial contact and built up a relationship, then you can show them a biz opp that works for you, and then help them build their own business.
Congratulations - you've just become a mentor!

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Silke Stahl is an International Internet Marketer and Home Business Entrepreneur.
Originally a respected photographer and writer, contributing to many magazines,
she began network marketing as a sideline.
Marketing on the Internet and running her own business was a logical next step.
She now owns her own domain and runs her Internet Marketing business from there.
Visit her website at: http://www.SilkeStahl.com
and her forum at: http://thestork.proboards20.com
Follow her blog here: http://silkestahl.blogspot.com
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