Dr. Ralph Wilson, an e-commerce consultant, named six elements or basic principles of viral marketing. A viral marketing technique need not have all of these, but the more principles it follows, the more powerful the strategy will be.

1. Give away products or services. This is the first and most basic principle of viral marketing. When a person hears the word “free,” it elicits the interest in him and will avail of that free product or service, for sure. Having cheap or inexpensive products may also do the trick, but “free” will give much faster results.

Patience is important in viral marketing. Giving away products for free may not earn profit today but if the business gets to develop customer base by giving something for free, it will soon generate income for them.

2. Easy transfer to others. The medium used to carry the marketing message to other people should relatively be easy. Viral marketing has been powerful over the internet because of the ease of communication the technology offers. Email, web sites, software downloads are just some examples that can be used in viral marketing.

Also, it is better that the message be short for easy copying and transmission. Simple and short but straight to the point is best, just like Hotmail’s advertisement at the bottom of each email sent out.

3. Scalability from small to very large. When viral marketing is used as a marketing style, it is best that the business is prepared for rapid growth. In cases of increasing web traffic thru viral advertising, the web owner should make sure that the host server is prepared enough to handle the expected increase in traffic within a short period of time.

This should not be taken for granted; else, it will defeat the purpose of doing viral marketing. Once people notice that the site takes a long time to load, they will just leave and forget about it. That means an automatic loss of potential customers.

viralmarketingtips.blogspot.com/2009/02/principles-of-viral-marketing.html

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