There are numerous online advertising companies willing to take your money and create a great advertisement for your company and place it on popular web sites. Problem is, once the ad ends its run on the sites, it disappears. It is not like print ads that can be cut out and stuck to a refrigerator door or the front of a file cabinet. It disappears into the cyberspace void where all things electronic die a quick death.

There are a couple of concepts business can think of to help make their ad like the gift that keeps on giving. One major concept has become known as viral marketing and is used to create a message or a service containing the message that recipients willingly pass along to others with no foreseen end to the replication of your message.

Many companies initiated this form of marketing by giving away free email accounts. Located within the email being sent was often the message pertaining to signing up for the free email service. This message was sent to every person the user sent an email to and was then replicated by every person who signed up for free email service.

Getting people to pass along a marketing message willingly and freely is not as difficult a concept as it may appear on the surface. Videos are often subject to be forwarded by one user to many others and companies that promote the video and help pay service fees for it to be shown also include a message for their own services, allowing their advertising message to be sent to countless potential customers.

Clicking on a news video today will often find the clip preceded by a commercial message that has to be watched before the video is shown. There is usually an accompanying link to send the video to a friend and when it is sent, the advertisement goes along with it spreading that company's message well beyond the original viewer of the video.

It is becoming more common for companies to develop games based on advertisements and send them out free to anyone who wants to play the free web-based game. They also invite them to share the games with others and if the user likes the game they will pass it along to their friends and family, along with the advertisement.

Social networking sites are the current target of most viral advertising methods as a means of promotion and for continually spreading an advertisement along with videos, games and messages. A link inviting users to see more of a particular type of offer is often accompanied by a registration requirement, helping the company build a larger base of potential customer contacts as every registration includes the notation that they are signing up to receive future emails.