Viral marketing strategies encourage satisfied customers to promote products and services to others through word-of-mouth. Like the dreaded flu virus, viral marketing has immense possibility for expansion and exponential multiplication as information is passed from individual to individual on the worldwide web.
Many Internet marketers have implemented viral marketing techniques and seen substantial results. Here are a few recommendations from our seasoned professionals:
1. Take advantage of the power of “free.” No other word attracts attention like the all-powerful word in Internet marketing: free. Many businesses launch viral marketing campaigns by offering valuable free products and services. Often, website visitors will arrive at a business site initially to receive free products, but well-designed and enticing content lures visitors to make purchases.
2. Allow for easy transfer. Choose a transfer method that will allow for effortless duplication. Keep your message short and simple. Hotmail.com, one of the frontrunners in free web-based email, employed a straightforward and highly effective strategy. Each email sent by Hotmail users included a small message at the end: “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com.” As individuals took advantage of the free service, marketing messages were being distributed at rapidly increasing rates.
3. Start small. Do the legwork and planning to start a small viral marketing campaign correctly. Your foresight will pay off quickly as your message rapidly multiplies. An advertising message that is compelling and attractive, distributed to a carefully chosen audience, will spread effortlessly.
4. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Pay attention to what works for others in Internet marketing and make it work for you, too. Some of the most creative and successful viral marketing campaigns take advantage of the resources that are already available on the Internet and put them to use in unique ways.
5. Become a student of human nature. Create viral marketing campaigns that evoke emotions, call people to think and feel deeply, challenge people to support a cause, or just make people laugh. Design marketing strategies that tap into the most basic human motivations. One of the most successful examples of viral marketing, the “Dancing Baby,” demonstrated the power of humor and entertainment in word-of-mouth campaigns. The popular “Dancing Baby” video, which began as a software demo, but became widely distributed through personal email, eventually gained fame as a featured animated character on the television show “Ally McBeal.”
Please, contact OneIMS today at 1-888-ONE-IMS1, or send an e-mail to info@oneims.com and let us help you with your Viral Marketing Strategies.
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