| When we speak about viral marketing, we are | | | | createvisitors exponentially, while your site |
| not talking about the newestdisease. We are | | | | is linear. |
| not talking about a Mad Cow Disease variant | | | | |
| or somethingthat you need to be vaccinated | | | | How do you put greeting cards on your site? |
| for. In fact, we are not referring to | | | | First, pick a theme or two. |
| adisease at all. | | | | |
| | | | If your site is about model railroads, for |
| What we are talking about is literally the | | | | example, you might get somephotos of trains |
| most powerful trafficgeneration technique | | | | and train sets; you could include vacation |
| available on the internet. Viral marketing is | | | | photos, cuteanimal pictures, scanned drawings |
| sopowerful that it makes the search engines | | | | or anything else that you feel wouldmake a |
| look small and insignificant incomparison. | | | | good card. Just remember to honor copyrights |
| Even link exchanges, as powerful as they can | | | | - make sure you havethe right to make copies |
| be, wilt intooblivion in comparison. | | | | of the materials before you use them. |
| | | | |
| What you do with viral marketing is create | | | | Once you have a theme or two, you need to |
| something, anything, thatvisitors will want | | | | find a greeting card service. |
| to give to other people. This thing, whatever | | | | |
| it is,contains a link and perhaps a short | | | | I've experimented with a few options. I've |
| advertisement for your website, ezineor | | | | tried hosting it entirely onmy own site, and |
| ebook. So far so good, this is just good | | | | what I've found is it is difficult to |
| marketing. The viral partcomes in because the | | | | maintain. I'vealso tried it completely hosted |
| people who receive these items want to give | | | | on another site and found it is |
| them toother people, who in turn want to give | | | | toorestrictive. |
| them away also. | | | | |
| | | | The service that I settled upon is called |
| So you see? What you get is an explosion of | | | | CyberGreeting Network - This company, in my |
| marketing for a very smallprice. It's | | | | opinion, provides the bestof both worlds |
| actually kind of like an avalanche, in that | | | | (local and remotely hosted). |
| you throw asnowball down a slope and it just | | | | |
| grows and grows until the wholemountain of | | | | The pages, images and sound files are stored |
| ice and snow is tumbling down. | | | | on your own web site. Youcan tailor these all |
| | | | that you want so they blend with your |
| One very cool viral marketing technique that | | | | pagesperfectly. This is the perfect freedom, |
| any web site can takeadvantage of is greeting | | | | and as long as you set up theform properly |
| cards. I'm sure you've run across these all | | | | all will work fine. |
| overthe web. You select a graphic (a drawing, | | | | |
| photo or other image), perhapsa sound file | | | | How do you do this? You download a template |
| and add some text. This is sent to one or | | | | file (as explained in theirinstructions) and |
| more people viaemail. These people open the | | | | modify it to suite your needs. This may |
| email and click on a link to view theircard. | | | | require alittle effort on your part (as well |
| They, of course, have the option from here to | | | | as some skill with HTML) but the endresult |
| visit your web siteand perhaps send | | | | will be worth it. |
| additional cards to other people (or back to | | | | |
| thesender). | | | | The remote part of the product (which is |
| | | | free, by the way) is the piecethat actually |
| If your cards are good enough, you can find | | | | formats and sends the card. You see, on your |
| this technique alone willgenerate an | | | | page you getthe visitor to supply the answers |
| incredible amount of traffic. Of course, you | | | | to a series of questions in a form. |
| have the sameproblem with greeting cards that | | | | |
| you have with your web site - you haveto get | | | | The form data is submitted to a CGI routine |
| people to it to begin with. Once you do that, | | | | which puts everythingtogether into a greeting |
| however, you willfind that it becomes more or | | | | card. Your visitor simply answers the |
| less self maintaining. The more traffic | | | | questionsand presses submit. You pass all of |
| youget the more you generate. Just make sure | | | | this to the routine, which then sendsthe card |
| that all of your greeting cardpages are | | | | to the destination. |
| listed in the search engines, well displayed | | | | |
| on your page (andperhaps all of your pages) | | | | I was able to get half a dozen pages of |
| and advertised elsewhere as much as | | | | greeting cards working perfectlyin an |
| practical. | | | | afternoon. These remain on my site, and serve |
| | | | me well by creating asteady, growing stream |
| In fact, it's a good idea to spend as much or | | | | of traffic. I think you would do well to take |
| more time marketing thegreeting cards as the | | | | alook and determine if this will work for |
| rest of your site, since these tend to | | | | your site as well. |