Viral Marketing For Website Branding

Viral marketing is one of the hottest topics on the Internet but in reality it is far from a new concept. As a phenomenon it has been around nearly as long as the Internet, with viral email being passed from person to person. Recent improvements in Internet technology and more advanced Internet connections means that we are able to enjoy a much greater range and quality of online media. Streaming video clips, for instance, have become one of the most popular types of website content.

What Is Viral Marketing?

The concept behind viral marketing is a simple one – create something popular, distribute it, and wait as the recipients pass it on to more and more people. The advantages of viral marketing should be immediately obvious; it can create a mass of exposure for your service or your website. It can be argued that unless a viral marketing campaign is very rigidly created, it will not create highly targeted visitors. As a website looking to become recognised in a particular field, though, it could be the perfect opportunity.

Branding Online

Branding, too, has long been a popular concept in marketing. Good branding ensures that when a potential customer thinks of a type of product or service that you sell, they relate it to your brand. Some brands have done so well out of this that they have essentially become the product. Coca Cola is a perfect example. Branding a website works on the same principle. The aim is to make your website as memorable as possible and then gain exposure so that your target market begin to instinctively correlate your website with the product or service that you sell. If you think of search engines, you usually think of Google. If you think of online auctions, you think of Ebay.

Start Small

You may believe that gaining the kind of recognition that Google and Ebay have is impossible, but these online behemoths were started in a garage and a bedroom respectively. Both had a simple concept, executed it well, and exercised some of the greatest branding efforts imaginable. Now, their names are entirely synonymous with the service they offer.

Types Of Viral Marketing

Video marketing really has become an emerging marketing trend. Web users have taken to streaming video extremely quickly, especially thanks to the increase in popularity and speed of Broadband Internet connections.

Emails are one of the original forms of viral marketing. Creating a compelling email and sending it to even a small group of people can see it quickly spread through the relevant circles.

Articles also offer the opportunity of going viral. Effective marketing will certainly help them along the way. Submitting an article to a directory means your article may be picked up by various popular ezines. Websites and other online publications, in turn, also pick the article up from any of the publications it appears on.

The content of your website can, to a degree, become viral. The content must be extremely appealing and you should provide visitors with the opportunity to spread the content – this is usually achieved by Tell A Friend links, but it can pay huge dividends to effectively market your content for the purpose of advertising.

Combining Branding With Viral Marketing

Viral marketing lends itself perfectly to a website branding campaign. What better way to ensure that people remember your site than to hit large numbers of people with a viral marketing campaign. Whether this campaign consists of email jokes, streaming video, or social media, is less important than whether the actual content is appealing.

The Benefits To Your Website

Branding doesn´t necessarily aim at making an immediate sale. Instead, it builds up a picture in the minds of your potential market. The more they become exposed to the different aspects of your website, including the URL, the design colours, and the logos, the more likely they will be to remember your site. If the URL and logo are relevant to the industry in which you operate then you have won half of the branding battle. Of course, the likelihood is that you will also make direct sales off the back of a good campaign.