A Viral Marketing Primer

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By Brad Powers and Bryan Eisenberg

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The Best Online Advertising Method: Word of Mouth Why Word-of-Mouth Works Wonders

You certainly know by now that the term "viral marketing" is not just another dot-com cliché. Quite the contrary, it describes the incredible, unmatched power of the web to promote your business by marrying email to the traditional concept of "word-of-mouth."

Viral marketing, the concept of making each customer a marketer by encouraging word-of-mouth referrals, is indisputably one of the most effective mediums of ongoing self-promotion a site can employ. It gives Internet companies a cost-efficient, proven tool to increase traffic and lower advertising costs.

Hotmail originally broke through the mold by proving that companies no longer needed to spend millions on flashy advertising to become the best and biggest in the business. With a simple viral marketing campaign they effectively cornered the market with a budget that spent money on original customer acquisition and not over-the-top Super bowl ads.

However, instead of just standing by idly and hoping it happens, you can actually "drive" viral marketing by crafting an extremely effective viral marketing program targeted to your audience. This article will provide you with the key steps to create a viral marketing program that will power your business to new heights of success, and do it for a fraction of the cost of other promotional efforts.