Is Your Marketing Viral?

Viral marketing is any marketing strategy that persuades visitors or individuals to pass on your marketing message to others. It is particularly effective because, by utilising your existing marketing or social networks, you can broaden your reach for very little cost. As well as virally spreading your own website content, viral marketing lends itself perfectly to video, audio, and even article content. If you have an existing network or email list in place, then a viral marketing campaign could really inject some traffic into your website and create some major sales figures.

Easy To Forward

The message must be easy to spread. Complex instructions that involve copying and pasting code, clicking numerous buttons, and other actions will not create the viral word you want. Some of the most effective viral marketing campaigns are conducted by email because the technology already exists and it is simple to forward to other people. You want recipients to be able to quickly and easily forward your message to other people. By using a convoluted and complex method of forwarding information you are essentially deterring your visitors from helping you market your site.

Creating An Emotion And Motivating Recipients

Simply being easy to forward won't make people forward your marketing message. It needs to have appeal, and needs to be motivational. Humour has always been a good viral spreader because people find it funny and immediately want to pass it to friends and colleagues. Other emotional responses will also work. Greed is a powerful emotion, and for certain businesses, playing on people's greed may work. Controversy also causes a reaction and a controversial ad or controversial content will almost certainly do the rounds.

Use Existing Technology

Use existing technology to help spread the word. We've already briefly looked at the fact that email is a popular vehicle for driving viral marketing. Email systems are already very well established and the vast majority of Internet users fully understand how email works. Therefore, they can quickly and easily spread the word on your behalf. Video sharing and other media sharing sites are also a popular choice because these have become very popular and, again, many people know how to use them effectively and quickly.

Use Your Existing Network And Marketing Lists

Use your own existing network. You should already have a marketing network or a social network in place. If you have a list of email leads then that is an excellent network to use. Start your viral marketing campaign off by submitting to the members of your own social networks. In most cases you can be sure that these people will be interested in the message you are trying to relay and the product or service you are trying to promote.

Email To A Friend

If you include appealing content on your own site then you can add “Email To A Friend” links. If the content is appealing to a visitor they may forward it to their own network. Alternatively, if they see something that would appeal to somebody they know, they will be likely to forward it to them. Offer an incentive to forward information to valid email addresses, although this can take careful management.

The Viral Marketing Message

Viral marketing is any marketing strategy or campaign that persuades people to forward your message on to others. Always ensure that the content you use is easy to forward, and contains content that is appealing and emotional enough to warrant being forwarded. Utilise existing technologies to make the process as simple as possible and use your existing social networks to start the viral word.