It is human nature that attracts us all to free gifts. The fact that we don't have to pay for something leads us to grab items that we would normally never bother with. You only have to look at visitors to exhibitions and trade fairs all weighed down with free brochures and catalogs to see how true this is.

It is our love of the “freebie” that has made viral marketing such a powerful tool for Internet marketers. In fact you could say that viral marketing is any marketers dream either on or offline. Of course it is not new, the oldest form of viral marketing is good old word of mouth. The customer buys something and likes it he or she then tells all their friends and that is the best form of viral marketing that you can get. Of course this only works if your produce or service is good if not it can have a disastrous effect on your business.

Viral marketing offers anyone the opportunity to get his or her sales message all over the Internet for no cost. All you have to do is give away a piece of software, article, audio or video that also contains your marketing message. Providing the gift is perceived as having value it will be passed all around the Internet and thousands of people will get to see your message.

If you are going to create a viral marketing product the first thing you need to decide is what product or services do you want to promote virally. As an example if you want to promote a golf web site then it is obvious that your gift should be related to golf.

It is always better to create your own product because this can be made much more targeted. It is easy to use private label articles to quickly build an e-book on your chosen subject. You can then place the links that you want into your new e-book.

As well as using it to attract traffic to your web site you can also add in links to products, either your own or ones you sell as an affiliate. This can build you a very useful source of income, which will carry on as long as your item is circulating on the Internet.

Of course not every viral marketing product that you launch will be a success and in some cases it may take time to see the results. To use viral marketing successfully your giveaway must have perceived value people. It has to gain unique or useful information and it must be easy to pass on to others.

It is even possible to make money from your viral marketing product by offering it for sale at a very low price with Master Resale Rights. This allows others to either sell or giveaway your product to their customers. Providing you have produced a quality viral product this can a very effective way of spreading your marketing message.

Writing articles such as this one for instance is a form of viral marketing designed to attract readers to my web site. The more articles you have circulating around the Internet the more people are likely to read them and click on your links. By satisfying peoples demands for something for nothing you could really increase your

There is very little against viral marketing, it cost practically nothing and can be very effective over a long period of time. No matter which product or products you create as “freebies” make sure is something that is valuable, funny, informative or unique. It may take months or even years for viral marketing to work. Don't expect it to happen overnight or for all your viral marketing ideas to work.

But remember the more seeds that you sow the bigger the crop will be. So why not add viral marketing to your sales armoury.