Archive for August 23rd, 2007

It might sound like a gross icky flu or cold, but it’s a method of getting your name and product in front of people and saying hey look at me. Why does it work? How does it work? What does a virus have to do with marketing?

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 and then to millions.

From a marketing standpoint, you must simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation. Short is better. Remember the K.I.S.S. standard….Keep it Simple Stupid. My favorite saying when it comes to work! The shorter and easier to remember is always better than long and complicated. Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. The desire to be cool and greed drives people. So does the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The resulting urge to communicate produces millions of websites and billions of e-mail messages.

People are social by nature, both online and offline. Social scientists tell us that the average person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. On the internet people socialize, favorite websites, send and collect emails, keep contacts lists, and so forth. All of these activities develop relationships online. A lot of times we don’t even think about them, but they are there. Look in your contacts, how many email addresses do you have saved? How many websites do you have bookmarked?

Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do permission e-mail lists. Learn to place your message into existing communications between people, and you rapidly multiply its dispersion. If you can design a marketing strategy that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission, you have a winner.

[tags]affiliate marketing, viral marketing, marketing[/tags]