Putting Viral Marketing to Work

Doing business on the Net means learning to take advantage of the well-known habits and typical behaviors of hundreds or thousands or even hundreds of thousands, of eager Web surfers.

There are a lot ways to kick-start a viral marketing campaign, which is to say a marketing campaign that takes advantage of a pre-existing social network to generate exponential increases of brand awareness, via a self-replicating viral process not unlike the way in which a computer virus spreads. Most will drive targeted traffic straight to your site, but one of the more effective viral strategies relies on free e-books. A viral marketing e-book is the kind of authoritative "product" that can be widely distributed with ease. And, each time a consumer downloads your free e-book; you'll gain a long-term conversion prospect and the opportunity to turn a profit on your products or services besides.

Having a viral marketing campaign based on e-books, newsletters or the like will not only generate business, it will help you retain hesitant customers, and bring consumers back to your site.

Go as Wide as You Can With Your Viral Marketing Campaign

There are plenty of website's featuring e-books or newsletters that make the mistake of charging for their creations. But the truth is, charging for an e-book isn't the best way to encourage its distribution. Consumers love signing up for freebies - even when they're packed with useful information about your products and services or related topics. And, by offering a free e-book, you'll ensure that your campaign will have a wide reach.

Here's where the power of communication lies: Once a consumer's ready to give you their email address, it means that they're interested in doing business with you, that they won't be wary of a conversion oriented follow-up.

It's also worth noting that if you allow your e-books to be re-distributed or re-branded, you'll practically guarantee additional targeted traffic, and in turn, more of a return on your investment.

Rely on Quality Content in Your Viral Marketing Campaign

It may seem like an overly simple thing to say, but the quality of your free e-books or newsletters will be vitally important. Consumers won't be impressed or converted by spelling or grammar errors. As a matter of fact, mistakes like those will tend to cause the readers to well ...stop reading altogether, or even worse, distrust the products or services your e-book's focused on. So remember, if your e-book isn't professional, your targeted demographic won't take you seriously.

In addition to steering clear of content errors, you'll also want to be sure that affiliate links featured in your e-book or newsletter are relevant to its content and title. For instance; you can't start discussing prostate disorders then thrown in an out of the blue link for a domain registration service.

It's always better to weave back-links into your e-books or newsletters in a way that is and seems natural. You'll find that your readers will respond to an organic approach in a more positive way than a high pressure or sloppy sales technique.

Getting the Most Out of Your Viral Marketing Campaign

If you'd like to be sure that you're earning the maximum possible return with your viral marketing efforts, you'll need to get the re-branding balance just right in your e-books. The best way to accomplish that will be to make sure that all of the included links correspond with your own products or services or to products you have resale rights to. You can even use 2-tier affiliate links that will ensure that you're able to collect second tier commissions whenever a re-brander makes a sale.

If done correctly, a viral marketing campaign centered on free e-books, a free newsletter, re-publishable articles or the like, will attract the targeted consumer traffic you're looking for.