MAY 18, ISSUE #1240 | Article Categories | • Advertising • Blogs & Podcasts • Business • Ecommerce • Google • Linking Strategies • Marketing • RSS • SE Optimization • SE Positioning • SE Submission • SE Tactics • Security • Technology • Video Marketing • Web 2.0 • Web Design • Webmasters • Website Promotion • Website Traffic • Writing | Web Search | • Add a Site • Rapid Paid Inclusion • Low Cost Search Engine Ads • Search 85,000 News Sources | Blog Search | • Add a Blog • Search 30,800+ Blogs • Grab a Blog RSS Feed • Grab a Blog Content Feed | Tools & Services | | Webmaster Tools | • Web Page Analyzer • Meta Tag Generator • Keyword Popularity Tool • Link Popularity Checker • Search Engine Submitter • Internet Tools Directory • Site Resource Directory | Traffic Exchanges | Get Free Visitors to Your Site with these Outstanding Services: TrafficZap TrafficSwarm | Site of the Day | Zannel.com is a micro-blogging service with multi-media. You can talk about what's happening now, using text, pictures and videos. Does your web site qualify as a SPN Site of the Day? Webmaster resource sites can apply via email: sotd@sitepronews.com | App of the Day | Easy Text To HTML Converter (260 KB) provides fast, easy conversion of text files (.txt, .rtf formats) and text blocks pasted from clipboard to HTML or XHTML formats. Freeware for Windows 98 or higher. If you have a Webmaster App that you would like listed on the SPN site, send us an email with details to: wapps@sitepronews.com | SPN Partners | Hostway - Trust your Web site to the global leader! More than 2 million customers already enjoy our innovative Web hosting and ecommerce solutions. SubmitPlus - Post your site to 110 search engines... Gratis. Template Monster - The Web's number one website templates are available for immediate download. Online Site Builder - Providing high end web design, site management & digital media tools Web-Source - Your Guide to Professional Web Site Design & Development. TechNewsletters.com - A directory of IT newsletters with ratings & descriptions. NewWebDirectory - A new internet web directory of professionally reviewed web sites providing both freebie and paid site submission. FreeWebMonitoring - Monitor your web site's availability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with email alerts and weekly web site statistics. DropJack.com - A new social content website similar to Digg. Submit original content or articles and news items that you believe are newsworthy. SmartWebGadgets.com - Useful gadgets and widgets for your blog or website. Enhance any web page with just 2 lines of code. Top 10 Exposure - Forget PPC. Get Google-Type ads for $3 - $4 per month and top 10 exposure across 100's of search engines & web directories. Rapid Paid Inclusion - Add Your URL to 40+ Search Engines. Fast Inclusion, Recrawls and Backlinks. Get a Featured Article Position on GoArticles - Put your article at the top of any GoArticles.com category or sub-category for greater exposure and better rankings. | | | Multiply Your Marketing Like a Virus By Michel Fortin (c) 2009 | In today's Internet, conversations are cropping up all over the place. People are talking. They are talking about products. They are talking about businesses. And they are certainly talking about their experiences.
When you look at how blogs, forums and social networking sites have exploded in the last few years, you can see how powerful word-of-mouth is. But the question is, is it all really important? Can it really help your business?
Yes.
And I'm not talking about traffic. And you don't need to be controversial, either. I'm talking creating systems to leverage, manage and profit from the "buzz."
Word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful lead and business generation processes there is. Online, some people call it "word-of-mouse." But we know it more as viral marketing. | Viral marketing is the process of implementing means or tools through which the knowledge of your existence self- propagates. Like a virus, your visibility spreads throughout a network of people who refer you to each other.
Notwithstanding the power of backlinking, traffic and SEO, viral marketing is key for a number of reasons. Success in the offline world is "location, location, location." The Internet is no different. Your success depends highly on the number of locations you appear online - places on which your site, link, company or product name exist.
In essence, to expand your reach, you need to be in as many places as possible, talked about by as many people as possible and be in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
With viral marketing, there are three ways of doing it:
Create content Create applications Create systems
The first is self-explanatory. Your content may be controversial or buzzworthy. It may create raging fans - or enraged enemies.
The second is simple: you create an application whether it's a video, audio, file, software, document, etc - that people can pass around, and thus proliferates the knowledge of your existence on the web through other people's efforts.
I might write about these two at a later time. But for now, the one on which I want to focus is the third: creating a system.
Before I give you some examples, let me explain why word-of- mouth works wonders. Those who get to know you or to know about you through a third party grant you a higher level of confidence, credibility and loyalty. According to Dr. Robert Cialdini in his amazíng book, "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion," this is social proof in action.
Remember a dictum a mentor of mine once told me, which is: "Implication is far more powerful than specification." In other words, if you tell people you're the best, that you're the leader in your field, or that your product is the best solution to their needs, your self-serving promotional bias makes it all suspect. |
However, if someone other than you - whether it's on a blog, in an email, on a social networking site or in person - says to another that you are indeed the best or that you do have the best solution to their problems, how much more believable will that person's statement be? How much more credible and trustworthy?
The answer is "definitely more."
Accordingly, word-of-mouth is not only important because it creates an awareness of your business (let alone traffic), but also it is important to the degree to which third party marketing indirectly communicates greater credibility, superiority and value of the products or services you provide.
In his book "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding," Al Ries stresses the importance of leadership and how that leadership is communicated.
According to Ries, people don't buy the best - they only think they do. They usually buy the leader (or what they perceive as being the best). And that perception is often molded by what they are told and by what others do, not by what is fact or by what is being advertised.
Coke, for example, outsells Pepsi. But according to Ries, taste tests reveal that Pepsi is the better tasting brand. So, why does Coke still beat Pepsi in sales? It is not because it is the leader in the marketplace or promoted itself as such but because it is known as the leader. And the reason it is known as the leader is because Coke was the first cola "in the mind" of the marketplace.
It is the one most talked about, even to this day. When a person is introduced to cola for the first time, they are often told to try Coke. Restaurant patrons still ask for "coke," even when Pepsi is the only cola served. Why is that? While other colas are bombarding them with marketing messages, people have heard of Coke first, and most likely from other people. | Consequently, if people hear about you from other people, and not some advertisement or pitch, this social proof will create not only a certain buzzworthiness about you but also an almost instant trustworthiness.
How do you do that? The most significant method is to be the first. If your business or website is unique, focuses on a niche or is the first in some category, the knowledge of your existence will spread quite naturally, almost like wildfire. It becomes viral in and of itself, in other words.
Now, I'm not saying you need to be new. I'm only saying you need to be unique. Or better yet, you need to be the first. Whether it's catering an existing product to a new niche, or adding a new twist to an existing product, you become the first.
I said it before: don't be the best, be the first. But more important, as Ries pointed out, "Don't be the first in the marketplace, be the first in the MIND of the marketplace."
That said, there are ways to use systems that will leverage the spreading of that message, on the other hand, which helps to multiply your marketing punch. Such systems both simulate and stimulate word-of-mouth advertising.
Networking systems, for example, include strategic marketing alliances, joint ventures, and affiliate programs. And unlike the more traditional traffic generators such as ads and search engines, these specific tools are much more effective since they are used by third parties and not by the original advertiser. About The Author Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, marketing strategy consultant, and instrumental in some of the most lucrative online businesses and wildly successful marketing campaigns to ever hit the web. For more articles like this one, please visit his blog at www.michelfortin.com and subscribe to his RSS feed. Printer Friendly Version of this Article
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