HOW TO MAKE VIRAL MARKETING WORK FOR YOU

by P J Chandler

There is a lot of online buzz about viral mar- keting, often making it sound far too difficult for the average web business promoter to attempt.

Not only is it far easier than some would have you believe, but chances are - without even knowing - you are doing it already! This article will help you do it better and get great results.

By 'viral marketing' I mean a method of on-line promotion that relies on your message being passed from person to person without your direct in- volvement. It gets its name from the way viruses are spread by person-to-person emails, multiplying at every stage.

For example, supposing you are so impressed by the standard of writing and the quality of information in this ezine that you tell all your friends about it and many of them decided to subscribe. They tell their friends, who tell theirs and so on. If each person contacts ten others, after only four stages, 10,000 people will know how good this ezine is. Two stages later, one million.

You will, no doubt, have seen this kind of multiplication in various MLM programs, which attempt to operate in a similar way. Few succeed, often because their product is weak or overpriced.

You can see the potential, no doubt, and you are probably wondering right now how you can take advantage of this kind of math without resorting to spamming.

It comes down to this: you cannot MAKE people recommend your product to others - you have to give them a good reason to WANT to do so. The reason could be that you really do offer exceptional quality and value, or it could be that they get a benefit themselves from doing so. Ideally, both apply.

Face it - if your product is not up to scratch, why should anyone recommend it to their friends? Even if you pay them, they are mostly not going to be keen to push low-grade goods onto people they know.

So the first rule of viral marketing - as for any other form - is to make sure you have the best quality, best value products to sell.

Now you need that extra incentive - the magic ingredient - to light the fire under the boiler and get up a head of steam behind your efforts: the reward system. It is true that some of the most successful word-of-mouth promotions have had no monetary reward attached. Napster, for example, grew explosively in popularity because people wanted music without having to pay for it. A few years ago a self-published book called "The Celestine Prophesy" became a major best-seller mainly due to a high level of talk about it on newsgroups.

If you can generate that kind of enthusiasm for your product,

To make your viral marketing project self-financing, you will have to pay rewards out of revenues gen- erated by new customers. Which means you have to sell something. This can be your own product or - if you promote an affiliate program - someone else's. The principal advantage of the former is that you get to keep all the profits, and if you can create a knockout product, that's the way to go.

Selling someone else's product may carry smaller margins, but it has one big upside - you don't have to worry about product creation, order processing or delivery.

Choosing a suitable affiliate to promote is no easy matter. Not that there aren't plenty to choose from, but do read the small print carefully before jumping in. Remember to look at the program from your potential customer's point of view, as well as your own.

Apply some tests: check how easy their web site is to understand and to navigate. Can you grasp what is on offer at first reading? Does the site look professional? Do they provide high quality graphic and text links? Do they answer emails promptly and personally, not just bounce back autoresponder messages? Do they have a dependable tracking system?

Having made your selection, you need to consider how best to package it for your target market. At best, this goes way beyond spinning fancy words around the central message. You should aim to create an 'added value' linked to your core message.

My favourite way to do this is to create an information product that leads seamlessly into the program I wish to promote. Then I give it away. This ensures maximum take-up and high perceived value, leading to healthy sign-up stats for the program.

If you want to experiment with viral marketing, I encourage you to do so first with a product that stands up on its own - that sells itself. That way you keep to a minimum the amount of selling you have to do and you can concentrate on creating an appealing package to give away.

Above all, give good value and you will develop a loyal, enthusiastic following who, while earning commissions for themselves, will make a great deal more for you.

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P J Chandler writes about online marketing and other topics. His web site, with free ebooks and free promotion, submission and marketing resources is at http://www.domainomania.com

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