Viruses infect people, mostly by human interaction. And Viral Marketing does basically the same it is an on-line technique that encourages people to spread the message regarding your e-business to others using mostly mouth-to-mouth, computer-to- computer, action. It helps create a potentially large base of prospects from your existing mailing lists, or new databases of possible customers.

The basic tools of Viral Marketing are free, and catchy, marketing reports and eBooks you distribute on-line to promote your business. People just love everything that is free and useful and tend to spread that around as something great and that is just one of the ways to utilize Viral Marketing.

Other ways include attaching your business information to your mailing lists, giving something free as a bonus on purchase, spreading around free products with your information attached, etc. the options are countless.

How to utilize Viral Marketing? Find something very useful you can afford to give away free (at no or a very small cost to you) and start promoting it any way you can. I have noticed that free reports and eBooks that educate people on a specific topic are the most useful tools for this. Simply attach your company logo, a short description of your products and an on- line link, contact information, or something similar to your free give-aways. Keep in mind that what you are offering must be very useful nobody likes useless things and giving those away might not only not help you, it could just give you a bad reputation.

Giving things away for free used to be a very effective method. Today the Internet market is crowded with various free information products and getting recognition by providing one is getting increasingly difficult. Everyone is doing it! So think really hard about the viral tool you want to offer to get names to your list. If you're a software developer you will do much better creating some useful software to distribute for free and include your real selling product information. We can serve (IMI) as a good example of this with our free introductory QuickSwords application that makes searching for various software simple and fast.

Do this right and watch responses come soaring in! Remember, what people like people tell others about and while doing so they also tell them about you and your e-business.

One way for conducting successful Viral Marketing is by developing your own free give-aways. Write an eBook or a free report on a topic you are very familiar with, or if you are good at programming, write a short, but useful program to pass around. You may request people leave you with their e-mail address and allow you a one-time mailing if they want your freebie. Then simply contact them with your real product information. They will already know you by your free product and will trust you, so that makes selling much easier. Don't forget to ask them to tell others about your exciting free give- away if they find it useful.

You say you can't really write? Then get someone to write for you. Or write it and find someone to edit it for you. Trust me, it will pay off in the end. If there is no way you can create a freebie of your own, then the only option you have is to find alot of 3rd party free products, make a list of them, and offer that. Just make sure you really do have a great list. For example, an extensive list of free advertising tools (like Ad Submitters, FFA sites, Classifieds, etc.) just might to the trick.

Another way to use Viral Marketing to your advantage is offering a special free bonus on the purchase of your product. This is a technique used mostly by affiliates of other people's programs. The aim here is to offer more than the actual company that you are promoting offers so that people buy from you. Be better than the rest, this goes a long way with people. For example, if you're reselling a program where people are required to place ads, offer them a free training report on how to place ads effectively and a list of advertising sites. Soon people will get to know you as the person to buy a specific product from, since you are offering more than the rest that are promoting the same thing. Always be better than your competition, even if you are selling the very same product at the very same price this is the golden rule of Viral Marketing!

The possibilities are endless, but the bottom line is: if you aren't doing Viral Marketing to help you promote you are loosing money every day ... and that will always be true no matter what kind of Viral tools you decide to include. Things change everyday, and now is the time to start searching for new Viral tools that will replace the eBooks and Reports we have all grown so accustomed to.

If you have any questions regarding Viral marketing please don't hesitate to contact me.

© 2000 Rok Hrastnik

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