If you own a website or an e-business that needs promoting, viral marketing techniques can be a great way to publicize your business and generate traffic. Viral marketing techniques can also be quite effective sources of sales leads and targeted customers. If you have never explored viral marketing techniques for web promotion, or if you find the word “viral” distasteful, read on to learn more about some of the most popular and effective viral marketing techniques.



Viral marketing techniques attempt to capitalize on the urge felt by all people to discuss and share information. Word-of-mouth publicity is deceptively simple, but don't be fooled by the lack of sophistication. Most of the hugely successful viral marketing techniques use word-of-mouth either directly or indirectly. Some viral marketing techniques use individuals as inadvertent or unwitting promoters of a website, product or service. These marketing ploys can be said to be viral marketing techniques, in the truest sense of the word.

Some simple yet effective viral marketing techniques

1. Word-of-Mouth: As mentioned earlier, it is easy to overlook this simple marketing strategy for its lack of sophistication. But word-of-mouth publicity is highly effective as a viral marketing technique and should be the back bone of any marketing campaign. If you own a website, use a simple “tell a friend about us” link. If you have an RSS feed, a newsletter or some other subscription service, include a line at the end, politely urging the customer to spread the word.

2. Branding: Another easy and effective viral marketing technique is branding. Ensure that there is a logo or trademark displayed prominently on your website or product. Branding is a great viral marketing technique to get people talking about your product or service. An attractive logo, a catchy jingle or a memorable slogan can all add amazing marketing mileage to your business and make it instantly recognizable.

3. eBooks Marketers savvy in the latest viral marketing techniques were quick to take advantage of this new and exciting marketing channel. EBooks can be downloaded and distributed easily across the web. They can be packed with relevant links and advertisements. As long as the publicity material is relevant and unobtrusive, people would not really mind, as the eBooks can be quite useful for their content. A High-quality, informative and instructional eBook will get distributed very fast. The greatest advantage of this viral marketing technique is that if the eBook is useful, readers will take care of the distribution themselves, through social networking and peer to peer file sharing.

4. Viral Software: The eBook viral marketing technique can easily be extended to software. An eBook can be substituted with a simple, yet useful piece of software to achieve the same marketing effect. Indeed, some might argue that viral software is much more effective than eBooks, since more people use software than read eBooks.

5. RSS: RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is the new kid on the block when it comes to viral marketing techniques – well not really. RSS has been around for some years, but its popularity is increasing by the minute. RSS is a tool designed to disseminate information quickly across the internet. It is used by websites and blogs to keep regular visitors posted on updates to the content of the site or blog. With Microsoft's announcement that RSS is to be integrated in to the latest Windows operating system, RSS is unquestionably the hottest viral marketing technique around.