Viral Marketing is a term used to refer to word-of-mouth marketing. It can be better understood as the strategy that promotes the passage of a marketing message among people. The successfulness of viral marketing depends upon a strong passage rate from one individual to another. The larger the percentage of recipients who receive the marketing message, the greater the success of that specific viral marketing ploy is. When the passage rate of the message is slow or the number of recipients who receive the marketing message is minimal, the weaker the success of the viral marketing strategy is. The primary purpose of viral marketing is to create the potential for the exponential growth of the specific message, promoting its exposure. This strategy, in turn, increases the potential for the message to have a widespread influence in the market. Other terms have also been used to refer to viral marketing including network marketing, creating a buzz, and leveraging the media.
External links:

• Wikipedia definition of viral marketing
• 6 simple principles to viral marketing
• Articles on viral marketing
• Facebook Platform

Two cost-effective marketing tools that are widely used are emails and newsletters, often referred to as eShots. Both allow you to stay in contact with potential or actual customers, maintaining communication that is essential to the success of your business. It is important to note that you must have permission to contact each individual before sending any emails. Both forms of eShots, emails and newsletters, should be kept simple in design. One or two calls to action should be included and the eShot should work well even if any included images do not load.

Newsletters can be used to update customers on new products and services as well as any relevant changes. Software applications are available that not only set up your eShot campaign, but also, they track the outcome of the campaign for you by gathering statistics on soft bounces, hard bounces, and how many emails have been forwarded, deleted, and read.

External links:

• eshots — The Leader in Interactive Event Marketing
• Kaweb Email marketing is a good way of keeping in touch with existing clients as well as attracting new ones
• Leadline definition of eshots

Content syndication refers to the process of monitoring content that is frequently updated by using RSS feeds. In fact, several benefits are attached to this process. In the first place, content syndication delivers regularly changing web content in a timely fashion without any effort on the interested party’s behalf. Individuals who use the Web on a regular basis can easily stay involved while saving time doing it. Plus, the security of these web users is safeguarded by the lack of a necessity to sign up for newsletters and emails.

Many online publishers, news-related websites, blog sites, and others offer content syndication through RSS feeds. Access to the information is provided by an RSS feed reader or aggregator that gathers the information and has it ready for you to access. A variety of popular feed readers are available including NewsGator (Windows), FeedReader (Windows), and Amphetadesk. Popular web-based feed readers include Google Reader, My Yahoo, and Bloglines.

External links:

• Wikipedia explanation of RSS
• A quick to read one page explanation of RSS