Viral Marketing Definition - Starter's Guide

Definition: Viral Marketing is a technique used by internet business owners to make publicity for their products. Now, I know that all of you have received at least once an e-mail showing you a link containing a funny video or something. Or you received a mass message in your messenger. Well, this is viral marketing.

You may not realize it now, but it is indeed a great way to market one’s product. Nonetheless, some of you may raise an eyebrow or two when you hear the word “viral”. It is reminiscent of a virus, right? Well, this is simply because it indeed spreads very fast, taking advantage of the connection that exists between all internet users.

The first clear case of viral marketing is the hotmail.com campaign which was one of the first e-mail providers. At the bottom of each message was a simple sentence like “Get your free e-mail at www.hotmail.com”. Unknowingly, those users of the e-mail service spread the “virus” to their entire social network, which spread forward again and again and we could go on forever.

Anyway, whatever the case may be, viral marketing campaigns have proven to be very efficient when advertising one’s product. They have a few characteristics that you can recognize in a blink of an eye.

1.They give something away for free. In every respectable marketer’s sleeve there always should be the trick called “giving something away for free”. People react very quickly when something is given away for free, which is one of the most important words in the marketing alphabet. They are prone to look at all the other things that the marketer is selling (which are not free) and have a tendency to even buy them. This is why viral marketing campaigns always have this characteristic.

2. They spread in a very short period of time. Nowadays, the information gets from one place to another in a matter of split seconds. Viral marketing takes advantage of this situation and can grow rapidly from very small to very large in an instant. Actually, this is the reason it has such an infamous name. It also takes advantage of the need for social life that people have. For example, one person may have it his/her e-mail list about 12-15 friends. But this is only the direct social network. The indirect one may include hundreds or even thousands of persons. Now imagine that each one of them spreads the virus to his/her own direct list and then so on so forth. Pretty impressive, right? Well this is also the reason for which viral marketing is such an important weapon in every internet marketer’s arsenal. It’s the simplest, most efficient way to get your product seen by thousands of people and even more.

3. Takes advantage of peoples’ most basic needs. We all have our basic needs, like the need for love, the need to be respected by others, etc. What clever marketers do is to take advantage of this fact and design their viral marketing campaigns to address these issues.

Whether they are good or bad, viral marketing campaigns target a huge number of potential buyers to a merchant’s products, whilst avoiding spam. This is because when a friend tells you “Hey, take a look at this, it’s awesome” you have much more confidence and you are open-minded. On many occasions, you may even not notice that anything is being marketed.

The transmission of the “virus” is made in many ways, like word of mouth, word of e-mail, word of IM, etc. Nowadays, one of the most efficient way to do viral marketing is through word of IM (like Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, IMBlaze, etc). It is growing very rapidly and its’ huge benefit is that it goes from friend to friend, so it actually looks like your buddy is making the publicity, which is a major benefit for the marketer.

Like it or not, viral marketing is here to stay. So if you are an internet surfer who wants to know how to make money online, don’t forget about this technique. It has the potential of making your product known in places you could have never hoped for otherwise. Not only that, but there’s a big possibility that your product won’t be looked at with susceptibility, but with an open mind. It’s simple, it’s efficient, it’s viral marketing.

About the Author

Dan Borlan is a professional SEO for Mike Filsaime Inc. If you require professional help you can contact Dan at: www.1certifiedinstaller.com