What is Viral Marketing?

Viral Marketing is a technique of marketing a Home Based Business product or service with the aim of creating “word of mouth”, usually on the internet or by e-mail.

Example: You send an email to a list of 300 people that “Self Storage” is the best product out there. 20 people on your email list forward your email to 5 of their friends and associates. This means that your email was actually read by 400 people.

Example: You send out a tweet that people should download your free report. 100 people see your tweet. 10 people “Retweet” your original tweet to 100 of their followers. So a total of 1100 people saw your tweet.

THAT’S Viral Marketing. And it’s very powerful.

Here are just 5 of the many reasons you should use Viral Marketing in your marketing strategy:

1. Advertise on Autopilot

Once you launch your viral local seo marketing project it will begin to grow without much more work on your part. As more and more people share your message with others, the effect is that your traffic will grow phenomenally. This literally gives you a “hands off” marketing system that will take on a life of its own. If you create enough incentive to have your marketing message passed along, it can spread like wildfire without requiring further interaction from you.

2. Flexible

Viral marketing can work in just about any environment. Your viral marketing ad can take on many forms. Informative online articles, eBooks , web pages, software programs, even audio and video clips can be used as a way to spread your message along. The important thing to remember is that you must give someone a reason for passing along your message. Remember, it’s what’s in it for them that’s important.

3. Cost Efficient

Viral marketing is one of the most cost efficient ways of marketing your business. Since other people spread your advertising message along, it costs you practically nothing. It is unique among advertising techniques because it continues to work, even after you’ve stopped promoting it on your own. A lot of times all that is needed is an initial marketing launch for your marketing “virus” to spread.

4. Powerful

Since viral marketing, for the most part, is a type of word-of-mouth advertising, it is one of the most powerful types of advertising you can use. You are more likely to visit a webpage that is referred to you by someone you know. This type of marketing is like having an instant testimonial or a referral built right into your message because it is passed on to people that know each other.

5. It Works

Even the smallest viral marketing campaign can create phenomenal results. Many successful companies have built their business completely around it. Implementing just one or two viral tools into your marketing strategy can immensely increase your website’s traffic. Plus, with just a little effort on your part, your viral marketing will continue to spread long after you’ve stopped actively promoting it.

Not sure what to promote? Check out this video here for a done-for-you system you can set on automatic and create a viral buzz that pays you whether you’re sleeping, vacationing or spending time with family.

So where are the best places to find the most traffic and the highest quality free traffic? Let’s look at the 3 most popular websites we can capture targeted traffic from:

1.    Twitter – Being one of the largest social media management networking sites on the net and the most active, there is no better place to find a lot of targeted visitors for your website.

The best strategy for capturing Twitter traffic is to search for keywords related to your niche or business and see what people are saying about it — then join in the conversation. Contribute helpful information and include a link back to your website. This will get you extremely targeted traffic if your messages are clear and concise.

Don’t just spam your link everywhere though, this is frowned upon and can even get your account banned.

2.    E-zine Articles – This largest and fastest growing article directory online. Here you now have the ability to write a short article and submit it. While they do have people review the article to assure it meets quality standards, getting your article approved is easy.

Following a similar process we went through with Twitter, decide which keywords you want to target and write a short piece of useful content that will genuinely help your prospects. You’ll be able to include a link at the bottom of your article in your, ‘About the Author’ section.

This is where you need to include your call to action and a link to your site. If you keep your home care article short and to to the point you can expect up to half of the people that read it to click through your link to visit your website.

3.    YouTube – The 3rd most visited website (As ranked by Alexa.com) reaching approximately 20% of Internet users. With the popularity of video on the rise, this is one of the best sources to get ultra targeted visitors you can turn into business fast.

Whether you’d like to just use your webcam to shoot a short, informative video or make a slide show and use screen capture software – getting your video on YouTube is a sure fire way to get free traffic to your site fast. Be sure to include the link to your site inside the description of your video along with having a reference to it inside your video.

Short on ideas? Turn your article into a script for your video.

Summary

Using these free resources to generate traffic for your site you can begin to experience a steady flow of visitors and turn them into serious business.

Now that you have the resources to start generating traffic to your site at no cost to you it’s time to take action. Start now and send us your success stories – we look forward to hearing them.

Want even more useful information like this? Attend this year’s Everyday Wealth Live event, August 13-15, 2010 in Atlanta, where we have gathered some of the hottest names in the business — all assembled in one room to focus on helping YOU grow your online business.