Here's an example of a viral marketing tool: sometimes someone will create or obtain a joke from somewhere. Let's say this person sends this joke to all his friends in his mailbox. This process may continue indefinitely till the joke dies out or almost everyone has received the joke. In other words, the 'joke' has been passed around like a virus; hence the term viral marketing.

The underlying principle in viral marketing is to distribute your company's name or contact to your customers, and get them to duplicate that process with their friends and families. In a sense, it's marketing via referrals or word-of-mouth. If your viral campaign works very well, you'll find that you could get maximum exposure for minimum marketing costs; everyone would be doing it for you!

A great way to promote yourself using the viral method is to write free articles or reports and distribute it around. You could offer master resale licenses (or something similar) and give others the opportunity to brand themselves or sell it. You need to give them the incentive to distribute your article around. Sooner or later, it'll be reaching everyone and you'd have gotten your exposure.

Viral marketing is more often than not used for list-building. Most people online nowadays are already in one program or another. In the wide region of cyberspace, it matters not whether one program is better or another, but instead the exposure it has gotten. In other words, the program which has reached to the eyes and ears of the online public has a greater chance of absorbing them into its list compared to one that hasn't. These programs are also known as viral list builders.

What one could do is to offer a marketing tool or an article for free or at a very-low price. It has to be something of value, so that people will want it. You can then brand it as yours - emphasize that you authored it or put your own ads on the program; so what if you're giving it away for free if others are promoting you?

If you're not looking towards viral marketing to build your list, you could very well be throwing away profits by the minutes. People who opt-in into your list are technically those who want to be in your list and receive your e-mails. Your messages won't be listed as spam or junk mail. Basically, why send an e-mail to someone who doesn't want to read it?

Once you have them on your list, you can then educate and nurture them before eventually building a solid relationship with them and helping them to build their own business.

Remember the saying, "The Money Is In The List'? It's absolutely true - your list will help you grow your own brand and credibility.