If you’re just starting out in business, you would know that word of mouth is still the best and least expensive form of advertising that you can use. But what if there is a way for you to spread word about your business much faster than what the typical word-of-mouth advertising can do? This is exactly the goal that online viral marketing strategies have. Here, we will take a look at what viral marketing is all about and also check out the top 5 online viral marketing strategies of all time.

The ABC’s of Viral Marketing

The idea behind viral marketing is to make an advertisement spread like a computer virus: it needs to replicate itself fast, so that more of a product’s target audience will learn about a brand in a short span of time.

Here’s a comprehensive list of the form that viral marketing promotions take: - Advertising games - Brandable software - E-books - Images - Interactive flash games - Video clips - Text messages

As you can see, viral marketing pretty much covers all forms of media. Next, we will check on the top 5 most effective online viral marketing strategies of all time.

A Look at the Top 5 Online Viral Marketing Strategies of All Time

If you decide to go for viral marketing as a means of advertising your business, here are the top 5 online viral marketing strategies that you can use:

1. Give consumers a valuable product or service for free. Perhaps the most effective and popular viral marketing strategy is the one used by Hotmail when they were just starting out. There were only a few free web-based e-mail services back then, so what they did was incorporate a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out using the site, encouraging users to get their free, private e-mail at Hotmail.com.

This was way back in 1996 and from an initial number of 500,000 registered users, the figures grew to 12 million users with the simple ‘trick’ of adding that simple yet clever footer in every single e-mail sent from Hotmail.

2. Create promotional videos and post them at popular sites like YouTube. Burger King’s "Subservient Chicken" video and the clip of a guy playing a guitar which is actually an advertisement for GuitarMasterPro.net are just a couple of examples of how you can use a popular site like YouTube to your advantage.

Create a really funny video, or something useful that you think your customers would want to watch, and add tags, keywords and descriptions.

3. Offer affiliate programs through your site. The reason why affiliate programs are so popular is the fact that it creates a beneficial relationship for both parties concerned. When an affiliate marketer signs up for your program, you can be sure that he or she will be working hard in offering the product or service that you have because of the potential earnings to be had. With this online viral marketing strategy, you can watch your sales soar through the roof in no time at all.

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