How Will Viral Marketing Help Me?

What in the world does a virus have to do with marketing? Basically, Viral marketing is any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. These strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to oodles and oodles of people.

Products or ideas that have native, intrinsic value spread in a very viral way because of the apparent value it has to the market. It doesn’t need to be ’sold’ by some fancy salesman for it to make money. With this built in value then all you need to do is present it to a seed group of people who will then take it to their colleagues and it will spread at a grass roots level.

There are two types of viral marketing according to Seth Godin. One type where the product or idea is spread in the suport of a cause and the other where the marketing actually is the product too. (Youtube, Hotmail).

But just because something goes viral does not mean its worthwhile and just because something is worthwhile does not mean its going to go viral.

Its easy to make something go viral. The hardest thing to do is getting the viral element of the product or idea to produce something of value not just hollow entertainment for the masses.

Its so easy to want to get a product marketed virally that we often just rush through product creation and in the end our product becomes something cheap and boring.Effective viral marketing must start from the beginning. You must plan for a valuable viral element rather than rush something catchy off the press or create a worthwhile product and then stat thinking about how to market it.

Viral marketing only works when you plan for it. Create something awesome that you’d want to show everyone even if you didn’t get paid for it.

Tagged with: Business • internet business • internet marketing • Marketing • online business • product creation • product marketing • viral marketing • word of mouth

Filed under: Marketing

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