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Encourage Others to Spread the Word
One of the fundamental elements of viral marketing is the encouragement of others to spread a message on your behalf. This can be done in a number of ways.
One of the primary tools for doing this is the “tell-a-friend” button. This button is inserted on your site to make it simple for visitors to your site to notify others of your products, services, giveaways, etc. Visitors simply click the button and enter one or more email address of individuals that they would like to inform of your website. The button can be a special “script” (i.e. custom code) that is inserted into your site, or a third party notification service such as Recommend-it.com (www.recommend-it.com) can be used. Proper email etiquette should be followed when using methods such as this.
Other “low tech” methods of encouraging others to spread the word can be used as well. Simply asking others to pass on an article that you have written is one example of this.
The topic of viral marketing and the techniques that can be explored is well beyond the scope of any single article. The concept, however, can be very powerful, and is worthy of further research to see how it can apply to your business. If you want to learn more about viral marketing, there are many articles on the Internet that cover strategy and techniques. Use your favorite search engine to search for “viral marketing”.
Summary
There are many methods of attracting customers to your website. This article discussed only two of them. Methods such as online advertising are too broad in scope to address in a single article, but are worthy of research, since the Internet enables highly focused and innovative methods of targeting any desired prospective customer group with a wide variety of ads.
Regardless of the method, the Internet is far too large to rely on chance alone to generate traffic to your site. Study the options available to you to raise visibility, understand which ones are appropriate to your target audience and budget, and start generating traffic! Don’t be afraid to experiment to see what works for you, since the Internet is too new a medium to determine definitively what will work for your unique.
This article is contributed by Robert Levings of TransActive (http://www.TransActive.ca.com).
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