Creativity.
This is one virtue a site must
possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based
business. With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of
marketing must be employed and utilized.
It doesn�t matter if you have a
killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don�t know that
you exist, it doesn�t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of
all, you business could just get killed.
While there are so many methods
and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of
those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of
these is the so called Viral Marketing.
While the term Viral easily
depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not
what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your
business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of
all those pop up ads and spywares.
Viral Marketing Overview
Viral Marketing also known
otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public
awareness of one�s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach
out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other
forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or
amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along
with it.
In a nutshell, companies ride on
the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to
their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash
game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another
with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content
to help promote the company or its product.
Viral marketing has become a
popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low
cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the
eagerness of one person to pass on the product. If a person sees the name of
the person they know as the sender, they won�t block it and open it as well.
Many companies offer incentives
such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral
marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from
one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be
attributed with.
Using Viral Marketing to your
advantage
The main and foremost advantage
of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness
about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that is
potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some
incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and
announce your existence.
Most every site and companies are
catching on to the effects of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it
could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting
your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could
easily push you ahead in the rating games.
Viral Marketing could be a sneaky
way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your
advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could
be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting
game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz;
many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them moir�
popular. Remember the movie �The Blair Witch Project�?
Many big companies have tried
viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is
Microsoft�s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the
scheme and it has worked wonders for them.
Now it�s your turn to use viral
marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral
Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.
Article by: Clem C. Benton, Jr.
http://www.12path.com/5/E/