Viral Marketing is the method of putting out a message or having an application that is so gripping people spontaneously pass it along. Viral marketing as a concept is itself an example of going viral. Most good ideas are inherently spread just because they are good ideas. This also works for the outrageous, the inside scoop, and the highly entertaining.

Do you get emails that you pass on? Do you cut and paste pictures and send them out to your friends? Do you share the latest, not-yet-released song from your favorite band? All these are examples of viral in action.
It’s viral marketing when the system is used to attract customers and increase sales. But don’t make the beginner mistake of trying to go directly from a viral marketing campaign to the sales pitch. Get a little more subtle. Use viral marketing to get leads and build relationships.

You can include viral strategies directly in your e-newsletter by incorporating links to interesting material. Just preface the link with a couple of explanatory sentences: “Check out how bizarre we humans can be” posted before a link to some nutty happening halfway round the world. When you do this, you are mining the Internet for interesting water-cooler conversation and providing it gratis to people who don’t have the time or skills to find stuff on their own. You piggyback your other material on top of the ‘must see’ stuff. Having a newsletter full of oodles of random tidbits will keep people wanting more and keep them opening your emails. And you aren’t stealing anything as long as you link instead of copy/pasting. This works especially well with humor. A good joke is intrinsically viral.

Going viral on your site

Unlike adding links in your newsletter, going viral at your website can be expensive. The question is this- will the expense be justified by the return?

Here’s an example:

For several hundred dollars, you install a name generating ‘game’ on your site. You picked this one because you want to find and connect with expectant mothers. To get things up and running, you hire a programmer to put a names database (along with name meanings and derivatives- like nicknames, boy name to girl version conversion and associated factoids on the names history, famous people who share the name and so on). You have a graphic designer who makes it look spiffy and maybe a web developer who puts the whole thing together for you. In the end, the several hundred might turn into a couple of thousand.

The key metric is return on investment. Does it bring people in? Once you have the program up and running, your fixed costs are done. Maintenance is zero. You beta test and then it’s off to the races. If you have done your job well and the idea is sound, it will go viral. People will come to your site to look up their name or possible baby names. And it gets book marked and spread to other people. Meanwhile, you are putting up your category ads (baby clothes cheap?) on the site and selling your ‘name engine’ to other sellers to recoup your costs.

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