Creativity is the one virtue a site must possess to win the race in internet based business competition. With so much competition, many methods of marketing must be employed to stay in the race and win. It doesn't matter if you have a killer product or a web site with awesome web design, if people don't know you exist, you're "dead in the water."
While there are many methods used by e-commerce sites today, one method that's come into its own is called viral marketing which has helped many a site gain an extra boost in popularity ratings. Though the term viral depicts virus in the worse possible way, it isn't what you may think. You do not use a computer virus to spread your business.
Viral Marketing also known as viral advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public's awareness of your product, company, or web site. Many forms of the media are used to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product. The premise is to use methods that are somewhat addictive in nature to get people "hooked" and obligated or amused enough to actually "pass it on" along with the product, company, or web site advertisement.
Basically, marketers ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media enough, they will "pass it on" to their friends, family, prospects, or customers. They sponsor the particular media such as cool flash games, funny videos, amusing stories, or informational reports, which are passed on with the company brand, logo, product description, or any other content to help promote the company or its product.
Viral marketing has become a popular means of marketing and advertising because of the relatively low cost. To avoid being labeled as "spam mail", viral marketing counts on the eagerness of people to pass on the product. If the person sees the name of the person they're familiar with as the sender, they won't block it but, open it instead.
Many companies offer incentives such as rebates and discounts when prospects or customers help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients viral marketing gets from one person, in determining the amount of incentive they can be attributed with.
The foremost advantage of viral marketing is the publicity and public awareness your site or company receives. You get to generate a traffic flow of potential customers. With a little imagination, some incentives, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.
Many web sites are now aware of the effectiveness of viral marketing. Along with other promotional methods such as search engine optimization, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the ratings game. Consider the benefits, increased traffic flow, customers, and revenue increase that could incur from this one marketing resource alone!
As mentioned earlier, viral marketing is a great way to make people aware of your online presence, as you get them to pass your advertisement along, like a virus. Many affiliate programs and webmasters have reports and ebooks centered around their product and in many cases, they offer free branding rights which permit you to "brand" your website and affiliate link into the reportor ebook. As you pass these on to your customers, prospects, you increase awareness of your online presence and hopefully increase sales and revenue in the process. As you can see the potential can be phenomenal!
Consider this, many big companies have used viral marketing successfully. A classic example is Hotmail. They were the first known company to employ viral marketing and the rest, as they say, is history. Why not incorporate viral marketing into your marketing and advertising arsenal, imagine the wonders it could do for your web site traffic and revenue!

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Copyright 2006 Maxine Hough
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