February 8th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
It seems as if viral marketing is one of the most successful strategies that one can employ with Internet marketing.
Viral marketing is an Internet marketing practice that employs referrals, recommendations, and reviews in order to quickly spread word about a product or service. Gmail, Utube, and various viral videos on the Internet have all been transmitted by the viral marketing technique. These online entrepreneurs have enjoyed immense success by employing the viral marketing technique. Think about it as an exponential effort once launched its benefits and effects only get stronger.
The Zagat of Internet Marketing
Viral marketing has been able to successfully allow marketers to increase the value of free services online, because referrals are the major way that most people market with free services. So, these tools of Internet marketing have been able to allow people to significantly pursue various affiliate programs in order to increase the value of these free services. When free services are everywhere to be found, they lose value. Therefore, viral marketing solves this problem by making people refer one another to a various product or service. When people receive referrals, they believe that a service is more valuable. This is simply a part of human nature. Therefore, viral marketing is a great Internet marketing tool that marketers can use to increase their web exposure.
In this way, many new companies have been able to compete with old-timer companies simply by employing the viral marketing strategy. In this way, people recommend one another to another service, such as gmail, and then their friends sign up for gmail. This is a great way to market your product. You can boost your Internet marketing campaign by employing viral marketing.
We Already Know That Referrals Work
If you look at the statistics, you will see that referral marketing is a highly valuable form of Internet marketing. In fact, it is so valuable that we will see referral marketing dominate the Internet marketing world in the future as well.
This is a great way to get the word out about your product, and it’s more organic and useful. People like it more, it’s less in your face, it’s more encouraging and delightful to use.
No one clicks on banner ads anymore; people have gotten smarter than that. It’s almost useless to use banner ads nowadays. It’s a waste of money and time. No one likes it when someone is shoving a product in their face. Always when marketing put yourself in the reader’s shoes the best marketing is that type of effort where you lend a hand or give advice. However, if a friend recommends a product to them, they are more likely to buy it. This is why viral marketing works so well.
Email is another great way to market your product, but unfortunately, The Spam Crisis created a lot of firewalls that prevent marketers from reaching their customers through email. So, if you’re going to employ email as an Internet marketing tool, use opt-in lists or safe lists.
Referral marketing dominates Internet marketing. Use it.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Nothing has changed the advertising industry more than the popular usage of the internet. If you start a business now, your marketing methods will be vastly different than if you had started a business 15 years ago. One way you can take advantage of modern technology to promote your business is to use video marketing. There are many ways that you can do so. Most of the time it only takes a cheap camera and a PC, and maybe a little bit of video editing skills. Read on to find out some options, and you can start marketing your company through video.
An introductory video is a great way to give people information about your company. You can create a concise video outlining the key services or products you offer, and why your company is the best one to choose. You can place this video on your site, so that new visitors can simply hit the “play” button and become acquainted with your business. If you decide to do this, you should have at least semi-professional quality, and a dense flow of information so that you don’t deter viewers from watching the entire thing.
One trend in video marketing is the creation of “viral” videos – videos that are so entertaining, bizarre, or funny that people will show their friends. If done correctly, the video will spread like wildfire across the internet, reaching hundreds of thousands of people, without costing you a cent in advertising or hosting costs. In many viral marketing campaigns, the sheer strangeness of the video compels people to spread it, such as game publisher Ubisoft’s “screaming rabbit” videos which reached massive popularity on the internet.
One important lesson in viral marketing is to acknowledge that your company is responsible for the video. Wal-Mart and Sony learned this the hard way – both of them attempted to create seemingly independent viral campaigns, only to have their plot quickly foiled by internet sleuths. So come up with a good, viral idea, and let your company take full responsibility for it. It’s sure to save you a lot of embarrassment.
If you don’t have the resources to make a video on your own, then you could hire a video marketing company to produce one for you. Usually they’ll offer professional quality videos with skilled editors working behind the scenes. You can submit a script or narrative and have it read. If this type of thing is within your budget, then it is highly recommended since your video will be in the hands of people who produce marketing videos for a living.
Technology has given us a wealth of new opportunities, and the businesses that take advantage of this are the ones that will succeed. So if you’ve got a company that you would like to promote on the internet, look into using video marketing. If used properly, you can produce clever videos for your company that will capture the attention of customers, and bring people in from all corners of the internet.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Arguably, the best way for you to market your business is to have someone else do it for you for free, over and over and over again!
To many marketers this may sound like just a ‘dream’ but it happens everyday via ‘word of mouth marketing.’ You know the kind I’m taking about. That’s when you’re chatting with a friend and they start to tell you all about this new ‘gizmo’ that they are using and how much they like it.
And because they like it so much they personally recommend you buy it too. In fact, they may even encourage you by telling you “you have to get it!”
This of course is every marketers dream because the referral comes with a built-in testimonial (product endorsement) from one personal friend to another and it doesn’t cost you a dime!
Often times, friends have a powerful influence over how we act, and even what we buy. Just think of how many things you have bought in the past simply because a friend recommended it. Have you ever gone to see a movie at the recommendation of a friend? How about that restaurant they recommended?
We are naturally more inclined to do something if a friend tells us to because we know, like and trust their opinion. This is the power of word of mouth marketing.
Understanding this, the trick then becomes figuring out how to get one friend to virally pass your message along to their friends, who pass it along to their friends, and so on.
But before we discuss how to do this, first let’s take a look at what I like to call the ‘Goo-Tube’ phenomena.
Chances are, by now, you have heard about Google Video and Youtube. Well there is good reason for that. You see, Youtube.com is the 8th most visited site on the net today while Google is the 3rd.
This is good to know because both of these websites offer free video sharing services allowing you to tap into their massively trafficked sites virally!
If you have been on the net for a few years you’ll remember how expensive it can be to host large files such as audio and video on your server. Even if your site got just a small amount of traffic to it that watched your video or listened to your audios you could expect a hefty bill in the mail from your web hosting company for “exceeding bandwidth”. I don’t know about you but the term ‘bandwidth’ quickly became a bad word in my office.
But like always, especially on the Internet, times are quickly changing. When it comes to hosting video on or web sites, we no longer have to be concerned about that awful thing called bandwidth. Nope, no more.
Both Google Video and Youtube have graciously provided a central location for people like you and I to upload and host our videos for free for other people to view and PASS ALONG!
That’s right — pass along. Ah, I love those words. Why? Because they equate to free, word-of-mouth marketing!
Do not underestimate the power behind this marketing strategy. Google certainly didn’t. In fact, in November 2006, Google bought Youtube (TIME magazine’s 2006 Invention of the Year) for 1.65 Billion in Google Stock!
Presently, both Google Video and Youtube.com remain separate web properties. But who knows what the future will bring. Only time will tell if the two get married and give birth to a big beautiful baby named “Goo-tube”!
As marketers though, what this all really means is a huge opportunity to tap into these incredible resources and drive targeted traffic to your website for free!
