I was browsing the internet today and ran across this new site that is in pre-release now called Bubonik.  They are claiming their site is converting at 50%.  The premise behind the site is free advertising, and who among us couldn't use some free advertising.  Check it out and tell me what you think.

http://notionsinc.com/ntirBubonik

The word "free", perhaps, is the most compelling word in a marketer's vocabulary and this is basically what Viral Marketing is all about. From the term itself, which is coined from the word "Virus", viral marketing is a marketing technique which is similar to the spread of an epidemic that can reach others through word of mouth to increase brand consciousness.

Viral Marketing has been popular because it's been proven to be more efficient than the others. It makes advertising easier, and it can obtain a high and rapid response rate at a relative low-cost. Remember, if one likes a particular service, a person will tell it to his friend then his friend will pass it to her friend, therefore, a word or mouth marketing starts. However, one main weakness of this technique is that messages, which are usually send through e-mails may look like spam mails, thus creating a bad impression on the brand and without knowing it, the said promotional messages will just be sent to the e-mail's trash bin.

One typical example of viral marketing is the Hotmail.com wherein the tactic goes like this. They give away free e-mail service, then every message they sent has a simple tag at the bottom which says "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com/". On the other hand, those who receives the e-mail will be able to see the note below the message and it will encourage them to get their own e-mail address with hotmail since it is just for free then the list goes on, the propelling of message to reach a number of recipients hence increasing social networks.

There are several types of viral messages and methods of transmission. One type is the pass-along message which encourages users to pass the message to others. One example of this is chain letters which prompts readers at the end of the message to forward the e-mail to a number of users believing that they'll get good luck if forwarded and bad luck if done otherwise. Another form would be the infamous anonymous matching on ecrush.com which requires a user to create a list of friends or acquaintances they secretly crush on. A match only happens if the object of their affection responds by logging in and does the same. Most of these services allow users to email anonymous messages notifying them that a concealed person fancies them. Hopeful romantics become hooked up on this marketing as they aim to find out if their crush also feels the same for them.

Also, the process of dissemination can occur in various ways. It may be through word of web where it converts web-based information into an e-mail. One classic example is the article from CNN.com wherein there's a link that encourages someone to send a particular article to a friend. Another sample would be the word of email, which is considered to be the most common type. It's just the simple forwarding and exchanging of e-mails such as jokes and the like. But perhaps, the fastest mode of transmission would be through instant messaging such as Yahoo messenger, ICQ, Google and MSN since this is the most popular among young people and a link referred by a friend is more likely safe than by some unknown sender through e-mails.

Sometimes marketing companies even offer rewards or special offers for referring customers, encouraging the use of the aforementioned methods. Freebies and discounts can be music to the ear of everyone especially if acquiring them is just as easy as counting from one to three. This is probably one of the main reasons why marketers prefer this technique among others.

For a viral marketing technique to be successful, an effortless transfer of marketing message to others is important and this works famously on the internet because on the spot transmission is a lot undemanding and less costly. Also, from a marketing point of view, it is essential that the message to be transferred is simple to avoid degradation. In short, the principle of KISS must be followed. Keep it short and simple so that marketing message would not trigger the recipient to aim their mouse pointer to the "report as spam" button.

Top viral sites: http://notionsinc.com/ntirProgramHoppers & http://notionsinc.com/ntirFreeViral

Internet viral marketing is a cost effective way to be able to reach a targeted audience and efficiently convey one’s marketing message. Viral marketing outside the context of the Internet is usually connected with spreading a message through word-of-mouth. In
the context of the Internet, the concept is the same, but the ways of doing it is diversified.

Internet viral marketing is similar to a virus. Viruses are notorious for being easily spread. This is the concept behind Internet viral marketing. Viruses, if not contained, can strike an epidemic. Internet viral marketing behaves like viruses, it aims at spreading a marketing message to people through other people.

The mere dynamism of the Internet makes it possible for viral marketing to do its job quite effectively. In the world of the Internet, viral marketing can be done in many ways. The whole structure of the Internet has been a tool which has been used by many to be able to make a statement or advertise a product.

We say that using Internet viral marketing, or viral marketing in general is one of the best, if not the best way of marketing a certain product or service. This article tries to lay down the reasons for the claim above.

Here are some reasons why viral marketing is the best way to market:

-It’s free!

This is probably the best reason why viral marketing is the best way to market. There are many ways to market a product or a service. One can utilize some of the old-school techniques such as the use of print media (banners, posters, flyers) or audio-visual tools. There is not much argument about the effectiveness of these methods, given the assumption that they are done with careful preparation and planning. However, these things cost money, a lot of money.

An actual example of the cost of these other marketing techniques can be seen in the pharmaceutical industry. Studies say that more than half of the cost that people are incurring for buying branded medicines is used to cover the expenses of marketing the products. This is a reality that reflects how marketing costs can take their toll on the product itself.

Viral marketing is a free way of spreading a marketing message. One can argue that it is not totally free (as claimed). However, the only costs for Internet viral marketing are the costs associated with Internet connection and some minor tools for getting on track. One can also do an economic valuation of the time spent for viral marketing, but every other marketing technique consumes time.

-Availability of techniques

There are many ways of doing viral marketing, especially through the Internet. Literally, there are hundred different ways of spreading a marketing message through the web. The most popular way is to use affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs gives incentives for webmasters to put up one’s banner. The webmasters earn some profit whenever the banner is clicked by the visitors. One can also look into the option of giving away free stuff to other people to get their attention and be agents of the viral marketing endeavor. One can give away free web space, free articles, free newsletters, free software, free graphics, free screensavers, etc. This is the concept which was employed the developers of hotmail. If one can remember, hotmail became a craze when it was launched. People who signed up for the free email literally became marketing agents for hotmail. They carried the marketing message which was simply embedded into their email addresses.

-Impact of viral marketing

Viral marketing, if done properly, will not only convey a marketing message, it will let the message stick to people’s minds. Creativeness comes into play when using viral marketing as a strategy. Everything starts with a bright idea and this idea is then put into operation with careful planning and execution.

Viral marketing is the way to go in these modern times of marketing. It is a very cost effective and efficient way of conveying a marketing message towards a target audience.

It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.

While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.

While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.

Viral Marketing Overview

Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.

In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.

Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.

Using Viral Marketing to your advantage

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them moiré popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”?

Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsoft’s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked wonders for them.

Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures. 

Viral marketing has garnered much attention today. The way it spreads a marketing message can be very effective. Internet viral marketing behaves like a virus, as the name implies. The marketing message has a tendency to be spread through virus-like activity.

There are many well-known ways of creating a fuzz through Internet viral marketing. One can utilize site links, referral programs and other viral marketing techniques to be able to reach his target audience. A bright idea is the start of the viral marketing venture and this is made operational through the right techniques.

This article tries to explain some of the other viral marketing techniques that are out there on the Internet. These are tools which can sometimes be overseen by the marketer because his vision of viral marketing is limited.

Here are some of the techniques which can be effective in spreading a marketing message:

Create an award

Awards catch attention. When someone or something is given an award, it creates fuzz in the target audience. One can look into award creation to be able to attract people and be successful in spreading the marketing message.

Distributing a free software

Everybody loves freebies! If one is competent in creating software programs for different applications, he can actually use them to as marketing tools. One must make sure, though, that the software contains some kind of advertisement containing the marketing message.

Providing free email account

This is the technique that was employed by hotmail when it initially started. Every person who signed up for their free email account carried the marketing message. This simple idea turned hotmail into a craze and its owners into millionaires. Although doing the same thing today may not emulate the results which were generated by hotmail, but it still is an effective way of marketing.

Providing free web space

Again, freebies are loved by everyone. If one has the option to give free web space to enthusiasts, he can do so. This is a way of effectively marketing a message since people will be intrigued and enticed by the free web space offer. One can make a deal with the people who would want to get some free web space. One can demand to put up his logo, or the marketing mechanism in the website that will be developed by the one who availed the free web space.
Creating a top 100 site

Viral marketing can be seen as a game of getting hits from the Internet users. A “top 100” website is very popular for people who are researching for something or engaged in plain web surfing. They would like to get quick information about the best websites that are out there. The problem of too much information on the Internet can be used as an effective tool for viral marketing.

Offering free e-cards

The keyword here is, again- Free!

Offering free graphics, banners, templates

If one is involved in doing artworks, he can publicize his works and offer them to different people who might want to use them for their own purposes. Again, one must be creative in using these media in marketing.

Offering free consultation

If one is a specialist in a certain area, he can offer free services for a certain period of time or for a certain topic and use this opportunity to relay his marketing message.

Offering specialized link directory

People are always looking for specialized link directories. This is connected to the problem of having too much information in the Internet. Sometimes, people just want to get information faster.

Free newsletter with bonuses

Newsletters can directly contain the marketing message that one would want to convey, but of course, people should have some incentive to look at the newsletters.

Free redirect service.

Linking with other websites can be used as a viral marketing tool. There are many people who are doing this right now.

Free screensavers

In using screensavers, one should have a general theme so that people can identify with them.

Free autoresponder service

An autoresponder service is a program which automatically responds to emails that are sent to the responder.

Free email course

A free email course can be used by marketers since it is a good way to learn and get information about the basics of getting connected through the net.

Writing articles and distributing them for reprint

If one is a good writer, he can write articles and use them to be able to convey his message. The articles may not necessarily contain the message itself but arrangements should made by the marketer with the other party.

Using forums and discussion boards (using signatures)

If one has a discussion board in his website, he might as well let people use it for free. An advertisement at the top of the discussion board will definitely be an effective way to market the website.

Start your own affiliate program (one of the best method to generating traffic and sales!)

Affiliate programs give incentives to webmasters to put up your banners into their websites. This is one of the most popular viral marketing techniques today.

Joint Ventures

Special arrangements can be made with the webmasters so as to maximize the potentials of the banners and minimize the cost of putting them up.

Provide free guestbook

Providing a free guestbook will attract people because it is an avenue where they can share their ideas and these ideas will eventually be  read by others.

Provide free forum

Forums are quite popular. People love to have conversations and forums are one of the main reasons why people visit a certain website.

These are just some of the ways on how a marketer can spread his message through the Internet. There may be other ways of doing viral marketing and marketers are encouraged to look at these possibilities.

When producing a viral e-book, you have to consider a lot of things before going into the nitty gritty details of writing it. Your viral e-book is your key to succeed in the online market. It should help you increase your site traffic, client base, and sales, of course; else, it defeats the purpose of having a viral e-book.

First thing that you have to plan is what your viral e-book should be about. The topic should be interesting and it must be related to the product or service you are promoting. Once this is done, the next step is choosing a good title for your e-book.

People look at the title or the label of a product first before anything else. Thus, the title that you decide for your viral e-book should grab the attention of as many people as possible.

Once you have accomplished these things, it is now time to think about what to write on your e-book. What should it contain for it to be really interesting to the readers?

What to Include on Your e-Book

When you are in the process of choosing the topic for your e-book, you should also have considered the amount of information you can write about that topic. So it is better to choose one that you are very knowledgeable of, something that you know by heart, especially if you will be the one writing.

The content of your viral e-book is like its heart; without the content, your e-book will not survive. And even if it does have content but not that informative and useful to anybody, it will eventually fade out since there will be less and less people who would want to pass it on.

If you are writing your e-book yourself, it is best to write about something that you really know very well. When you write the contents yourself, it will add to the credibility of the information included and will have a personal touch. You will be able to control the information included since you know what you want included and not.

If you think that you cannot do it yourself because you are busy with other things or just do not know how to write effectively, you can always hire a ghostwriter. Ghostwrites are those who write articles and other materials in behalf of another person. The reason for such a name is because the identity of the real writer remains anonymous.

Hiring a ghostwriter is beneficial since most of these people do have a wide experience in writing things about different topics. With this, you can focus on more important things while being assured that your e-book will have its quality content because another person is doing it for you.

Before choosing the right writer for you, you can ask them for their portfolio or any sample work. This way, you will have an idea about how they write and if it would fit your requirements.

Also, make sure that the writer clearly understands the topics to be written. If you have certain instructions that should be followed, make sure it is clear and well understood by the writer. Having a bad relationship with the writer that you chose will only ruin your viral e-books success.

Your viral e-book should be interesting and informative at the same time. Depending on the topic, you can add research studies, current statistics, interviews with professionals or expert on that field, results of surveys you may have conducted, and a lot more. With these things, your e-book will not look boring and monotonous to the readers.

Writing the contents of your e-book can be the most enjoyable part in producing this viral marketing technique. This is where you can show your creativity and imagination. Even if you are not the one writing the contents and articles, you still have some control over the write-ups by providing the instructions on what you want to include in the article and not.

You indeed have several options on how to add contents on your e-book. Whatever option you choose, you should make sure that the content of your e-book will serve its purpose. It should be able to make you reach your goal of producing the e-book.

One of the best ways to do viral marketing strategy is the production of viral e-books. This is not just an ordinary e-book. These are books that can be freely passed on by someone to another person with added benefits to both parties.

How does it work with viral e-books?

Aside from having an interesting topic and a wealth of information, the main purpose of the viral e-book is containing links to the site and products the author is promoting. These links can be modified from one person to another by changing the affiliate ID in the link. These links still lead to the web site of the author but credit will also be given to the affiliate which is like a commission.

The author can allow rebranding rights of the e-book to its readers. That means the reader, who would also want to earn from the e-book by becoming an affiliate, can replace the links with his own affiliate code to earn commissions. With this incentive or reward, he will surely pass the book to more and more people. That’s where viral explosion begins.

To be able to maximize the purpose of producing the viral e-book, have an explosion of traffic and have huge number of subscribers, we must have the following factors in place.

- Wide distribution. There are several ways on how you can offer your e-book. You can offer it for free or for a minimal amount. If you allow rebranding, you can also charge for it and have options such as full customization or just part customization rights. Resale rights can also be offered for a certain fee.

However, if a certain amount is tagged to your e-book, its spread will be limited as not everyone is willing to spend money on these e-books. So to have the widest possible reach of your e-book, it is best to offer it for free and the rebranding rights, maybe the part customization, for free as well. Anyways, what we are after is for the e-book to reach a huge number of potential customers and get the most commission from the attached affiliate links.

- Quality affiliate links. To be able to maximize your e-book and give its full potential, it should have good and legitimate affiliate links. But how do you make the readers really click on those links?

If your e-book bombards the readers with lots of affiliate links instead of quality information, they will probably stop reading your book, deletes it and forgets about it. Likewise, if the links lead to affiliate products which are totally not related to the e-book’s theme, you will just lose a good number of potential customers.

The best way to include the affiliate links in your e-book is to make them appear as natural as the other statements in your book. Try to weave them into the content in such a way that it is not obvious to the eyes of your readers. For example, when you want to readers to learn more about a certain topic discussed on your e-book, you can then mention the link as a source of additional information.

- Maximum return for all parties involved. Since you want wide distribution of your e-book, you will offer it for free as well as the rebranding rights. But what will you benefit from it? Of course, just the fact that people will sign up as an affiliate for them to be able to rebrand the links with their own codes means that you will gain more and more subscribers to your list.

Having more and more people who would want to rebrand the links means that more chances of your e-book getting distributed to others because of the incentives these people would gain. And the more people who will get to receive your e-book, the more traffic you will get on your site.

It wouldn’t really matter now if you are not earning from the rebranding rights. What is more important is the increased traffic and subscribers you will get which will eventually lead to more and more sales and success for your business.