Just when you thought the world of internet advertising could not be any more confusing, someone tosses out the term, viral marketing. This sure does sound like something your doctor should give you an injection to protect you from. I mean viral usually means infection, and illness, like the flu bug right? On the World Wide Web, viral has been used to describe computer viruses or the viral bugs that sabotage files or computer systems. Nevertheless, when it comes to internet marketing, viral is considered an infectious bug in a good way, not a harmful one.
Viral marketing is an internet marketing industry term used to describe sly marketing campaigns that capture the curiosity of people who then can not help but speak to other people about it. Soon whatever product, or service being advertised in these overt viral marketing campaigns are so often talked about that people begin to integrate them into their consciousness. This is how products become known to us as brand names, they are so often talked about that we feel a familiar kinship with them upon hearing them spoken about. It is weird and at the same time amazing that our brains work like that.
This human condition of developing a kinship with the things we hear repeatedly talked about, advances marketing efforts much farther than most other marketing strategies. This strategy becomes viral in that people absolutely adore trading gossip and news with one another. Who does not like to be the first to hear of something and to pass it on to someone else? When we are the first to know something, we appear much more intelligent than we may in fact be, but not many of us frown on that. Having others envy our intelligence feels good.
To be successful, viral marketing ads need to use flashy text and graphics and short catchphrases that are easy to remember, outlandish, funny, or even shocking at first glance. Many of you may remember an ad slogan of a popular fast food restaurant used years ago wherein an elderly lady would loudly exclaim, “Where’s the beef?” This ad increased the sales of hamburgers for this restaurant and was one of the most successful early examples of viral television marketing. The same holds true for internet viral marketing. Short, easy to remember, and funny.
Viral marketing is cheaper than other forms of advertising because a webmaster can reach far greater numbers of people without having to pay for it. Remember, people like to share gossip and information with one another. So a webmaster advertising a product or service with a sly marketing campaign benefits vigorously through people talking to one another and spreading the knowledge of web advertisements that you just have to see for yourself to believe. Viral marketing is particularly beneficial to the small business that has only limited funds to earmark towards marketing campaigns.
Through viral marketing you can explode your sales through the whopping numbers of traffic your website will get just because people are talking to other people about the snazzy catchphrase they have seen on your website and can not get out of their heads.
If you are here learning about viral marketing, it is a good bet that you have by now heard of search engine optimization and the importance of SEO for your website. SEO will also expand the proficiency of your viral marketing campaigns notably. Combine SEO and viral marketing and you have a powerfully prosperous combination working for your success.
GUEST AUTHOR: Scott White is an SEO specialist and SEO consultant in Arizona
