Viral Marketing – What is it and how does it Work?

Many people may have heard the term “viral” associated with different styles of marketing and wonder what some of them are, but specifically what is viral marketing? Well, the simple answer to the question is that this type of product promotion is a form of advertising, which deals mainly with Internet, with advertisements, logos, and critical product placement in a manner that will most easily entice people to buy their products.

The idea behind viral marketing is that if you can get the product up in multiple places on the web and in front of as many eyes as possible for as little money as possible, you are doing really good marketing on a budget. Most of the companies behind this style of promotion are smaller businesses that just want to get the word out about their product but don’t have the money to hire a public relations firm or spend money on advertising.

One of the more effective methods of viral marketing is to form a Joint Venture with another business. While you have the product, your JV partner may bring his customer content list of thousands and his marketing skills to the project. In most cases a JV will benefit both parties involved with a split of the profits and possibly the work.

Another form of getting your product to go around the internet is to set up an affiliate program with 100s of individuals and businesses promoting your product. The difference between a JV and an affiliate is the affiliate will only get paid a percentage of each individual sale personally made by them.

Viral marketing is something anyone with a computer and a little bit of technological savvy can do. First of all, using social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace is a fairly ingenious way of getting your product or service out to the public. You can set up a site, get all of the relevant information listed on your homepage, and then add friends.

Theoretically, just adding whoever to your profile isn’t going to do you any good as they are likely looking to connect with friends and won’t be interested in your product. The best way to market yourself is to look through the MySpace groups and find those with similar interests. Say that you are a writer marketing a new book. Adding people who are fans of your genre is a great step toward potential business.

You should also know that using viral marketing too much can cause problems. If people feel they are being almost forced to by the product, then you are going to find many of your potential clients turned off by your aggressiveness.

Remember you’re trying to get the word out about your product without being too pushy and you should be just fine. Viral marketing is an excellent, usually free, method of promotion and can serve you well if done right.