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Viral Marketing is the new thing for business and by business I mean every business!

There are just so many possibilities with viral marketing. Some very expensive, some totally free, and all can be fine tuned in order to get just what you want out of it...

* Send more people to your site
* Encourage people to sign up to your site
* To collect contact details

* To build awareness.

Basically any goal can be assigned a viral marketing technique. 'Technique' sounds too methodical though. Viral Marketing (VM) is a creative endeavour that really gets your creative energy flowing.

VM is being assigned more and more to email, like when Late Night London ran their 'Pass the Christmal Parcel' VM campaign- 'banner ads and emails drove customers to a microsite. Once there, customers entered a friends email address and then played 'Pass the Parcel'. Prizes included a mini fridge full of beer and party vouchers worth up to 500 pounds.' - simple and extremely low cost.

Another great example is Candyflash's email campaign, where a box to watch England V Australia was up for grabs, was so simple. Basically, whoever forwarded the email to more people than anyone else, won the prize. This got people talking. 'For every two people who opened the original email, we collected nine new email addresses' (http://viral.halperncowan.com /Our_Work/Folio_Items/Fill_You r_Box.aspx)

The good news though, is that email is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to VM.

* Short, witty, funny videos can be produced, and now, thanks to YouTube, can be uploaded and distributed for free! These really do have to be something special for the viral aspect to take off fully though.
* Competitions are another example. Start up a competition, and let as many people know about it as possible. If the prize is good enough, they will let other people know about the competition, and you've started a virus.
* Graffiti campaigns. Sony did a very clever graffiti campaign but these are mainly for building awareness, and getting people talking rather than collecting contact info etc.
* Games. Buy putting a great game on your site, it can bring thousands upon thousands of visitors dying to have a go of this game everyone is talking about- imagine how many emails you could collect if before the game loaded, they had to submit their email address?...

The main point about viral marketing is to be different. Get people talking. Shock people. Just get noticed. Many viral marketing campaigns, if unique and different enough can lead to plenty of the more traditional forms of advertising- local papers, radio stations etc.

So just get out there and start spreading some viruses about your band or business, and just get noticed.

Learn more about this author, Rob Nightingale.
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