If carried out properly, the single biggest advantage of viral Internet marketing is this – your website will get lots of publicity along and exposure very quickly. By being smart, creative, imaginative and using simple ingenuity as well as offering some incentives such as prizes and promotions you have the opportunity to promote your website on a huge scale.

Viral Internet marketing

Most businesses are waking up to just how effective viral Internet marketing can be. By turning the other cheek and ignoring these forms of marketing, your website will become just another static online brochure for your company, viewed only by your existing  customers and close friends. By promoting your site using viral marketing and combining this with social media, email and search engine marketing, you can have huge success. Viral marketing is a clever way of promoting your website as you are effectively getting your audience to do all the work for you, but for this to be successful you will need a fantastic idea or great incentive. Some examples include :

• A quirky video promotion that people will remember and share with friends
• Free e-books, great discounts or vouchers
• Addictive games or apps which can be downloaded for free

There are many other ways of using viral marketing. The main thing is to create a big buzz around what you are doing. Many high profile movies tend to be promoted with some form of gossip just before the release date to create the ‘buzz’ and gain interest.

Viral marketing success stories

Many companies small and large have had big success using viral marketing campaigns. Below are just a few well known examples:

Microsoft’s Hotmail

Microsoft’s Hotmail is a classic example. They were the first known big company to utilise the scheme and it worked wonders for them. In just one year Hotmail had a user base of nearly 12 million. The main reason they grew so quick was because they were one of the first companies to provide free email to the population. They used a very simple tactic of adding an email signature at the end of emails asking people to sign up for the free service – a very simple but successful tactic as they didn’t need huge banner advertising or expensive TV commercials. This worked well because as soon as a few users had signed up, they passed on the message virally.

The Dark Knight

The “Why so serious?” campaign, a huge viral marketing success was launched by 42 entertainment for the film The Dark Knight. Prior to the release of the film they took viral marketing to new levels by using real world events, web pages, video games, social media and email. This campaign resulted in over 10 million participants in 75 countries and the film grossed $67.1 million its opening day, earning it the highest grossing film world record for an opening day.

Getting support

It is clear that for viral marketing to be successful you will first need to come up with great ideas and great content that will lead people to share it with their family and friends. To make this work online, you will most likely need help and support from a successful web design and SEO company who have a proven track record in online marketing. They will be able to assist you with getting your content out using search engines and should be able to support your social media marketing efforts. Having professionally created content will help promote your company brand product more effectively and with a much greater chance of it going viral.

Image credit – CLUC