You often hear how so-and-so manages to get thousands of visitors to his website by "viral marketing" and consequently makes thousands of dollars each month, and I am sure you wish you could do the same.

Well, you can! And you don't even necessarily need your own website to do it.

Of course there are many ways to initiate a viral campaign but one of the most effective ways is by giving away free e-reports. How can anyone make money giving away free reports, you might ask. Well, each free report is contains information and links to your website or the affiliate website or products you are promoting.

You give away the free report to other people; they will read it and click on the links and buy the products. They then also have the opportunity to re-brand the report and to give it away free themselves. You will then benefit from the people they drive to your site. You will also build up your own mailing list to which you can market other related products.

However, there are a few guidelines to follow to make sure you have a good viral report:-

? The report must be on a topic that has a high interest value to a lot of people.

? You must have good affiliate links to reputable products which preferably you have tried; otherwise you may get a lot of people seeking refunds.

? Only have a few links in the report. Too many links will detract from the image of the report as quality information.

? All your links must be to relevant products to maintain the credibility of the report. They must appear naturally in the flow of the text so that the reader will be more inclined to click on them.

? There must be excellent advantages for others to re-brand and promote the free report to maximise the viral effect.

There are many ways that you can market this report free on the internet and get massive results and here are some suggestions:

? Include the free report as a free bonus with your other products and services.

? Do a video review of the free report and post it to YouTube, Google Video and other video sites with a link so that your report can be downloaded

? Post your comments about the report on your blog or other people's blog and link to where you have it available for download

? Write a review of the report and send it out to your email list

? Put it on your MySpace or Squidoo page

? Post it online in forums, newsgroups and blogs

? Offer the free report in classified advertisements

? Place advertisements in ezines to give away this report

? Give the report away through pay-per-click advertising

I am sure you can think of many other places as well to advertise the report. However, it is important to put it in relevant forums and blogs depending on the topic of your report to gain maximum effect. In summary the steps to follow are:-

1 Look around and find or write a good report on a topic with massive public interest

2 Find relevant products and brand the report

3 Market the report with re-branding rights

4 Monitor the visits and sales that result

There will be some work involved initially but the whole point of viral marketing is the results will gain momentum without any further help from you once you have the ball rolling.

Copyright (c) 2007 Mike Jennings