Viral Marketing Part 2
-=Continued from Part 1=-
Thus, if you can create a buzz in whatever you do, be it your website or your product launch, it definitely has the potential to be really VIRAL and give you maximum free publicity.
The good news is, there are certain ways to which helps make something buzz worthy. Here are some of the ways:
1. Be unique & innovative.
Most people generally do not like to talk about the same old stuffs over and over again. I’m sure most of you would crave for things which are refreshing and new.
So focus on coming up with new & unique concepts/ideas for your business and it will give it a completely rejuvenated look.
Of course, it helps to be extremely innovative as well. Remember, people like to try out new stuffs. So it really helps when you offer something different from the rest and that will help in making your marketing efforts stand out from the crowd.
2. Inject humor & controversy.
Let’s just face it. Everyone craves for some form of entertainment in their lives. We are human beings, not some cold blooded animals. And our lives will be absolutely dull without entertainment.
Furthermore, for the bulk of internet marketers who face the computer for long hours each day, it can be safe to assume that they too crave for entertainment as well.
So when you are able to inject humor in your marketing messages, it is bound to elicit positive feelings in others. That will help in leaving a deep impression and easily convert your visitors into buyers. It will also help in getting others to talk about your product.
People also love controversy. The most highly controversial topics usually receive the most attention. Hence, it will certainly help if you’re able to inject some controversy in your marketing efforts.
3. Provide incentives.
Now this method is probably not new to most. Incentives normally come in the form of monetary incentives for most, such as offering affiliate commissions, JV contests or other bonuses.
While offering monetary incentives is good as it taps into the human nature of greed, it might not be sustainable for some.
Also, it might not be the best way to generate buzz as people have a motive for spreading the word about your offerings and are not doing it out of sheer enthusiasm about it.
Hence, one day when you can’t afford to issue out monetary incentives, all your viral marketing efforts might simply come to a standstill.
So be creative in generating buzz! Remember, you are certainly not restricted to the above ways. I’m sure you can think of many more ways!
Alright, now let’s take a look at some of the viral marketing techniques that you can adopt on the Internet today!
Viral Marketing Techniques
1. Using online videos.
In recent years, online videos have emerged as one of the largest online breakthroughs. Needless to say, this is facilitated by the vast amounts of video sharing sites which have sprung up. Of which, Youtube leads the pack with an Alexa ranking of 3 at the point of writing.
This means it is the 3rd most visited website in the whole world!
This means you can submit your viral video to these highly trafficked video sharing sites and if your video is popular, it can be viewed by tens and hundreds of thousands of people.
And if you insert a link to your website inside the video, you can easily receive a huge amount of traffic to your sites.
Thus, this is one easy way of leveraging on the huge amount of traffic those video sharing sites like Youtube receive.
Of course, you can also do it the plain old fashioned way.
Just post a link to your video and email it to your friends/subscribers and ask them to forward it to their friends if they like it.
Nevertheless, one point to take note is the traffic you receive might not be exactly very targeted here.
2. By Blogging.
Now if you still do not know what a blog is, you must be living on another planet!
Nonetheless, a blog is basically an online journal. What has been used as a platform for teenage ramblings in the past has since evolved into a viable medium for businesses to share information about their products and services as well as to communicate with their customers.
And the best thing about blogs is they are extremely easy to manage even for non-techies. You can easily get a blog up and running within a few minutes and publish your blog posts with just a few clicks of the mouse.
People love to visit and read others’ blogs. And with some of the modern technology today such as social bookmarking, tag and ping as well as the leaving of comments on blogs, it makes blogging both a viral and interactive activity.
Nonetheless, not everyone likes to write. And many might fall into what we call the writer’s block and run out of interesting things to write to keep their visitors happy. Hence, using a blog as a viral marketing tool, might not be so convenient and autopilot because it does require some form of constant work, in the form of constant updates and additions to the blog content.
3. Setting up an affiliate program.
Now if you are selling something online, then certainly you should set up your very own affiliate program if you wish for your business to propel.
For the benefit of those who are clueless what an affiliate program is, it basically is a program in which you pay others a fixed percentage of commissions for every sale they generate for you.
An affiliate program allows you to leverage on other people’s efforts. And when you have a huge army of affiliates, you can simply rely on your affiliates to do the marketing for your products and earn income on autopilot mode.
Of course, in order to have many affiliates promoting your product, you must first ensure your product is top notch and converts well.
However, when you’re first starting out, you might find it a challenge to even create a quality product which converts, not to mention setting up an affiliate program and managing your affiliates. But nonetheless, an affiliate program is something which you, as a product merchant should strive to achieve eventually.
4. Setting up forums and social networks.
Forums and social networks tend to receive much more traffic than a normal static website as much of the content is user-generated.
Furthermore, they can allow members to refer their friends to join. Thus, it can get extremely viral.
The most popular social networking sites, Facebook and Myspace are both in the top 10 rankings in Alexa. And not to forget tons of other social networking sites which are also experiencing high levels of traffic to their sites every single day.
Hence, one of the best ways to drive a ton of traffic is through setting up forums and social networks in your own niche.
While in the past, this might seem like a mammoth effort. However, in recent years, there have been many scripts (both free and paid) which allow you to do so.
If you’re able to manage a highly targeted social network in your niche, you can certainly find lots of targeted buyers for your products. This is because these niche social networks will attract people who are genuinely interested in your products.
And with the viral effect, your social networks can easily explode in members within a short period.
Once again, this is probably not something everyone can manage right from the start, but certainly one that you can work towards to.
5. Distributing viral PDF reports.
Now this is probably one of the most common viral marketing techniques used by most marketers.
Simply because, PDF reports are considered to be rather easy to create and can be distributed freely. You just choose a topic related to your niche and churn out say a 20-30 pages report.
Inside the report, you can also insert a few relevant affiliate links to resources which you recommend. You must also dedicate at least one page to promote yourself and your websites.
In short, you must ensure that there is maximum publicity for your business and also the affiliate programs you would like to promote.
Thereafter, you can distribute your report and also pass on the giveaway rights and encourage others to help you pass on the report as well.
Thus, your viral report can potentially end up in the hands of thousand of people which could translate into thousand of clicks to your websites as well.
Surely, the potential of distributing viral reports is huge as people love getting free stuffs.
Nonetheless, with the immense amount of free reports going around, the only concern is information overload. Furthermore, not everyone may find the information being dished out useful or some may simply get tired of reading reports after reports.
With the above five viral marketing techniques being laid out, your brain should be brimming with ideas for now.
Thus, if you can create a buzz in whatever you do, be it your website or your product launch, it definitely has the potential to be really VIRAL and give you maximum free publicity.
The good news is, there are certain ways to which helps make something buzz worthy. Here are some of the ways:
1. Be unique & innovative.
Most people generally do not like to talk about the same old stuffs over and over again. I’m sure most of you would crave for things which are refreshing and new.
So focus on coming up with new & unique concepts/ideas for your business and it will give it a completely rejuvenated look.
Of course, it helps to be extremely innovative as well. Remember, people like to try out new stuffs. So it really helps when you offer something different from the rest and that will help in making your marketing efforts stand out from the crowd.
2. Inject humor & controversy.
Let’s just face it. Everyone craves for some form of entertainment in their lives. We are human beings, not some cold blooded animals. And our lives will be absolutely dull without entertainment.
Furthermore, for the bulk of internet marketers who face the computer for long hours each day, it can be safe to assume that they too crave for entertainment as well.
So when you are able to inject humor in your marketing messages, it is bound to elicit positive feelings in others. That will help in leaving a deep impression and easily convert your visitors into buyers. It will also help in getting others to talk about your product.
People also love controversy. The most highly controversial topics usually receive the most attention. Hence, it will certainly help if you’re able to inject some controversy in your marketing efforts.
3. Provide incentives.
Now this method is probably not new to most. Incentives normally come in the form of monetary incentives for most, such as offering affiliate commissions, JV contests or other bonuses.
While offering monetary incentives is good as it taps into the human nature of greed, it might not be sustainable for some.
Also, it might not be the best way to generate buzz as people have a motive for spreading the word about your offerings and are not doing it out of sheer enthusiasm about it.
Hence, one day when you can’t afford to issue out monetary incentives, all your viral marketing efforts might simply come to a standstill.
So be creative in generating buzz! Remember, you are certainly not restricted to the above ways. I’m sure you can think of many more ways!
Alright, now let’s take a look at some of the viral marketing techniques that you can adopt on the Internet today!
Viral Marketing Techniques
1. Using online videos.
In recent years, online videos have emerged as one of the largest online breakthroughs. Needless to say, this is facilitated by the vast amounts of video sharing sites which have sprung up. Of which, Youtube leads the pack with an Alexa ranking of 3 at the point of writing.
This means it is the 3rd most visited website in the whole world!
This means you can submit your viral video to these highly trafficked video sharing sites and if your video is popular, it can be viewed by tens and hundreds of thousands of people.
And if you insert a link to your website inside the video, you can easily receive a huge amount of traffic to your sites.
Thus, this is one easy way of leveraging on the huge amount of traffic those video sharing sites like Youtube receive.
Of course, you can also do it the plain old fashioned way.
Just post a link to your video and email it to your friends/subscribers and ask them to forward it to their friends if they like it.
Nevertheless, one point to take note is the traffic you receive might not be exactly very targeted here.
2. By Blogging.
Now if you still do not know what a blog is, you must be living on another planet!
Nonetheless, a blog is basically an online journal. What has been used as a platform for teenage ramblings in the past has since evolved into a viable medium for businesses to share information about their products and services as well as to communicate with their customers.
And the best thing about blogs is they are extremely easy to manage even for non-techies. You can easily get a blog up and running within a few minutes and publish your blog posts with just a few clicks of the mouse.
People love to visit and read others’ blogs. And with some of the modern technology today such as social bookmarking, tag and ping as well as the leaving of comments on blogs, it makes blogging both a viral and interactive activity.
Nonetheless, not everyone likes to write. And many might fall into what we call the writer’s block and run out of interesting things to write to keep their visitors happy. Hence, using a blog as a viral marketing tool, might not be so convenient and autopilot because it does require some form of constant work, in the form of constant updates and additions to the blog content.
3. Setting up an affiliate program.
Now if you are selling something online, then certainly you should set up your very own affiliate program if you wish for your business to propel.
For the benefit of those who are clueless what an affiliate program is, it basically is a program in which you pay others a fixed percentage of commissions for every sale they generate for you.
An affiliate program allows you to leverage on other people’s efforts. And when you have a huge army of affiliates, you can simply rely on your affiliates to do the marketing for your products and earn income on autopilot mode.
Of course, in order to have many affiliates promoting your product, you must first ensure your product is top notch and converts well.
However, when you’re first starting out, you might find it a challenge to even create a quality product which converts, not to mention setting up an affiliate program and managing your affiliates. But nonetheless, an affiliate program is something which you, as a product merchant should strive to achieve eventually.
4. Setting up forums and social networks.
Forums and social networks tend to receive much more traffic than a normal static website as much of the content is user-generated.
Furthermore, they can allow members to refer their friends to join. Thus, it can get extremely viral.
The most popular social networking sites, Facebook and Myspace are both in the top 10 rankings in Alexa. And not to forget tons of other social networking sites which are also experiencing high levels of traffic to their sites every single day.
Hence, one of the best ways to drive a ton of traffic is through setting up forums and social networks in your own niche.
While in the past, this might seem like a mammoth effort. However, in recent years, there have been many scripts (both free and paid) which allow you to do so.
If you’re able to manage a highly targeted social network in your niche, you can certainly find lots of targeted buyers for your products. This is because these niche social networks will attract people who are genuinely interested in your products.
And with the viral effect, your social networks can easily explode in members within a short period.
Once again, this is probably not something everyone can manage right from the start, but certainly one that you can work towards to.
5. Distributing viral PDF reports.
Now this is probably one of the most common viral marketing techniques used by most marketers.
Simply because, PDF reports are considered to be rather easy to create and can be distributed freely. You just choose a topic related to your niche and churn out say a 20-30 pages report.
Inside the report, you can also insert a few relevant affiliate links to resources which you recommend. You must also dedicate at least one page to promote yourself and your websites.
In short, you must ensure that there is maximum publicity for your business and also the affiliate programs you would like to promote.
Thereafter, you can distribute your report and also pass on the giveaway rights and encourage others to help you pass on the report as well.
Thus, your viral report can potentially end up in the hands of thousand of people which could translate into thousand of clicks to your websites as well.
Surely, the potential of distributing viral reports is huge as people love getting free stuffs.
Nonetheless, with the immense amount of free reports going around, the only concern is information overload. Furthermore, not everyone may find the information being dished out useful or some may simply get tired of reading reports after reports.
With the above five viral marketing techniques being laid out, your brain should be brimming with ideas for now.
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