Dr. Ralph F. Wilson declares in his “Web Marketing Today’ article entitled “The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing” that “Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence.” (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-...ples-clean.htm)

Viral marketing, as it has been dubbed, is a form of marketing done through word of mouth. Basically, one person tells someone and that person tells someone else and so on and so forth, thus, spreading the marketing message like a common cold or virus. The more people exposed to this form of marketing the more people affected.

Wilson goes on to say that there are six key elements that make viral marketing what it is and keep this form of internet marketing one of the most successful forms of online marketing. Wilson lists these key factors as being:

1. Gives away products or services
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
3. Scales easily from small to very large
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilizes existing communication networks
6. Takes advantage of others’ resources

Viral marketing messages do not always have to include all 6 of these key factors but it has been proven that the more of the keys that a message contains the more successful.

The first element to viral marketing is it must be completely free. Who doesn’t like to get things for free, especially something that is useful like email, prizes, and trips. When something of significance is offered to the public for free it is sure to stir up noise and attention and this is exactly what the marketing entity is seeking. Even though today they might be giving something away for free, in time the rewards will be reaped.

The second element is the form of viral marketing must be easily transmitted, just like a common illness. One of the reasons this form of marketing grows so quickly is due to the fact that word of mouth spreads almost effortlessly, especially with all of the social networking sites that offer the ability to send mass emails or bulletin their entire network of friends.

Thirdly, your viral marketing approach must be able to easily adapt from a small audience to a large one. Not only will your marketing strategy have to change and mutate as its message reaches more and more people, but accommodations must be made to insure that the quality of the message or product remains intact.

An example of this would be if you created an online forum which was growing at such a rapid pace as to receive 100 new signups everyday. To insure that the quality of the forum was maintained there would have to be quality control measures that would have to be enforced to insure that the forum site kept growing and didn’t spiral out of control, thus letting the rapid growth destroy it from the inside out.

The forth marketing key is viral marketing must exploit everyday behaviors and motivations. A good way to do this is to just sit back and take a look at the people around you and access what drives them to do the things that they do. What gives them their desire to go to work, to eat, play, and even have sex? Access human nature and then use the commonality of human nature to breed the viral string.

Once you have met the above steps, key factor five comes into play. Viral marketing then utilizes communication networks and social networks that already exist. Everyone has people they talk to and everyone has friends. Viral marketing uses this fact to quickly spread its virus. The more people that one single person comes in contact with on a daily basis the quicker the message will spread, and with viral marketing, the virus can spread even if the network is not a strongly bonded network.

The sixth and final key to viral marketing is taking advantage of the resources of others. Word of mouth does spread quickly but viral marketing leaves its biggest mark by taking advantage of others’ resources through such things as affiliate programs, news and press releases, article sharing, and any other form of free advertising.

It is easy to see now exactly why this word of mouth form of marketing has been coined with the lovely name of “Viral Marketing.” Viral marketing is created easily, spreads quickly, and then finally relies on the virus hosts to keep doing its job for it. The host keeps this marketing virus ever mutating, ever spreading, and one of the BEST ways to market on the internet.