Small Business Marketing Advice

Viral marketing for small businesses explained

Thanks to the distribution and communications power of the internet, a new form of word-ofmouth marketing has emerged. It’s called “Viral Marketing” and it has potentially explosive benefits on offer for businesses that tap into the power of it successfully. Like its name suggests, it creates a contagious wave of email forwarding between friends and colleagues.

It can drive thousands and even millions of visitors to your site in a 24 hour period if done correctly.

As a business owner or manager, you know the importance of “word of mouth” as a way of increasing your sales. Viral Marketing harnesses that power and increases it to the power of 10. Viral marketing is where an interesting or entertaining message is passed from one person to many people.

And those many people pass it on to many others. And those many others pass it on to many others and so on. And before you know it, tens and hundreds of thousands of people have seen your message and viewed your site.

Here’s an example…

When Hotmail started out they offered people free email addresses in exchange for adding a text message to the bottom of every email they sent. That message says “Get your private, free email at hotmail.”

So – every time a Hotmail member sent an email to a non-Hotmail member that sales message was seen by them at the bottom of that email. Within months of starting their viral campaign, Hotmail got millions of subscribers as a result of this.

Here’s another example …

Remember the movie “Pay it Forward” with Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey? It was the story of a little boy who was given a school project to come up with an idea that would make a difference in the world.

His idea was to do a massive favour for another person, with the rules being that it had to be something that really helped people. It also had to be something that they couldn’t do for themselves. The next rule was that if he did a favour for that person, they would need to “pay it forward” to three other people.

The result was that a massive wave of good deeds started spreading across the community, all thanks to that one school project by a small boy.

The author of the book “Pay it Forward”, from which the movie was made, has now developed the “Pay It Forward” Foundation, which uses that “pay it forward” concept in real life. She is using this viral marketing method to create a massive wave of people making a difference and it’s working. Check out her site at www.payitforwardfoundation.org

How to run a successful viral marketing campaign

Different types of viral marketing campaigns

1. Inspirational powerpoints

Chances are you have received one or 100 from friends via email. You know the ones – a Power- Point message with beautiful visuals, inspirational words and music ...