You can build your list simply by writing articles, whether you have thought of it or not.
Quite simply, you write and submit your articles on your topic of expertise or business nature to popular article directories where eZine publishers and readers are looking for the information you provide.
Leveraging your viral marketing efforts on article writing can be rewarding, if done right. In the real sense, you are actually proving your worth and demonstrating your expertise about your business through the articles you write.
So, how can this method in effect build your mailing list? The answer: the resource box you attach to your articles. In your resource box (also known as bio box), you include a brief detail about yourself and your business site together with its URL.
It is strongly suggested that your resource box URL links to your mailing list’s landing page where you can get your visitor’s name and email address, which will in turn help you build your mailing list at no cost.
If your articles are found worth sharing, eZine publishers will republish your articles together with your resource box for their readers and subscribers. The wonderful result: viral marketing without effort on your part!
You can start by writing and submitting your articles to trusted article submitter sites such as http://www.articlemarketer.com and begin your article marketing journey today.
Here are six ideas to help you start your viral marketing campaign:
1. Purchase the branding rights to a viral E-book. Allow people to give away your free E-book to their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it away. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the Internet.
2. If you have the ability to set up a forum or other bulletin board, you really have a great tool. Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own website. Some people don't have one. Just include your banner ad at the top of the board.
3. Do you have a knack for web design? Create some templates, graphics, etc. and upload them to your site. Then, allow people to give away your free web design graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad on them or require people to link directly to your web site. Make sure that you include a link back to your site in the copyright notice and require them to keep your copyright notice in tact.
4. Write an E-book. Allow people to place an advertisement in your free E-book if, in exchange, they give away the E-book to their web visitors or E-zine subscribers.
5. Write articles that pertain to your product or service. Allow people to reprint your articles on their website, in their E-zine, newsletter, magazine or E-books. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article.
6. You can easily find products on the Internet that will sell you a license allowing you to distribute the product free of charge to other people. Look for those products that provide "branding rights". That is where you can include your own name, website, and contact information.
When you purchased an item or availed of a service of a certain establishment and are satisfied with what you got, don’t you recommend that to a friend? And when you give your recommendation, doesn’t your friend buy or avail of it as well?
More often than not, we express our satisfaction with some product or service by telling our friends and relatives about our experience. Some of them will actually try the same product or service that we recommended. Essentially, we have just successfully advertised the product through word-of-mouth without the establishment having to spend a penny on it.
That is the idea behind viral marketing. Viral marketing is an advertising strategy that entices people to pass on a marketing message to their relatives and friends. It is called as such because of its similarity to an epidemic that easily spreads out, with an exponential growth, once an individual gets “infected.”
How did this marketing phenomenon start?
The concept of viral marketing, which is passing along a message, has been around for a long time now, even for centuries. There was just no specific name for it until 1997 when Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist, came up with the term “viral marketing” to describe Hotmail’s marketing practice then.
Hotmail’s practice was to append an advertisement of itself on each message that is sent using their service. When a recipient gets interested and clicks on the ad, it will lead to Hotmail’s website for him to signup. This will go on and on, and the growth is similar to an exponential curve.
Types of Viral Marketing
There are different ways to apply viral marketing strategy.
- Pass-along. This is the most common type of viral marketing. Web sites that ask their users to tell-a-friend about their products and services is an example of pass-along messaging. However, there is a risk of the message being labeled as “spam” by email providers. Thus, it is important that the “from” and “subject” lines do not contain any word that may be tagged as spam.
- Incentivised viral. This is a marketing technique used by companies in which users are offered rewards when they refer somebody to the company. This becomes more effective when the referred person needs to take action for the reward to be given.
- Undercover. The most difficult viral to spot, undercover marketing sends a viral message that is disguised as just an unusual page or piece of news without obvious link citations.
- Edgy gossip or buzz marketing. This type is most common in the entertainment world. A good example is the spread of different controversies, like getting married or divorced, involving the stars of a movie that is yet to be released. This is like a word-of-mouth advertising for the movie.
Methods of Transmission
Spreading the viral message can be done in different ways.
- Email. This is the most common type, when people forwards messages such as inspirational messages, jokes, funny clips and pictures that advertises a certain product or service.
- Instant Messaging. People who receive links from friends through instant messaging servers, like Yahoo or MSN, are more likely to check it out because of the notion of urgency of the sender.
- Web sites. Most of the articles now published online have a link that says “Send to a friend.” This is one way to make the article reach a good number of people by just posting it in one site.
- Word of mouth. Of course, this is the traditional way of passing on a message to another person; and most of the time, the most reliable method too.
Though there are several ways on how to do this kind of advertising, there are also barriers to it. One was already mentioned, which is the risk of the message being labeled as “spam.” Since a lot of companies now are using this method and promoting their products through email, email providers proactively created some sort of filter in their system to separate potential spam emails from the more trusted ones.
Other barriers can be the size and format of the viral message. If the content is a video clip, its reach may be limited because of size limitations of most of the email providers. Media format is also one thing to consider because not all recipients of the message may have the right application to open the file.
But despite of these constraints, businesses are already getting into this style of marketing. Indeed, this technique helps in dramatically increasing revenues by reaching a huge number of the target market without having to spend a big chunk of money for advertisements. Viral marketing will definitely go a long way, especially in the World Wide Web.
Nowadays, even the smallest company uses the Internet as a main tool in building a customer base, keeping in contact with their clients and this is also their most basic means of advertising.
Designing a company web site is cheap and effective, not to mention essential because the world wide web is the only medium that offers instantaneous information access to millions of users around the globe.
Any web developer worth his salt should know about search engine optimization or SEO.
This is the key towards building an effective web site that would get a lot of hits and visitors. A web site that nobody visits is useless so the challenge lies in leading Internet users to visit your web site.
Thus, your web site need to be "found" when users type in keywords in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, AOL and others.
Once a keyword relating to the products or services that you offer is keyed into a search engine, a direct link to your web site should emerge on top of the list.
You should employ search engine optimization techniques to lead traffic your way, and get more hits that would later on lead to more profit for your company, which is your goal in the first place.
Here are some tips on how you can make it to the top of the list of search engines, and use your SEO techniques to benefit your web site and your company:
1. If you have an existing web site and domain, just optimize the one that you currently have instead of purchasing a new domain.
It will take some time before your web site will show up in a particular search engine, like Google, so it better to use the one that you currently have instead of switching to a new one.
2. Know who your target audience is and aim for them.
If you are in the manufacturing industry and a user types in your product in a search engine, then you would immediately have your target right in front of you.
As soon as the user hits the Enter button or clicks on 'Search', then the person will be lead to your web site.
Make sure that your target market will get 'hooked' on your web site. Once the search engines show the link to your web site, their job is done.
What you should do next is to make sure that your visitor will not leave your web site without them trying out your products or services, or at least leaving some pertinent information so that you can contact them in the future for marketing and advertising purposes.
When hitting a particular target market, learn about their interests, location and age to have an idea of what you can offer them in return.
Also, you can somehow link their interests to your products and services.
3. Search for the right keyword.
You should be creative, persistent and flexible when looking for the keyword or keyword phrases to use in optimizing your web site.
Google and Yahoo offer some tools and tips on how you can come up with keywords that will yield results.
Do not settle for just one keyword. You can also vary the words and phrases that you use for each page on your web site so that you can have more hits.
4. Consider your target market when designing your web site.
The design itself would include the general theme of the web site. You should also pay attention to smaller details such as color and font style and size.
Make sure that the web site is user-friendly and do not forget to insert helpful articles, tips, hints and related links that can be shared to other users.
It is a good thing to have an option to send a link or an article to a friend, which will add more users and increase your client base.
There should also be various ways to browse through your web site, to fit each user.
A person might find it to difficult use the scroll down option so you should also provide hyperlinks which are accessible to them.
5. Concentrate on the web site content.
Regularly update the content of your web site so that old and new users can find something new when browsing through your site.
Make the content brief and precise. Writing a content which has more than 600 words will make the users lose interest, since most of them do not actually read but just skim through the text.
Strive to be the best and most comprehensive web site and you will make your mark when it comes to information about the products and services that you offer.
It helps a lot to pay attention to detail, too.
Finally, keeping your web site's content updated is a must.
Spread the word about your web site and use the basic search engine optimization techniques and you will surely gain positive results once users visit your web site.
