The point here is to write original articles (or have them ghost written) and attach your own bio or resource box to the end of the article, along with a link to your website or your opt-in page.

Then, you allow others “free reprint rights” to your articles on the condition that they leave your resource box intact. If done correctly, high quality articles can be passed on and on, from one reprinted to another, with no further effort from you.

Sounds easy …. right?

Well, it is. But the traditional methods of article distribution, while they still work to some degree, do not work as well as they once did.

High dollar training courses and a myriad of ebooks have been written about marketing with articles. As a result, competition for article distribution is more fierce than ever before.

Until a couple of years ago, when the floodgates opened, quietly submitting two or three good articles each month to online article directories could gain you a steady flow of incoming traffic and new opt-in list subscribers, all at no cost to you.

While that is still a good idea, and it does help, directory submissions alone are not as effective as they once were. Nowadays, most article directories are flooded on a daily basis with new submissions. Sometimes it takes several weeks after submission before your article is finally approved and placed online in the directory.

Even then, your article is likely to be just another one of dozens or even hundreds that are freely available for reprinting.

So, effective viral marketing with articles involves using a bit of ingenuity to get your articles out of that huge and ever-growing pool, and make them stand alone in full view of those who will be most likely to reprint them.

Here are a few ideas you can use toward that end.

1. Offer your articles to your own mailing list first, before you submit them elsewhere. This will go a long way toward building credibility, good relationships, and making your list members feel special. Chances are your list includes more potential (or established) online publishers than you might realize.
2. Create an ebook every month or two that contains at least 10 to 12 of your freshest articles. Then use the viral ebook tactics described elsewhere in this volume to distribute those ebooks. You can allow the articles to be copied directly from the ebook if you wish. But a better tactic might be to include links to separate auto responders, one for each article, where reprinters can instantly acquire a formatted copy of the article of their choice, along with an invitation to opt-in to your exclusive articles release mailing list.
3. Contact webmasters and newsletter publishers directly, offering to write exclusively or semi-exclusively for them. In this case, it’s important to include a link in your article resource box that offers a source of “other free articles for reprint” that you can provide. Getting your articles placed on only a few high traffic websites, or in a few big list newsletters, can quickly increase your traffic up front, and set off a viral distribution effect that can go on for weeks, months, or even years.

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Using your eBooks, e-reports and e-courses is a great way to build your list. You can use all these things as an “incentive” for joining your affiliate program as a “thank you” for visiting your web site or as a “bonus” when someone purchases a product or service from you.

A lot of e-Businesses use them but some are make two big mistakes when they do.

Mistake number 1: They upload these things to their web site and publish the download link without capturing a name or an email address. They are missing the point of using these things. The point is to build a list. You don’t market to ghosts.

Instead of uploading your items to your server and just publishing the download link, be a little smarter. Set yourself up a mini-site where you can direct people to and for the price of their email addresses and names they can have the link sent to them.

Now you not only have a person to market to, you also know they are interested in your product or service. Presto! Your list just grew.

Mistake number 2: They just don’t take the time to customize eBooks, etc with their own links inserted into them. The thing is….if you are giving away an eBook with someone else’s links in it then all your marketing is paying off all right….for the person whose links are in the eBook. Why would you do that? You are working for them instead of helping yourself.

So do you want to be “they” or do you want to use eBooks a little smarter? Take the trouble and go to the expense of getting a customization license. It’s worth it. If others don’t…then they will be marketing for you. Search the Internet for “customization license”.

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Once you have your eBook written and checked and re-checked and checked again for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and that the links all work, you are ready to put it to work for you. Be absolutely certain that the links to your pages and especially to your sales page all are working links.

The object is to get your eBook to as many different places as possible. Some of your readers will help you to get it to different places and each place it goes it becomes a new salesman for you.

Post your eBook to as many of the eBook directories as you can. Many will let you post it for free or will let you post a link on their site to your eBook. To find these sites go to Google and type in “ebook directories”. This is now your personal viral marketing system.

Once it gets going, you can’t stop it…..not that you want to stop it.

It is certainly not a requirement but it is a good idea if you can create a cover for your eBook. Some sites offer free eBook cover templates. You just choose a pattern and then add the text. You can buy cover templates. There are even sites that will create a cover just for you and do it for free. Statistics prove that an eBook will be downloaded more when a nice cover is displayed. Search the internet for these sites.

The traditional book is here to stay. Advertising on paper is here to stay, as well. The marketing eBook as a viral salesman is here to stay, too. Don’t discount the value or underestimate its worth to you and your online marketing. It can be one of your best marketing tools and it is free.

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Let’s say that you sell products used in baking. If on your website you offer a free download of an eBook with recipes that call for ingredients you sell, it is possible, even probable that you will sell more of the products that you manufacture. That is the basic concept but there are many ways that eBooks can help get free viral marketing for you.

If the free eBook you give away on your site is good, informative, funny, or contains timely information, the public will pass that information along to their friends and family and thereby, generate a lot more traffic on your site. Just the fact that they found something interesting or useful on your site will make them return again and again.

Each time they return is another opportunity for them to become a customer.

The cost of an eBook is just about zero, which makes it a pretty attractive tool for marketers large and small. The only cost is in time and creativity and the benefits are endless.

Of course, eBooks do not have to be free. They can also be sold. The trick to selling your eBooks is to be certain that they are worth the price you charge for them.

So what is the consumer’s advantage of an eBook?

• eBooks are ideal for those who want information in the quickest possible time.
• eBooks can include video, sound, games, children’s activities and many other interactive multi-media elements.
• eBooks have search engine and electronic navigation technology. No more flipping back and forth through pages to find that elusive paragraph.
• How to… eBooks can included video clips or many different color images to show you exactly how to piece together that Antique Grandfather Clock Kit, without having any bits left over.

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More and more advertisers are adopting online video and audio for ad delivery, as broadband availability continues to rise and ad-serving technologies become more sophisticated.

Online multimedia advertising is really taking off. User attention can be captured and ads stand out from the crowd in an increasingly ad-cluttered online environment.

It is true that video and audio formats cost more to serve than standard banners or text ads, and they involve a lot more production and implementation work. But they may well be worth the added expense if they achieve greater response rates.

Where to use online video and audio is what advertisers must carefully consider. Video to be used on the Internet should be information and communication focused while video to be used on television should be focused on entertainment.

Like everything else, there are good ways and bad ways to use video advertising. Right now most marketers are incorporating their audio-visual content into existing embedded ad formats like banners or over-content formats like pop-ups.

Though this could reach a potentially large audience, viewers are likely to be less captivated and more annoyed by these disruptive and distracting placements.

Cached or streaming video and audio on a specific destination site offers the best chance of interesting consumers in brand messages, but it is not likely to reach a large audience unless it generates a viral outcome.

Whatever you come up with, don’t forget to make it easy to open and distribute. File size is important, as is the media format. If your viral video has been created for a particular type of software that not many people use, how will you get people to spread it like wildfire?

Also, if you’ve made a video the impact will be better if you send the clip as an attachment rather than stream it. It’s cheaper and, if you’re not hosting it, it’s more viral, too.

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Buzz marketing is the vehicle that will take new business to dizzying heights. Here are a few suggestions to help you make that happen.

1. Pursue what’s happening now. James Dean made rebels out of all of us and Madonna caused nice girls to wear a bustierre. So how did that happen? It happened the same way that Rosie’s Tickle-Me Elmo happened. They started a commotion. A commotion can send the world on a buying spree. You need to get the right person to “sneeze” to spread your viral message. For instance, sell the president of the Realtors Association on your house-painting service or get the urban kids to make your streetwise electronics cool. Just get your message to the influential people who can start the buzz.

2. Give them something to talk about. It makes people feel smart to know something that others don’t know. “I know where you can get a terrific deal on software” or “My carpet guy can get those stains out”. They know the answer. Give your first customers a great product and you become their brag. In order to get them talking, you must fill a need. Remember the first time you saw a Walkman? What IS that and where can I get one? Now you’ve got them talking.

3. Package your product or service tightly. Your buzz or viral blurb needs to be short, sweet and make the point. “They sell beautiful shoes” or “You’re kids will love this” are the kind of things that don’t get lost on the tip of a tongue. Make it easy to remember. Describe what you do right now until you say it virally right. If you can’t do it, your customers can’t either.

4. It’s like a cold in kindergarten. The best way to spread your message is to “sneeze” it in the right direction. It needs to be aimed at your target customers and in the places where they can be found. Once you get your “sneeze” aimed in the right direction and at your general pool of potential customers, the next thing to do is identify the “Typhoid Mary’s” in the group.

5. “To register your own (whatever), click here”. You have just received one, now buy one yourself. From Bouquets to “gifts for the fisherman”, “share-me” products give you the opportunity to spread your message inside what you sell. The product becomes the pitchman. Brilliant! You can find marketing services on the Internet that can create a customized e-newsletter package that will spread your business message to target users all through the Internet grapevine. Your customers will continue to love your product because they will tell and sell others.

6. Pay it forward. You can generate more sales pretty easily. “Thanks so much for your business. Share this coupon with a friend and she will receive a complete facial at 20% off. To receive your free gift, please sign below.” That’s business author Jan Norman’s magic. She just helped you land a customer you’ve never met, and rewarded another one to boot. Just little things like “remember to tell your friends” at the bottom of an invoice are simple, easy and free ways to boost sales and start a buzz. On your web site offer something free for new names on your mailing list and your customers will join your sales force.

7. Because she’ll tell two friends and they will tell two friends, and so on and on. Forget the fancy marketing theories. Buzz marketing works because it is heard from a friend who liked it and not from some paid pitchman who will sell anything for a buck. If your customers are happy with your product or service, then devise a way for them to share that joy with their friends. Help your customers to tell each other and your product will sell itself.

8. Overcome their resistance. Problem solving guru, Jordan Ayan, points to persistence as the key ingredient to championing your business idea. Like that winter flu that some people don’t get until May, some customers will need many exposures before they “catch” it.

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We all know what a computer virus is. It spreads from one computer to another in the blink of an eye. The next thing you know it is everywhere. Now “Buzz” is the virus of marketing, it spreads to other customers and causes an epidemic of sales of your product or service.

By starting a buzz you can turn your new business into the next urban legend, that latest piece of juicy gossip that people can’t live without.

Think of it like this.

Everybody knows certain urban and social legends. They have never been marketed, nobody spent their first dime to let the world know that there are alligators living in the New York City sewer system, or that Bigfoot is happy and well in the backwoods of America.

So how is it that we all know stories like that?

Those little bits of information that people share over a cup of coffee.

The outrageous occurrence that someone just saw and can’t wait to describe.

The incredibly cool product that a friend of a friend just bought.

Those are the heart and soul of buzz marketing or viral marketing, depending on what you want to call it.

A better question is, what if it were your product or service that enjoyed such common knowledge?

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The concept of viral marketing is an old idea made new again by the Internet.

Word of mouth advertising has been recognized as a worthwhile marketing tool for thousands of years. Some fish seller in Old London undoubtedly said to his customers, “tell your neighbors I have excellent cod today.”

Remember the washing powder manufacturer who put dishtowels or drinking glasses in the boxes of detergent or was that before your time? They advertised it on radio a few times but mostly depended on people to pass the word around and they did. That was a horse and buggy version of what we call viral marketing today.

Word of mouth advertising is simply direct communication between people about some product, service, brand, or event. Most of the time one of the people in the conversation has had some experience with what is being discussed.

Many times, but not always, the person who is doing the talking will have some relationship with the product, service, brand or event being discussed.

Word of mouth viral marketing is a two way street. I remember once my mother had a bad experience with a non-stick pan that she had just bought. The first thing she did was spread the work among her friends (who then spread the word among their friends) that the pan wasn’t good. That is also viral marketing, the bad kind.

In today’s internet connected world, I would feel very sorry for the manufacturer of that pan that ruined a birthday cake.

There are a lot of people in the big, wide world and a lot of them will have a lot of things to say about your product. Some marketers are taking word of mouth advertising to the next level by trying to influence what is being said about their product.

That might not necessarily be a bad thing but it could be a bit risky if the product is not up to par in the first place.

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So far, we’ve talked about the value you, the marketer, can gain from using viral techniques to promote your business.

But equally important are the values involved for the prospects and customers that viral tactics will bring to you. Give some serious consideration in these areas, if you intend to maximize the long term effect of your viral campaigns.

Customer Viral Value #1: Satisfaction

It might seem like something that would be as obvious as the nose on your face, but many emarketers ignore the fact that they have to keep existing users happy to reap the benefits of new client referrals. Viral marketing efforts can provide enormous benefits to e-commerce sites by bringing in new users but most fail to fully appreciate the promotional benefits of user satisfaction.

A dissatisfied user will not refer anyone to your website. In fact, the old salesman’s rule is:

“A happy customer will tell three people. An unhappy customer will tell 30!”

Failing to keep existing customers satisfied can spell big trouble for e-businesses, since research indicates that word-of-mouth…or word-of-mouse… referrals contributes to building a regular customer base more than search engines ever hoped to.

Not only that… viral marketing is a two-way street. The news that your e-business did not deliver as promised travels like a speeding bullet and twice as fast as the speed of light.

Nearly twice as many regular users of an e-business site say that they first visited after being referred by friends or relatives, rather than reaching the site via a search engine.

That should tell you something. Referrals are the back bone of growing an online business. You need to be sure that your site delivers what it offers….and even more. The content needs to be interesting and timely. Giving away free gifts is always a good thing and encourages pass-along among your customer base.

Research shows that as user demands evolve, companies need to continually strive to understand exactly what satisfies their users, ensuring they regularly visit the site and personally recommend it to their friends and family. User demands do evolve…what was satisfactory last month is old hat this month and you need to continually update your content.

Only a few online marketers attempt to track the success of their viral marketing efforts. As a result, few e-businesses understand the significant contribution that referrals play in their business.

Customer Viral Value #2: Trust

Assuming your products or services are priced competitively and are of good quality, your most significant sales barrier is trust.

Trust is the essential lubricant of Web business; without trust, business grinds to a halt and building trust takes time and effort on your part. It isn’t something that customers give freely. You must earn it and continue to earn it with every sale.

Established store brand names come from hundreds of positive impressions built by expensive advertising campaigns. These ads purchase brand trust but if you’re a small business you can’t afford such advertising.

Still, you can build trust by means of your website in a lot of different ways. First, nail down your business in time and space by giving a full address and phone number. If you have an office or brick-and-mortar store, show a photograph.

Even better, show pictures of yourself or your staff. Now your customers view you as real people rather than some faceless entity who-knows-where.

You build trust by selling good and reliable products, by displaying clear shipping and return policies, by joining nationally-respected organizations, and by offering guarantees.

You build trust with a customer-friendly navigation system and intuitive interface, and an SSL secure server for credit card transactions. You gain trust by having a professionally designed site, rather than something your teenage son cooked up on the weekends.

Your customer service needs to be reliable and right there on the spot when needed. If a customer can’t reach you when they have a problem…and problems happen even with the best laid plans… they will not trust you and will not refer their friends and family to you. The result is you didn’t just lose one customer…you lost a lot of customers.

You also build trust by repeated contact with your visitors. Once you’ve established trust, sales result.

Customer Viral Value #3: Support

With all of the effort being put into… and attention being given to… “word-of-mouse” advertising these days, it is really amazing how many companies don’t at least put forth minimal effort to take care of the customers that they get from the advertising.

Customers are the life blood of any business. After a customer has chosen a company to do business with, wouldn’t a smart marketer want to ensure that the customer is taken care of well enough to ensure that he remains a customer and makes future purchases? Wasn’t that covered in Business 101?

A fellow by the name of Tom Locke put customer care practices to the test by running an experiment to test it. He sent letters to one hundred companies asking for free stuff to see how they would respond.

The first finding was that it was exceedingly difficult to even figure out a way to send a letter to a big corporation…and smaller ones weren’t any better.

Of course, that isn’t all that surprising in a world where customer calls are viewed as expenses to be minimized, rather than opportunities to build a relationship.

His test is on-going and is being racked to see what the responses are. So far, Mercedes is leading. They sent a thirty dollar keychain. However, over two-thirds of the companies have failed to respond at all. Half of those that have responded gave flat rejections.

When customers are acquired, by whatever means, they should be treated like the valuable asset they are. They should be told (and shown) on a regular basis that they are valued.

Their inquires should always be answered promptly and requests granted as often as is feasible. Ignoring customers is the first step to losing their business entirely…and the business of their friends and family they might have sent your way.

Customer Viral Value #4: Content

The success of any viral marketing campaign is directly related to the content of the viral message by whatever vehicle it is delivered be it, e-mail, newsletters, websites, etc. Think of viral advertising like you would think of fishing. You need bait. How good and effective your bait is directly effects the number of fish you are going to catch.

One completely useless bait is the unimaginative, over-used, and uninspired note ate the bottom of an e-mail or newsletter that says, “Please feel free to forward this message to your friends and family”. That sentence amounts to no bait at all…just a bare hook that isn’t going to catch anything.

Really good, creative, and inspired content (bait) can and does bring in customers by the numbers. “So”, you ask, “what exactly does good, creative and inspired content consist of?” Here are a few suggestions that might help:

1. Offering something worthy of sharing like a valuable discount, vital information or offering an incentive for sharing like additional entries into a sweepstakes or an added discount or premium service will work.

2. Relevant or timely information, research, or studies that are included in your e-mail might encourage the recipients to share with their family and friends. Interactive content like a quiz or test, especially if it’s fun, will inspire forwarding.

3. Jokes and cartoons are almost always forwarded to everybody the recipient knows. Why? Because they are entertaining and entertainment is meant to be shared.

4. A really cool multimedia experience is always going to achieve a lot of pass-along. Rich media is new and the novelty and tech factors alone are often enough to make the e-mail recipient eager to share it.

Remember that the better the content (bait) in your viral marketing message is, the better your catch is going to be.

Customer Viral Value #5: Appearance

Web users form first impressions of web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second). In the blink of an eye, web surfers make nearly instantaneous judgments of a web site’s “visual appeal.”

Through the “halo effect” first impressions can color subsequent judgments of perceived credibility, usability, and ultimately influence purchasing decisions. Creating a fast-loading, visually appealing site can help websites succeed.

The speed at which users form value judgments of web pages precludes much cognitive thought. This pre-cognitive “affective reaction” is a physiological response to what they see on the screen – a gut reaction.

This carry-over of first impressions to other attributes of products is sometimes called the “halo effect,” or cognitive “confirmation bias” where users search for confirming evidence and ignore evidence contrary to their initial impression. People want to be right, and tend to look for clues that validate their initial hypothesis.

There clearly is a connection between our emotional reaction to a webpage, and our conscious thought process. “Consumers apply both holistic (emotional) and analytic (cognitive) judgment in the decision to buy a product.” So that feeling you evoke in users through a “clean, professional design” can have a halo effect on their buying judgments.

The strong impact of visual appeal to a site might even tend to draw attention away from usability problems. It could it be that aesthetics, or visual appeal, factors might be detected first and that these could influence how users judge their subsequent experience.

Hence, even if a website is highly usable and provides very useful information presented in a logical arrangement, this may fail to impress a user whose first impression of the site was negative

Websites need to look good at first glance so that prospective customers will stick around long enough to take a second look. If their senses are pleased in the first instant they see a site, they will even look for reasons to support that belief.

We believe the tactics described in this volume can be of great benefit to anyone who wants to start or expand any online business, regardless of the nature of products or services offered.

But the information you have just read is worthless, unless you put it to use.

Now the ball is in your court, so run with it!

To your success!
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This involves a simple programming script that you can attach to a high traffic webpage on your site. Usually tell a friend scripts are installed in pages where a media is placed so that a person can easily send the media to any of his friends or family members and do it quickly.

Basically the tell a friend script is a script where a person can input his name, e-mail address, the recipient’s e-mail address and send the media to his friend or family member much like an e-mail with an attachment.

When the recipient gets the e-mail he won’t think of it as spam mail because he sees the senders name as someone he knows and trusts. Tell a friend script practically eliminates the chances of being blocked because it uses the information supplied by the sender. It is a little sneaky….but it is very effective.

IMPORTANT: Do not think of the referred “friend” as an opt-in subscriber. That can get you in a lot of spam trouble. Instead, invite them to join your list voluntarily from the first message they receive. If they don’t take that action, then do not email them again.

When the e-mail is opened it will be read, viewed or played. Included in the e-mail would be a brief description of the company or site that sponsors the media sent and another tell a friend script. Then the process begins again.

Tell a friend script is very simple and doesn’t require a complicated method of programming. You can just copy and paste a script and simply put it on an intended page.

Finding a script is as easy as falling off the proverbial log. Use your favorite search engine and type in “tell a friend script”.

By using tell a friend script, you can potentially drive traffic into your site and that could spell profits.

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