Taking advantage of viral marketing

Until recently most people had no idea what viral marketing meant. The concept is easy to understand but making it happen is a lot more complicated. Viral marketing is a technique where new customers purchase products or services but they were referred by existing customers. Probably one of the best forms of viral marketing was the explosion of mail services like HotMail.com a free mail service offered by Microsoft. To market their email companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and others automatically added an advertisement on the bottom of messages before they were sent. As chain email containing jokes, prayers, and luck charms were quickly forwarded around the net the viewers were unknowingly spreading the advertisement about how to get free mail.

Businesses everywhere were looking for ways to spread the message by viral or customer to customer to duplicate the model. Our company uses a technique of sharing photographs by email to friends and family to take advantage of viral marketing.

Here is how ours works:

A customer loads up their photographs to our website for free, they then select an album or individual photographs and click on the share button which allows them to send the photographs to one person or an entire group. Once the email recipient opens the photographs they also have an opportunity to create their own account and upload photographs. As an incentive we give them 20 free prints and a free space. The new customer was never contacted by the company, never saw a paid advertisement, and probably did not even know the service existed before they received the email.

This is so effective that on average each new customer will bring in 20 new customers by way of viral marketing . Our service which was launched in April now hosts 9 million photographs. This is a very powerful method of advertising and it is basically free.

It is easy to get started creating a viral message by adding a signature at the bottom of all of your emails. Simply adding a tag line to the bottom of your email like:

Get 20 free 4” x 6” prints and a free website. Visit yoursitename.myphotomax.com

Every joke you forward and every email you originate will have this signature line. Funny emails travel state lines very quickly and have been tracked around the world. Take advantage of this free form of advertising.