Viral Marketing is all about giving away your own free product or service along with your ad copy (contact information, link, email, etc.). In turn, recipients of your free product are allowed to pass it along to their own clients, prospects, visitors and others as a freebie. This is a quick way to multiple your marketing at no extra expense and without extra effort on your part.



Here are some popular viral marketing techniques to follow:

1. Ebooks – Share your no cost ebook with your website visitors. Include a nice full-color ad for your most popular product line with links to your website and email. Tell recipients to share copies of the ebook with their own site visitors and other contacts.

2. Software - Share a trial or “lite” version of your software with your website visitors as a freebie. Don't forget to include that ad for your most popular product line with links to your website and email. And tell recipients to share copies of the software with their own site visitors and other contacts. For help creating software, hire help from online bid sites like Elance.com.

3. Web Host – Offer to host small business web sites on your server at no charge. In exchange, place your own banner ad at the top of the site for viral marketing. You can setup a fold for their site and they can choose their own domain name and have it redirected to that folder.

4. Templates – Design your own website or other templates, include your own marketing information on them and give them away as free downloads or as an electronic package. Grant permission for recipients to pass them along.

5. Articles – Write articles about your industry. Include your website and contact information in the byline and grant permission for others to publish as long as they keep the byline in tact. Then people can use your contact on websites, in ezines, newsletters and other places where once again, viral marketing will speed the spread of information about your business.

6. Discussion Board - Set up a Discussion Board on your website with your banner ad attached at the top. And invite others to link to it and use it for their own sites.

In summary, by using viral marketing strategies, you can reach out all over the Internet with much less effort. See which methods work best for you and repeat them as often as needed.