Traffic Blaster

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In many respects marketing by word of mouth can be said to be the “hidden statistic” for all programs, as it’s well near impossible to actually gauge the effectiveness of marketing done this way. It should be mentioned that every product in this digital age has relied on this marketing methodology to drive public awareness of a product or service.

A recent study exemplified that two thirds of online marketing is expected to be done this way next year, which when coupled with the advent in leaps of Web 2.0.0 social networking and social marketing sites point towards promoting your product by word of mouth may be both more cost effective, and have an increasingly better ROI than more “traditional” online advertising media.

Consider the business model of any of the current online social networking sites. There has yet to be a successful site of this type that charges monthly, relying instead as they do on ad generated income. While there is no metric that can be used to measure marketing by word of mouth, there is one method of knowing if your campaign is worth while – sales.

A company must know from their output exactly the difference between pre campaign, during a campaign and post campaign. This in itself gives businesses a measurable statistic to show effectiveness of this marketing methodology. It is true that not all businesses need or desire this form of sales technique, but is also through that not one business turns away prospects garnered from the by word of mouth method either.

Whatever you sell, a great study completed by Hill and Knowlton in February this year showed that decision makers are largely influenced by personal experience’s (58%), with recommendations and industry reports coming in at 51%. Coming in third was direct marketing at 21% with internet advertising at 17%. These figures may only reflect the purchasing habits of key decision makers, but a young lady in Oregon deciding to buy one car insurance or another IS the key decision maker for that purchase, and her buddy Becky telling her to go with this company over that company will have a greater influence than any gravel-voiced actor pushing the product in a TV advert.

In essence, this statistic may be calculated into any industry, any niche, if every person is classified as the key decision maker. This makes the re-appearance of the world’s oldest method of marketing a no brainer – so get talking or tweeting, but tell everyone!

There are thousands of viral marketing products and tools available on the internet. You should be really careful and do your research before you choose. You do not want your IP address to be tagged as one that sends out spam.  Here’s how to avoid that.

A questions you could ask yourself it do you have a great product or service? Will clients be completely satisfied and refer your service or product to friends and family? if not, then viral marketing campaigns will have little value. 

The dynamic operating behind this type of campaign is that when people have a great experience online, they “tell” up to twelve others about it.  That’s according to the Opinion Research Council. 
Do the math, if people have a terrible experience, they will still blab to 12 other people about it. Some people will also go the extra step and publish reviews online. In most cases, when consumers have a unpleasant experience, they often want everyone else to know about it, misery loves company.

First and foremost, you want to make sure that your clients are happy. You will never be able to make everyone happy, but you should try your best. 
If one person tries your product and tells 12 friends, they will tell 12 other friends and so on.  That’s how the virus spreads.  Some people say that you cannot make this virus happen, that the product must be good enough to create it.  That may be true, but viral marketing products are still useful.

Your goal may be to increase your database and make people aware of the scope of services that you have to offer, as opposed to sending out thousands of email messages every week. That is an example of one of the services that some of the better businesses will provide. They make keeping in contact with your existing clients a whole lot easier. They also encourage your clients to share this information with friends and associates. Effectively, they collect more email addresses and that’s what starts this type of virus.

It’s not spam, because the only people that get these emails are those that have opted-in or those whose friends have suggested it to them. There are many free services available, and like anything, the value is questionable at best. If the email is going to end up in someone’s spam filter, there is no point in even sending it at all?  If the service is free, it’s not a waste of money, but it is a waste of your time.

If you’re like most business owners, time is valuable, like they say, time is money.  There are some viral marketing products that are worth the money and save you time.

The definition of viral marketing depends on who you ask.  Some may say that it is an unethical strategy very close to spam.Truthfully, there is really nothing unethical about it. Companies that take advantage of it are focusing on word of mouth advertising to promote their business, and word of mouth really works.

Remember Mary Kay.  They are overpriced cosmetics that are not any better than anything else on the market. But the company has continued to be highly successful for one reason.Women buy them and then suggest that their friends buy them as well.

In order to be a high level Mary Kay representative, you would truly believe that the Mary Kay product is better.  You would then tell all of your friends that the product is better.  Next, you would ask your friends to sell the cosmetics.Then, they would tell their friends, and so on.

That’s the real definition of viral marketing.  It is word of mouth advertising.  You tell your friends.  They tell their friends and the process continues exponentially until you, the business owner, have generated more sales than you might have ever dreamed possible.

It is commonly referred to as a virus, due to the fact that it spreads and multiplies, easily and swiftly throughout the population.  Any advertising strategy that encourages individuals to pass along your message to others is a viral marketing strategy.

There are classic examples of this strategy. “Hotmail” is the one. They usually offer a free service and every time that an person takes advantage of that service, by sending an e-mail, they also broadcast an advertisement to the recipient, asking them to sign up for their free e-mail service.

People love free items.  That’s a big part of the definition of viral marketing. You would offer something free, to generate sales at a later time.You must be patient.  It may take months to see the sales figures climb, but eventually they will.

The free tokens keep your company’s name and brand top of mind of the consumer. It is similar to the free pens that banks, insurance companies, air conditioning companies and the like offered, before the internet became popular. Each day, every customer saw that company’s name and anyone that came by their house saw it as well.

Now, you can reach thousands and thousands of customers with a single regular e-mail. What’s real definition of viral marketing?It is putting your name out there, where all can view it.

Do you really need viral marketing software? Let’s review the five best elements of any effective strategy. After you learn these, you may realize that what you require is something completely different.

Give something useful for free. What you choose to give might be simply information, an ebook or even software. For example, you might offer a free download of a “basic” software program that you have created. However, to get the “premium” version or membership, the customer would have to pay for it.

Quite a number of video game providers use this method. You can play their games free on the web, but to get certain features, you must buy their “complete” version. People that love the game and get addicted to it in the trial, will often pay for the extended version. Viral marketing software cannot tell you what to give away. Only you or a company that offers personalized service can determine that.

The second element is to design a method that allows your specific offer to be transmitted from a single person to everyone they know. Typically, this is done via e-mail. The information gathered from numerous surveys prove that when people find relevant, interesting infomation on the Internet, they share it with an average of six people. You can see how the number of people that you can contact grows exponentially, which makes the next element very important.

You must be able to effortless and effectively handle the increased influx of business. Quite often, this would mean that you need an auto-responder. You may need to upgrade your website to handle the traffic or increase your stock, if you are selling an item. If you are providing a service, you will need to figure out what your ability is to handle new clients. Is is possible that viral marketing software do that? No.

The fourth element is to benefit from common reactions. So, for example, a reaction to a picture of food that looks tasty is hunger. If you sell food, you want photos in your e-mails and on your websites that are “appetizing”. Another great example is the “what will it do for me” mentality. People don’t want to know that a car has reinforced side beams. They really just want to be sure that the car will be as safe as possible in the event of a collision or accident. Tell a person what your product will do for them and you will have a customer.

Lastly, is to become part of and use existing communication networks to gain an advantage. That’s the one thing that viral marketing software might be able to do for you. For various reasons, it cannot provide the tools that you need for a highly successful campaign.

If you do a web search for free viral marketing, you will see the system at work. Offering something at no additional charge is part of the methodology. No companies can actually offer free advertising. They might give free information. But, it will be just enough to make you curious.

Reports, trials, tests and getting leads are many of the things they offer. However, if you want more, you will have to pay more. That’s how this sort of advertising campaign works. It is what you decide to do with your company, too.

No matter what you are selling, you need to identify something that you can give away for free. Perhaps you are an expert carpenter. You can provide do-it-yourself advice and perhaps publish tips on your site, in an online magazine or offer a newsletter for individuals who are nuts about woodwork. Then find a way to let people in on your information offering.

The way to get viral marketing at no charge is to do it yourself. You would need to compile a list of email addresses. Join social networks, follow blogs, get on twitter. Post on all relevant forums. You can purchase a list of e-mail addresses and as well, some companies offer a “trial” for free. We know for certain that giving something away free often generates customers and gains interest.

Success of any campaign depends on reaching a big group of people and offering a free item. But, your success depends on the quality of the item or service that you have to offer. A product can only reaches virus proportions if people really dig it or they think that they must get it, in order to be “in”. The cool aspect wears off. Valuable items usually always stay around.

Actually, I’m giving you free viral marketing advice right now. Do some companies charge for this kind of information? There are classes that you have to pay for and what they teach is what I have just informed you of. Of course, they go into great detail to make you feel that the seminar was valuable. But, there is not much to learn.

Do companies charge to do the marketing for you? Yes. You can do these kinds of advertising campaigns on your own, but they are extremely time-consuming. Your website might not even be ready for the kind of business that an effective campaign can generate. If you read some more about free viral marketing, you’ll see what I mean.