Although viral email marketing may sound like a “bad” thing, it is not spam.You are not spending money for a list of random e-mail addresses, gathered by some other non-related company.You are actually enlisting your current clients to tell their friends and associates about your unique products or services.
It is the same as word of mouth advertising, is comparable to multi-level marketing and it is extremely effective. The right campaign for your business depends on what your company sells or the services that you offer.But there are a total of six basic elements that make up any successful strategy. First, you have to give something away.
Correct, you are in business to sell items, but people love free give away items.What you can offer as a give away depends on your business.It may be only short bits of information, like a free newsletter, delivered via e-mail. You might offer an item, like a bumper sticker, but in order to get the “special” bumper sticker, the customer might have to pay for it.
The candidates over the course of the recent presidential campaign used this method to get donations.When a person signed up to receive their free bumper sticker, they were directed to tell some of their friends.They gave the e-mail addresses of many of their friends and a viral email marketing strategy was born.
The second element is the ability to transfer the information effortless from one person to the next. E-mails are perfect for this.With a little software or a dynamic marketing company, the entire system can be automated to the point that you never need to do much of anything.
The third element is to have the ability to handle the increase in business. What if the virus spreads and you become inundated with new orders that you are unable to fill. That’s one of the things to think about before you partake in a viral email marketing campaign.
Two more elements are to take advantage of highly common motivations and existing communication networks. Common human motivations are greed, the need to be loved, popular and understood.
The existing networks are e-mail addresses that nearly everyone has. Sociologists say that most people have a network of at least 8-12 people with whom they are close.Your main goal is to enable each of your customers to provide you with those e-mail addresses or, send your message along to others.
That’s how viral email marketing works and is the last element of the campaign; taking advantage of the resources of others.