Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing – Generating Online Revenue

Submitted By: Larry McCullough

The growing importance of the internet as a channel of distribution as well as an inherent part of the brand equity of a commercial enterprise has led to some new factors of importance. One such is Viral Marketing.

What is viral marketing?

Viral marketing essentially uses the mechanism of ‘word of mouth’. Here the marketing message is passed along by people. The message self propagates as people send emails to others. It replicates and spreads easily.

Today individuals as well as companies specialize in the field of generating online revenue by employing viral marketing, much in the same manner as any other commodity. The forces driving the plan for launching a viral marketing campaign and the strategies adopted by individuals and companies in this market are similar to those of traditional markets.

The trendsetter in viral marketing was the classic case of http://Hotmail.com. They offered people free email addresses and services and simply added a text at the bottom of every email message: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com". So as each member sends a message to another non-member the message to subscribe to Hotmail gets propagated instantaneously without any effort from Hotmail. Hotmail got millions of subscribers within months of launching it using viral marketing effectively.

What makes viral marketing work?

The keyword is ‘free’. Free email, free products to test, free services, free uploading of photographs, free buttons, free smileys – we see that in our mail and we tend to try it out. So keep it free and keep it spreading – the mantra for viral marketing.

Keep your viral marketing message short and succinct. Use the internet platform to your best use to propagate the message.

Use common motivations to influence people. What would people like? Free image uploading or free daily updates on their desktops? Imagine that you have a blog and you want to put a hit counter on the webpage. You pick up the HTML code for the counter from a website and put in on your blog. Now incidentally you will also propagate the website for the counter by having an instruction as ‘Click here to get XYZ counter.’

You can use affiliate programs and advertise your product or website in other forums and blogs and websites.

Here’s a simple example how you can apply all the above four points in order to make viral marketing of your product generate traffic and eventually revenue from your website. For example, you write an article on a topic that people wants to know more about. Then grant the readers the permission to replicate the article in their blogs or websites as it is and give you the copyright to it. Make sure that you insist your copyright statement is published along with the article. Within a short period of time, your name and article will be appearing in so many websites that you will soon start the benefit reaping the benefit of viral marketing. No extra effort, no financial investment, no lobbying – your name spread through simple ‘word of mouth’.

Source From : http://www.isnare.com/?aid=271203&ca=Marketing

Work at home parent

A work at home parent is an entrepreneur who works from home and integrates parenting into his or her business activities. They are sometimes referred as WAHM (work at home mom) or WAHD (work at home dad).

Entrepreneurs choose to run businesses from home for a variety of reasons, including lower business expenses, personal health limitations, eliminating commuting or in order to have a more flexible schedule. This flexibility can give an entrepreneur more options when planning tasks, business and non-business, including parenting duties. While some home-based entrepreneurs opt for childcare outside the home, others integrate child rearing into their work day and workspace. The latter are considered work-at-home parents.

Many WAHPs start home-based businesses in order to care for their children while still creating income. The desire to care for one's own children, the incompatibility of a 9-to-5 work day with school hours or sick days, and the expense of childcare prompt many parents to change or leave their job in the workforce in order to be available to their children. Many WAHPs build a business schedule that can be integrated with their parenting duties.

Integrating Business and Parenting

An integration of parenting and business can take place in one or more of four key ways: combined uses of time, combined uses of space, normalizing children in business, and flexibility.

Combining uses of time involves some level of multitasking, such as taking children on business errands, and the organized scheduling of business activities during child’s down times and vice-versa. The WAHP combines uses of space by creating a home (or mobile) office that accommodates the child's presence.

Normalizing acknowledges the child’s presence in the business environment. This can include letting key business partners know that parenting is a priority, establishing routines and rules for children in the office, and even having children help with business when appropriate.

Lastly, the WAHP can utilize the inherent flexibility of the work at home arrangement. This may mean working in smaller increments of time instead of long stretches, looser scheduling of day’s activities to allow for the unexpected, and working at non-traditional times.

A business that demands 9-to-5 business hours, a polished office, intense one-on-one time with clients, dangerous materials, or impromptu appointments may not work well for a parent with children at home. Thus, not all professions lend themselves to work at home parenting. Without good organization, the WAHP may experience decreased productivity due to added responsibilities and unexpected interruptions. However, businesses that lend themselves particularly well to working from home businesses are internet businesses or 'virtual assistants'.

The Center for Women's Business Research, a nonprofit organization, found that Generation X mothers are the most likely to work from home. The center also reports that between 1997 to 2004, employment at female-owned companies grew by 24.2%, more than twice the rate of the 11.6% logged by all businesses.

Types of businesses that WAHP may engage in include telecommuting for corporations, running home party businesses, and managing complete companies from home ^[1] and providing valuable business and marketing support.

source from wikipedia.org