Of all of the different forms of traffic that you can get on your website, viral traffic has the potential of sending you the most amount of people in the shortest period of time. This traffic can come from a number of different locations and through a variety of methods but if it is truly viral in nature, you will be surprised at the explosion of traffic that comes to your website. What exactly is viral traffic and how can you successfully set up a viral traffic campaign in order to send your hit counter spinning?

Viral traffic is basically just website visitors that come from a variety of viral marketing campaigns. These can include anything from online videos to freely downloadable products. The main thing that you need to remember about viral traffic, however, is that it needs to be something that people are willing to pass on to other individuals. You can create the greatest product that is available but if it does not have a viral nature to it then it will do little more than attract some attention on the side.

Have you ever seen some of the videos that have attracted millions of viewers? There are several things that these videos may have in common which include such things as comedy, controversy and creativity. For the most part, however, many of these viral videos were not put up with the intent of attracting this much attention. It happened naturally, as a result of those videos being passed on again and again and the traffic multiplying naturally. The good news is, you can also create the same effect to a video that you make with the intent of producing this kind of traffic. All you really need to do is to create controversy, comedy or creativity that will be enough to encourage others to pass on your work.

If you are on the verge of a viral marketing campaign but just can’t seem to get it rolling to the extent that you want, perhaps you’re not asking hard enough. Many viral campaigns that were started naturally did so simply because people wanted to pass the information on. Perhaps your video or other viral marketing techniques are interesting but they are just not quite interesting enough for people to pass them on naturally. If you ask people to pass them on, however, enough people may take you up on your offer and you could start the ball rolling in that way.

As they say, all good things must eventually come to an end. Your viral marketing campaign will typically have a lifespan and you may notice that the traffic you are receiving will eventually begin to die out to a certain extent. If you continue to put up other campaigns in order to create a viral effect and subsequent traffic to your website, however, you can not only see the traffic coming on a regular basis, you may actually see it grow on a regular basis as well.

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Companies have long desired to create a buzz about themselves and develop ways to spread their message around in a quick and inexpensive way. Enter, Viral marketing. The Internet answer to creating product or company buzz.

Viral marketing is aptly named because when employed successfully promotional content for a company is spread about the Internet like a virus. People hear this term tossed around often on the news, on the Internet and in everyday conversation but many have little to no knowledge of what it actually means. Viral marketing campaigns use existing social networking sites like, You Tube and Myspace to increase their brand awareness. Companies create a discreetly promotional marketing medium such as, a video, a game, a brandable software program, an image or occasionally even a text message and they encourage users to pass it on.

Initially, viral marketing was practiced by free web based e-mail companies. Hotmail was the first company to use a viral marketing campaign. They placed a link at the bottom of all the outgoing messages from their users to encourage the recipients of those e-mails to create their own account. This tactic did not originally have a name, but it was quite effective and many other companies began using similar methods for getting the word out about their business.

There are many keys strategies to creating an effective viral marketing promotion. However, there are six principle elements that any viral marketing promotion should have if it has any chance at success. Companies that wish to succeed in viral marketing must start by creating a product or service they are giving away, such as the aforementioned items. The viral marketing campaign also needs to be easily transferable so that users can easily pass it on. Companies that wish to start a viral marketing campaign must be prepared for that campaign to scale from very small to very large. For instance, if you set up a website that users will ultimately join after the viral marketing campaign that website must be able to handle the traffic created. It is pointless to increase your traffic or user base if you cannot properly serve or accommodate a large volume of people.

A successful viral marketing campaign must also capitalize on common behaviors and desires. People want to be cool, funny, rich and loved. Many successful viral marketing campaigns have been successful as direct result of giving people the perception or ability to achieve one of these things. For instance, if you create a hilarious viral video as a marketing tool people may pass it around, in the hope of being the one who introduced it to others.

Finally, a viral marketing campaign should always take advantage of others’ resources. Many companies accomplish this by affiliating themselves with another company to gain the ability to place a graphic, link or text on that companies website. Not only does this create exposure, but when done properly it saves your resources for other purposes.

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Companies have long desired to create a buzz about themselves and develop ways to spread their message around in a quick and inexpensive way. Enter, Viral marketing the Internet answer to creating product or company buzz. Viral marketing is aptly named because when employed successfully promotional content for a company is spread about the Internet like a virus. People hear this term tossed around often on the news, on the Internet and in everyday conversation but many have little to no knowledge of what it actually means.

Viral marketing campaigns use existing social networking sites like, You Tube and Myspace to increase their brand awareness. Companies create a discreetly promotional marketing medium such as, a video, a game, a brandable software program, an image or occasionally even a text message and they encourage users to pass it on.

Initially, viral marketing was practiced by free web based e-mail companies. Hotmail was the first company to use a viral marketing campaign. They placed a link at the bottom of all the outgoing messages from their users to encourage the recipients of those e-mails to create their own account. This tactic did not originally have a name, but it was quite effective and many other companies began using similar methods for getting the word out about their business.

There are many keys strategies to creating an effective viral marketing promotion. However, there are six principle elements that any viral marketing promotion should have if it has any chance at success. Companies that wish to succeed in viral marketing must start by creating a product or service they are giving away, such as the aforementioned items. The viral marketing campaign also needs to be easily transferable so that users can easily pass it on.

Companies that wish to start a viral marketing campaign must be prepared for that campaign to scale from very small to very large. For instances, if you set up a website that users will ultimately join after the viral marketing campaign that website must be able to handle the traffic created. It is pointless to increase your traffic or user base if you cannot properly serve or accommodate a large volume of people.

A successful viral marketing campaign must also capitalize on common behaviors and desires. People want to be cool, funny, rich and loved. Many successful viral marketing campaigns have been successful as direct result of giving people the perception or ability to achieve one of these things. For instance, if you create a hilarious viral video as a marketing tool people may pass it around, in the hope at being the one who introduced it to others.

Finally, a viral marketing campaign should always take advantage of others’ resources. Many companies accomplish this by affiliating themselves with another company to gain the ability to place a graphic, link or text on that companies website. Not only does this create exposure, but when done properly it saves your resources for other purposes.

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Viral marketing is a great way to use the power and nature of the Internet to reach a large number of people quickly and drive a continually growing flood of targeted web traffic to your website. With a successful viral marketing campaign, your website traffic could go from almost nothing to thousands of hits or even hundreds of thousands of hits per day almost overnight.

Viral marketing is a term used for marketing campaigns that grow and spread like a human or computer virus. In a successful viral campaign, people pass the marketing material on socially so that the marketing campaign grows like a snowball rolling down hill.

The basic idea of viral marketing is that you can increase your sales by increasing your targeted website traffic and you can increase your targeted web traffic by giving away or spreading something for free that people will pass on to their friends, family, or business associates like a virus.

Viral campaigns may spread through emails or eBooks that people pass on or through articles or viral videos that people pass on.

Microsoft’s Hotmail service was probably one of the biggest early successes of viral marketing. Free web-based email is common today, but it was a new concept in 1996 when Microsoft first promoted Hotmail by adding a short advertising teaser at the end of its users’ email messages. Who would have ever expected how big the results of this marketing campaign could be?

But as huge as the success of Microsoft’s viral marketing campaign was for Hotmail, it only set the stage for what was to come during the 2004 American presidential campaign. Who can forget JibJab’s flash animation political parody of George Bush and John Kerry singing, “This Land Is Your Land?”

By marrying the concept of flash video on the Web to viral marketing, JibJab took the Internet by storm. According to Internet statistician ComScore Media Metrix, the viral video received over 10.4 million unique hits in July 2004 – more than three times as many visitors as the official campaign websites of the two presidential candidates!

Now you may never experience the phenomenal success that JibJab did with one of your viral marketing campaigns, but the concept is simple and easily implemented. It works on the idea that if people like something or can profit from something, they will pass it on to their friends, family, and associates.

Viral marketing can be as simple as writing an article and having it published in article directories where newsletter publishers and webmasters may pick it up and republish it. Be sure to include an author bio or resource box at the bottom of every article that includes your name, your website link, and a call to action that entices people to click on your link. Webmasters and publishers are always looking for great content, so be sure to provide value.

Alternatively, you could send a funny, informative, or controversial newsletter to your subscriber list. Be sure to encourage people to pass your newsletter on with a short note at the bottom of your newsletter.

When people click through to your website, you would like to capture their email address and get their permission to contact them. Otherwise, they will often surf away, never to be seen again on your website.

Squeeze pages (pages primarily designed to get subscribers) are one proven way to do this, and offering people a free eBook or free report is a great way to get people to subscribe to your newsletter.

Want to kick your viral marketing campaign into even higher gear? Grant people the rights to give away the free eBook or report to their own customers or contacts. Be sure to brand the eBook or report with links to your website, so that anyone who receives it from others will find their way back to your website. Also, if you let your customers rebrand some of the links with their affiliate links or other links, they will really be motivated to pass the eBook or report on!

The Internet is perfect for viral marketing. This is one of the most powerful marketing techniques you can use on the Internet. Because many distribution channels are free (e.g., email and article directories) or relatively low cost (web hosting), viral marketing can be an incredibly cost-effective marketing technique. Once you have launched your marketing campaign, it can potentially grow and spread for years all by itself, making viral marketing possibly the most effective Internet marketing technique of all.

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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.

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Today’s consumers are deluged by commercials and advertising, and increasingly, they’re finding ways to tune it all out. The Do Not Call List prevents unwanted telemarketing, spam filters block junk email, DVRs allow television viewers to skip commercials, and satellite radio foregoes advertising altogether. Clearly, reaching the modern consumer with your marketing message is more difficult than ever, but the reward for doing so is also unprecedented. Viral marketing is a technique that not only penetrates consumers’ self-erected commercial barriers, but goes a step further – enlisting consumers as part of your sales and marketing staff.

Viral Marketing – What Is It?
Viral marketing spreads a commercial message from person-to-person. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on traditional advertising through print or broadcast media, viral marketing campaigns are typically web-based. The basic idea is to send an email message to a core list of consumers and hope that they then forward the message to their friends, who in turn forward it to their friends, and so on. Viral marketing is thus a “social networking” form of commercial advertising.

For example, a popular jobs web site developed a traditional TV ad to air during the Super Bowl. The ad featured monkeys running around an office. In order to build additional buzz, the web site allowed visitors to login and construct silly video email messages using the monkeys. A toll free number could be used to record a personal message, and other things such as the monkey’s clothes could be customized. Five months later, the emails are still circulating – 44 million have been sent by more than 6.5 million unique visitors through July, 2006.

No Monkeys on Your Staff? No Problem
The “Monk-email” project, as it was known, cost its creators in excess of $100,000. By contrast, their 30 second Super Bowl ad cost about $1 million to produce, and $4 million to air. While these numbers are well beyond the means of all but the most wildly successful home-based businesses, the point is clear – viral marketing is much less expensive and yet much more effective than traditional advertising.

You don’t need a six-figure budget to construct a viral marketing campaign. All you need is a mailing list of your core demographic, and an idea of what they might like to pass along. A good viral marketing message has a 30 percent pass-along rate, which means that a successful message sent to a base list of 5,000 would reach approximately 7,140 people. Of the first 5,000; 1,500 would pass it along; and of that 1,500; 450 more would pass it along, as so on. What’s more, each time your message is passed along from one consumer to his or her friends, it is like a personal endorsement of your product or service.

What Should You Use in a Viral Marketing Campaign?
For traditional, broad-based markets, humor seems to work best. Mere jokes are unlikely to make the grade, so an investment in the creation of a video ad is essential. Luckily, the cost and difficulty of producing such material has plummeted in recent years, and there are plenty of freelancers on the web who can be contracted for a reasonable fee.

If your target is more of a niche market, then worthwhile content is probably a better bet. For example, if you provide a financial service, then a short, enticing e-book on stock selection may do more for you than a humorous video clip – provided you have a good list of people who are interested in stocks.

Creating a successful viral marketing campaign isn’t easy. But for the creative home-based business owner, the public’s aversion to traditional marketing can be a great asset. After all, it levels the playing field. There’s no way you can compete with big businesses on TV or in magazines, but you can compete in viral marketing. Of course, having a pet monkey wouldn’t hurt!

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Viral marketing is a technique that uses social networking to spread the word about their brand. There are several ways viral marketing works, often times companies send out an interactive game, text messages or video clips and hope that these are passed along.

How many times have you gotten a forwarded email with a long chain of recipients with a funny video in it? I’m sure you get several a day. With online social networks it’s becoming easier for the newcomer, myspace.com, youtube.com are just a couple of networks that get millions of hits each day and there’s no shortage of users.

I recall a phone call I got a couple of months ago, it was coming from a friend, but when I picked up, it was a marketing message for a book, it was entertaining informed me of where to go online if I also (like my friend) wanted to surprise other friends with the same phone call. I of course wanted all my friends to hear it, so I’m sure word spread fast about the book that is now released.

One of the most interesting viral marketing campaigns was for a Portuguese Football club. While at their website a user was required to put provide their name and phone number, which then took you to a video of the coach in the locker room, he makes a call (to you) while on video and lets you know that they can’t start the season until you bought a season ticket. The synchronization of this campaign had roughly 200,000 phone calls going out in a 24 hour period.

Even in the age of the internet, people will always talk and tell others about something, so don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth advertising.

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