Viral Marketing is a marketing strategy where individuals are encourage to pass marketing message to others, encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating potential exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. It is like a virus that such marketing strategy takes a rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

Off  the internet it is referred as “ word of mouth”, and on the internet it is know as viral marketing pf four types and these are :

1. Pass along Messages where users are encourage sending or passing the  message to others such as email or video clips.
2. Incentive Driven Messages where rewards are offered in lieu fir the exchange of providing email addresses
3. Undercover viral marketing where messages are present in a usual page or false news item without intention to pass it along but with the hopes that word of mouth will spread the message.
4. Gossip or buzz marketing is where people talk about something over a created controversy.

The Elements of effective viral Marketing Strategies are:

• it should offer free products or services to draw attention
• It should provide information transfer to others e.g. germicidal Soap Company sponsors an ad on advice about flu season like stay away from people who cough, wash your hands often, and don’t touch eyes, nose, or mouth.
• It should scale the sending of messages from small to very large easily.
• It should be able to exploit common motivations and behaviors.
• It should make use of existing communication networks. Place your message to existing communications between people, and multiple rapidly its dispersion.
• It should take advantage of other’ resources. Make a news release which can be picked up by hundreds of periodicals and form the basis of articles seen by hundreds of thousands of readers

 

Benefits of Viral Marketing 1. Free advertising 2. Short term gains - gain immediate visitors. 3. Long terms gains - attracts visitors for years to come. 4. Causes exponential growth – reaches a large audience. 5. Automate your marketing methods - set it up once and forget about it. 6. Inexpensive to set-up – it primarily involves some investment of time. 7. Viral marketing tools are easy to develop i.e. you can create an e-book without knowing how to write. 8. Quickly build your reputation. 9. Easy to combine with other marketing methods – i.e include as a bonus with other products. 10. Increase targeted traffic to your web site.