"Viral Publicity" and "Viral Marketing" are really just new buzz words for the oldest form of publicity in the world...
"Referral" or "Word of Mouth."
The Internet takes this ancient form of "buzz" and promotion and amplifies it with a global network of people connected digitally. "Word of mouth" now has an Internet version called "word of mouse" (word of computer mouse). With greatly increased speeds, people refer things to their friends and families spreading the word through the Internet and to the far-reaching corners of the world.
Many smart marketers and publicity people have learned to harness the power of viral publicity with Internet "Refer-A-Friend" promotional techniques and tools.
Examples of Viral "Refer-A-Friend" Promotions:
Viral "Refer-A-Friend" techniques can be used to promote just about anything under the sun.
For example, Audri Lanford conducted a giveaway contest at her new www.wz.com website where she gave away 4 Sony PS2's before Christmas as a website promotion. According to Audri, she gave people who had entered the Giveaway the opportunity to get additional entries and additional chances to win by telling a few of their friends on the Thank You page...
WZ.com Giveaway Promotion Thank You Page http://wz.com/ps2/indexw.html
On the Thank You page, every giveaway entrant received the following message: "Tell your friends about WZ.com, and get an additional entry for each friend you email." They are then given the opportunity to tell their friends about the giveaway at the "Tell-A-Friend" page...
WZ.com "Refer-A-Friend" Page http://wz.com/tellafriend/index.html
In return for the favor, they receive an additional chance to win for every friend they refer. This simple addition increased Tell-a-Friend results by 96 times (9600%)!, said Audri.
This is an amazing (and inexpensive) way to increase traffic and sales!
Another example of the "Refer-A-Friend" technique at work can be seen at Internet marketing guru Seth Godin's new IdeaVirus.com website.
"Unleashing The Ideavirus" by Seth Godin http://www.ideavirus.com/
"Unleashing The Ideavirus" is Seth Godin's excellent new book about viral marketing. Seth is promoting his hard copy book by offering the book in its entirety - FOR FREE! You can download the "eBook" version at his www.ideavirus.com website.
Why would Seth give it away for free?
Because offering something of high perceived value for free is an excellent way to promote something on the Internet. People are excited that they can get the complete book for free, so they naturally tell their friends. In fact, Seth Godin uses a viral "Refer-A-Friend" tool on this website as well...
IdeaVirus Send It
http://www.ideavirus.com/sendit.html
To see real-time data on how people are spreading the word with this viral "Refer-A-Friend' system, you can watch it spread at Seth's "Watch It Spread" page: http://ideavirus.gazooba.com/servlets/IVStatusReport2
This viral tool has helped Seth receive more than 100,000 downloads on website and more than 400,000 readers in just 30 days time. According to the website, IdeaVirus is "The Most Read Full-Length eBook Of All Time."
Yet another amazing example of viral marketing in action.
How To Use Viral "Refer-A-Friend" Promotions:
So how do you use this technique to leverage and increase your traffic, sales, and "word of mouse" publicity? It's simple, just "Tell-A-Friend" or "Refer-A-Friend" about everything! You can add Viral "Refer-A-Friend" forms to all of your...
> Articles
> Contests
> eBooks
> Freebies
> Giveaways
> Information
> Sweepstakes
> Thank you pages
> Etc.
Constantly think of ways that you can use a "Refer-A-Friend" pages to leverage each visitor into many more visitors (and sales).
Viral "Refer-A-Friend" tools are available for a wide range of needs and budgets.
For example:
BirdCast
http://bignosebird.com/carchive/birdcast.shtml
BigNoseBird.com offers an excellent "Refer-A-Friend" script for your website that is totally free called BirdCast. BirdCast will even log each referral so you can measure how often it is used. You may even want to have a programmer customize it to fit your own needs.
qbiquity.com
http://www.qbiquity.com/
qbiquity is a "relationship marketing company" that offers "Word of Mouth" solutions to increase online sales, boost site registrations, or extend your brand's reach. qbiquity is a solution for highly trafficked websites who want all the "bells an whistles" such as real-time tracking and convergence to other communications mediums like pagers, telephones, faxes, and direct mail.
qbiquity is considered a "high-end" solution and has a large price tag in the thousands of dollars per month. Consider online marketing guru Seth Godin's experiences with qbiquity which he used with tremenous success for this IdeaVirus book...
"When you send junk mail to 100 people, on average one person does what you ask. Using qbiquity, 50% of the people who get a recommendation from a friend visit my site, and almost everyone downloads the book. That's astonishing!", said Seth Godin.
It sure is.
Action Step:
All of the viral "Refer-A-Friend" programs that are available are based on the same simple concept. They use the power of referrals and "word of mouse" publicity to multiply how many people see your message. I suggest that you add "Refer-A-Friend" and other viral techniques into your marketing mix before someone refers your competition to this powerful marketing technique...
Matt Hockin - Intrapromote - http://www.intrapromote.com/ For more information, download our white paper: "The Proof Is In The Pass-Along - A Viral Marketing Tutorial" http://www.intrapromote.com/popups/popup_register_whitepaper.html