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Viral campaigns are the most powerful referral opportunities ever

See the best virals here!

Viral marketing is any strategy that encourages people to pass along a marketing message, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect.

Simply, viral marketing is the same as word of mouth.

Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly.

Referrals are the most powerful form of marketing that you can use and also the least expensive. Before the Internet viral marketing has long been known as word of mouth, recommend a friend, MGM or network marketing.

On the Internet it's called viral marketing though other terms have been suggested - avalanche, buzz, cascading style, centrifugal, exponential, fission, grass roots, organic, propagation, ripple, self-perpetuation, wildfire and 'word of mouse' (sic) marketing amongst others.

Examples of viral marketing include: rumours, chain letters with warnings, "leaked" information, gossip, urban myths and secondhand versions of official reports.

Elements of a viral marketing strategy:

• Easy to replicate or pass on

• Becomes personalised by referral

• Offers an 'incentive'

• Contains humour, greed, sex or fear and taps into the zeitgeist.

• Can track and analyze click thru

In summary - the idea is what counts, that's what makes it viral and it should also have the following elements:

• Emotion: your campaign should create strong emotion: love, happiness, compassion, hate, anger - get the audience excited.

• Content: realize that the viral content is more important than your product or brand but will support it if done properly.

• Follow up: follow up with behind the scenes, bloopers etc.

• Comments: make sure people can leave a comment on your page, be sure to comment back them in detail.

• Share: make your campaign easy to share, easy to access and free - obvious but crucial!

The Hotmail example

Hotmail was one of the first free (advertising was what made the money) webmail services. It was commercially launched on July 4, 1996, American Independence Day, symbolizing "freedom" from ISP-based email and the ability to email from anywhere in the world there was a computer.

By December 1997, it had more than 8.5 million subscribers. It was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for an estimated $400 million, and rebranded as "MSN Hotmail". Hotmail provides the classic example of viral marketing.

The strategy was simple:

• Give away free e-mail addresses and services

• Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com"

• Wait while people e-mail to their network of friends and associates, who see the message

• Who then sign up for their own free e-mail service and e-mail their network of friends and associates, who see the message

• Who......................................

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