Marketing Campaigns – Testing Your Variables

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Irrespective of the medium, an online advertising campaign needs to be tested and optimized constantly in order to provide you with the optimum results. This is where advertising testing can play an important role in your marketing strategy. Despite the advantages to testing your online marketing campaigns, relatively few companies actually go out of their way to see what what works, what doesn’t and, more importantly, why.

Steps To Testing Your Ad Campaign.

1) Set expectations as to how you envisage your campaign to perform. This in itself will guide you’re optimization methods. An example of this is, if you expect your ad medium to get a 15% click thru rate or a, 10% conversion rate, you have justification in making adjustments to your campaign if the creative you are using does not perform to your level of expectation.

2) Don’t get tied into a campaign, If you are going to be purchasing an advertising campaign on a resource site, ensure you have an ‘out clause’. This out clause will enable you to terminate the campaign as long as it has run for a set amount of time, usually, many resources will be happy to give you an out clause especially, if after testing your marketing materials, the results you were hoping for have still not shown themselves.

3) Consider the variables in your ad campaign, usually, webmasters only think of the one variable in their advertising campaign – Price. However, there are many more variables to be looked at for example, if you are doing a mail drop, the subject line of the email, format and, copy text of the email body itself, all of these things can have a drastic effect on any given advertising campaign, at any given time and often, these can, and most probably will, fluctuate from site to site where you are purchasing ad space.

4) Stats tracking, tracking your campaign makes it easier to test and review how your advertising medium is working for you, many sites offer live stats for your ad campaigns however, some still do not, where this isn’t a problem in itself as, most companies you choose to advertise with will be more than happy to provide you with statistics as and when you need them after all, you are paying for their services and support.

5) Pull the plug on campaigns that are not performing, however, ensure you have changed your creative several times before doing so, often, you will find a simple change such as a new creative can drastically increase your marketing efforts. Also, do not just pull advertising as you feel like it, if your campaign has only been active for a week, don’t expect hundred / thousands of hits instantly, often it takes webmasters a while to realize there are new ad mediums running on the sites they visit so often.

Online Advertising – Review.

By constantly assessing and testing your advertising campaigns you can pull some interesting figures which can help you long term however, don’t rush into pulling campaigns that you have only just started. Give it a few days, change your copy text and creatives and, if that doesn’t work talk to the company, they will be able to offer you advice and help on improving your sales from your advertising medium after all, they want to keep your business.

Article written by Lee

Mirroring Adult Sites – Stage Three

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Promotion, Tutorials | Response: 0

So we hit stage three of our tutorial in this stage we are going to make some pages for our top 5 AVS systems. However, as we did in the last tutorial with the new TGP galleries we created we are going to use the same content and same pages that we have already built. On with the tutorial…

Anyone who build AVS sites will know that you need to have a standard site layout. This usually consists of an entry page (or a warning page), a navigational page (or in our case our menu.html page) and some gallery pages.

So the first thing we need to do is open up the warning page. Once this page has been opened we now need to do some editing of the page, what I would suggest is moving the warning text to the lower half of the page and at the top making some ‘juicy’ sales text, depending on the niche you are targeting with this site you may also like to add a couple of the original thumbnail images at the VERY top of your page however, these should NOT be linked to the full size image.

Once you have edited your page to a reasonable standard for the AVS you now need to save this page in the /FreeSite/AVS/ folder that you originally created on your HD. I would suggest saving the page as something like avs1.html or the name of the AVS you will be using this page for.

Once you have done this you now need to duplicate this page but save it as a different name in again, in the /FreeSite/AVS/ folder so you will end up with avs1.html, avs2.html, etc.

At the moment these AVS pages have no AVS script on them so, we need to visit the AVS system we are going to be using and fill out the details to have the AVS generate an AVS signup page script for us. Once we have the coding that the AVS provides we now have to place this on our avs1.html page. You should repeat this for each of the AVS’s you wish to use and save each instance of the generated AVS script to a separate AVS*.html page.

be aware, that when you are putting your information into the AVS to generate the script, you should enter the ‘members area url’ as the page we created for our navigation so, the AVS script location will be /FreeSite/AVS/avs1.html and, the members area page will be, /FreeSite/Menu/menu.html.

Once you have placed the script on our avs.html pages you should now have the following sites ready:

1) 50 Pic Free Site With Pics On HTML Pages.
2) 5 TGP Galleries With Pics On HTML Pages.
3) 5 AVS Entry Pages.

Now we are starting to see how using one set of content can amount to a mass of sites all of which can be sending traffic to our sponsors and, to our surfer trap.

This is where stage three of our tutorial ends however, in our next tutorial we will continue to make some more sites and in an effort to get some traffic we start to play with the ones we have currently created.

Article written by Lee

Doorway Pages

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Traffic, WebDesign | Response: 0

A doorway page is built to rank high for a particular keyword or search phrase. When your doorway page is visited by the searcher it simply has a “click me” button which links to your web site. The major search engines accept these pages as long as the end result does provide what the searcher is looking for. If you are discovered to be using doorway pages for irrelevant keywords you can expect to have your entire domain unlisted. For instance, one of our doorway pages is built to rank high for the search term -Adult Content—which is quite acceptable because when the searcher gets here he can find links to adult content providers from our site. If however, he couldn’t find links to adult content then we would risk the wrath of the all powerful search engines.

Once you have selected your keywords and phrases (about 50 would be the normal) you need to build a doorway page for each keyword and ideally, for each major search engine. All the major engines look for different keyword density in the text, title and description so you need to do some research by doing a search using your chosen phrase or keyword and studying the top 10 results at each engine (if you can spot them, study high ranking doorway pages).

Make notes of how many times the phrase or keyword is used in the title, description and body text. Is it used in header text etc? Once you have built a picture of what your doorway page should look like you can build it using your favorite html editor. Once you have done one for a particular engine the other 50 or so pages can be done by simply replacing keywords for keywords. After you have done a page for each keyword move on to the next search engine. Remember that your body text is not important but make each page unique or it may be considered spamming. It is your keyword or phrase density that you are attempting to get right. The page, when visited by a person, will be recognized for what it is, simply a link to the real content so don’t worry too much about what it looks like. When a search engine spider visits the page it is only interested in counting the keyword density in your body text.

As you have probably worked out there is quite a lot of work involved. 50 phrases or keywords=50 pages X the top 8 search engines= 400 pages. In reality though, you are only creating 8 doorways, 1 page for each search engine. For all the other pages you simply have to substitute the keyword for the next and alter the text around so as not to finish with 50 identical pages. OK, nearly finished but the next step is crucial if your doorways are to work.

Put all your pages in a folder on your server e.g. Mydomain/doorways/. Then create 2 more pages that have a link and a small description to each of your doorways (200 on each) and to each other. These are called corridor pages because the spider travels down them, visiting each page linked off them. Call these 2 pages index and home and place them in the folder with your doorway pages. Then place links to these two pages from your main index page so that a spider will be able to find them and list all your doorways. Submit only your index page and your 2 corridor pages. Do not submit your doorways to the engines.

Ideally, and if you can afford it, you should set up a new domain and host for your doorways. This isn’t essential but it does have benefits. These are: If you do get over zealous with your doorways and an engine does ban you for spamdexing at least your real site will be safe. Engines rank sites higher if they have lots of links to them from other domains. You can put your most important keywords in your new domain name, which will increase the ranking of the doorway pages containing those keywords.

Now all you have to do is wait for the engines to update their databases. We have had the best results with Google.

Article written by Lee

Protecting The Kids – Europe’s Role

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: 2257 | Response: 0

As adult webmasters we have certain obligations we must fulfill daily whether these be, legal or moral.

One issue that is constantly cropping up in our industry is that of minors (Children) accessing adult websites and, more importantly, the ease of which they can do.

Recent figures released by one of Europe’s top internet analysis companies show that children in Europe and, specifically within the United Kingdom are more likely to visit a website and that, ‘showing that around one in five Internet kids (290,000) check out the sex sites’.

These figures are certainly alarming to say the least, bearing in mind they are specifically talking about the United Kingdom, that leaves a vast majority of Europe, as yet, un-analyzed.

We should all adapt to new methods in order to protect minors from accessing our site whether that includes placing your sites behind AVS systems which, in my opinion is one of the best ways and, most profitable of protecting minors or, utilizing ‘web safe’ software packages that are available to block access to adult sites completely we all need to adopt these practices.

The fact of the matter remains that, in this day and age, no matter what precautions we take in order to prevent access there will, undoubtedly, be a majority of children who can and will, get access to adult sites.

Does that mean we should compromise on the quality of our sites? No
Does that mean we need to think harder about how we develop our sites? Yes

It takes very little effort to subscribe to the services to block access and, you can get a single line of code to place within your html from ICRA which will at least, deter underage surfers from accessing your sites.

In addition to the above mentioned service, you can also place a link on your warning page/s to the following services for parents to block access from children to our sites, SAFESURF, CYBERPATROL, NETNANNY and, SURFWATCH amongst others. Its not just about utilizing software and ratings on our sites though, we can go much further than that and, for instance, using nothing but softcore content on our sites will protect to some extent the materials available to children but, in addition you will also notice your conversion ratios will go up! I have and, I’m sure you have, heard it time and time again.. Make them ‘Pay for pink’ and, by using softcore images on your sites that’s exactly what you are doing.

I for one certainly hope that you take heed at this article, protecting our children is paramount if, we are to succeed in the business, it is getting harder and harder to control who accesses our site but, we can at least take a step in the right direction.

Article written by Lee

How To Choose A Legal Content Provider

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Content | Response: 0

How To Choose A Legal Content Provider.

If you spend anytime in this business no matter in what capacity, you are going to hear about how important using legal content is. Legal content is content that you have specific permission or license to use on your sites. Permission can come from your sponsor who offers you free content to promote their site, as long as certain criteria is followed. It can come from the producer of the images if he/she is a friend of yours, though I would still advise you obtain a license from them anyway. And the third way of course is to purchase content from one of the myriad of content providers out there. It is the third way I am going to discuss in this article.

Being the intelligent Webmaster you are, you have decided to purchase some legal, fresh content for your sites. Makes no difference what type of site(s) you run, free sites, TGP’s, pay sites etc. fresh, unique content is always a plus. So you begin your search for the content you are in need of. You are going to find that in most all cases you are going to find a LOT of content providers that offer what you are after. You can go to any resource board and get a list of providers that covers page after page, some more detailed in information than others. Some names you will have heard of before and some you will have never heard of, so how do you choose? Here are some of the basic questions you should ask yourself:

Do they carry the type of content I need. Seems simple enough, but if you are looking for Asian lesbian images, no sense wasting your time on a provider that specializes in Gay content. The provider’s site should be laid out that you can easily assess what they offer with the first 2 pages of their site.

What am I using the content for? This becomes very important when selecting what image packages you buy. If you are going to use the content for free sites or TGP’s where the main goal is to get them off your site and on to your sponsor, then quality is not going to be as important as price. If you plan to utilize them in a pay situation, such as AVS or members site, quality should be your first consideration.

What price am I willing to pay? By knowing what you are using the images for, you have a fair idea of what they are worth to you. Do not be fooled into thinking that buying a MEGA disc for .10 an image is a killer deal. It could be, but if the image CD only contains 100 images that you can utilize and the rest are trash, what is the point? Much better to pay a higher price per image to get exactly the kind and quality you want. Shop around of course; per image prices can vary greatly per provider.

How do I know these guys are legit? Excellent question! J More than ever these days you cannot swing a cat and not hit 100 content providers. Every college guy and his brother with a digital camera and a girlfriend think they can make a quick buck in the Adult market. I could very easily list over a dozen so called content providers right now, that have come on with incredible deals only to be gone in less than 3 months. Then the Webmaster finds out the license he has for the images are not worth the paper they printed them on. This is one of the easiest areas for a Webmaster to get ripped off in. So what to do? Research my friends, research!

a. Ask the provider for copies of the 2257’s they are required by law to have on premises. Any reputable provider will supply these to you; many include them with the license even if you don’t ask for them. Any provider that bulks at doing so upon request should be taken off your shopping list.

b. Read over the license agreement very carefully, before you buy. Not every license is the same, some allow you a certain percent of images for promotional use, such as creating banners etc. some prohibit it. How many sites and domains you can use the images on vary, as does the price they charge to add or transfer a domain or license. Remember the license is a legal document and should be treated as such.

c. Ask around! Reputation is so very important in this business and the good providers know it. Don’t be shy about asking the provider directly for references, emailing fellow Webmaster’s and even posting for comments on the boards. Make sure you get a good cross span of answers from all sources, so you can quickly weed out anyone that is deliberately trying to make a provider look bad. This could be their competition or a Webmaster that tried to use the content illegally and got busted. So make sure you ask people your respect and trust. Find out not only about how they’re prices stack up, but also about their customer service after the deal is done. And NEVER assume just because a provider is listed on your favorite resource board that they are legit. Though most resources will try and screen people they list, there is no guarantee. There is no substitute for researching it for yourself.

Following these simple guidelines will save you a lot of grief in the long run. It may take a day or two for you to get the feedback you need, but it could save you from taking down hundreds of galleries later on. Or worse, paying for a product you never receive. And trust me, that happens.

Article written by Bestat.

http://www.exclusivecontent.com.

Using Email Auto Responders To Build Traffic And Sales

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Opt-in Mail | Response: 0

Auto responder programs are just that, they are set up to respond automatically with a pre determined email when a blank email is sent to a specific email address.

For example, have you ever seen something along the lines of:

‘For A Free Guide To ** Whatever** send a blank email to somename@somedomain.com’

The email address in that address belongs to an auto responder script and when someone sends an email to the script, they receive a pre written email back within seconds that has information pertaining to a specific topic or selection of topics.

Basically, autoresponder programs are email on demand scripts which makes any information you want available to your surfers 24/7 and, furthermore, not only can they drastically increase your traffic but, they WILL also benefit your sales income.

Email Auto Responders are extremely important tools when you need to automate your marketing. You can easily manage in excess of 10k email requests on a daily basis without ANY effort on your part at all.

Auto responders are used primarily for three main purposes these are:

Sales Letters.

Suppose you post to a selection of forums and newsgroups on a daily basis, you could offer free information about a specific topic and, in the same email, you can also promote your site and, better still, you didn’t have to do a thing.

Customer Support.

The use of auto responders for customer support is beneficial to sites that have a lot of queries from its visitors, autoresponders allow you to set up predefined answers to the most likely questions and, this can cut your service requirements by upto 50% in some cases. For example, most hosts will have some form of autoresponder set up to answer your basic questions or tell you about a support issue you have mailed them about even if its just to let you know that your email arrived and has been placed in the queue for completion. This saves the host a lot of time enabling them to work on things that actually need to be done and not spend countless hours each day sending emails to hundreds / thousands of webmasters on a personal basis.

Email Gathering.

This is by far the best feature of an autoresponder, everyone who sends you an email to the auto respond address will have their email address stored in a database, which, in turn, will enable you to follow up with the interest they have in your site and, some auto responders can even be configured to send out emails on a weekly basis to the email addresses in this database from again, pre determined messages that you have already set up.

Autoresponders are truly amazing programs, not only will they enable you to be more productive with your time but, they will assist you in helping your site visitors and, furthermore should increase both your sites traffic and sales figures.

Article written by Lee

Marketing to European Surfers

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Marketing to European Surfers.

Today we’ll try to answer couple of questions regarding dialers and how to market them to European traffic.

How to get traffic to your European market targeted site?

Pretty much the same way as for all the other sites, lets German market for example (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) use SE’s, German link-lists, TGPs,… feed site with your own traffic, and don’t forget to use exit-consoles.

Is your site translated into specific language?

Yes, of course you won’t get far using English template on German/Spanish.. sites… You can always contact Adult Site Translation if you need help with translations.

What sponsor should you use?

That is pretty hard to say. Practically since almost every European based sponsor offers dialers so it doesn’t really matter which one you choose. It’s the same with per sign-up sponsors: It depends how good you are in sending traffic to them. And as always try couple of them and see which one works best for you. Most of the sponsors will offer to your surfers to pay by CC, bank account and dialers.

Me personally, I don’t really advertise dialers. I go for sign-ups because most if not all European sponsors are recurring and it brings more money in the long run. But if a surfer wants to pay the (admittedly) high phone bills – that’s fine with me In fact, sometimes I get more money from a 0190-number (dialer number in Germany starts with 0190) than I’d get if the surfer would sign-up with his CC and would cancel his membership after the first payment.

Why are dialers so successful in the German/European market?
Well, I can think of 3 reasons for this:

1.) 0190-numbers are very common in Germany. Many support-hotlines use them, you can download logos for your cell phone via 0190, you can get health-tips via 0190, fax-numbers, etc… Germans see those numbers everywhere and get used to them. Of course they know that they are expensive but I think they tend to forget this because they are so common.

2.) Much of my income from dialers is from Swiss and Austrian people. Especially surfers from Switzerland LOVE dialers (Some of them spend hours/nights with dialers and in the end if i get 50% of that for me is not bad, isn’t it? I think they love dialers because they hesitate to give out the information on their CC (if they have any) and they can’t/don’t like to transfer their money via bank transfers. So dialers are actually their only way to get into the members-area.

3.) Credit cards are not very common in Germany. I would guess only some 30% have one and many who have one don’t believe that CC transactions on the internet are secure. So most of the surfers have only 2 options left: Paying by bank account or using a dialer. The bank account has 2 disadvantages in the eyes of the surfers: 1st “The sponsor knows my name, my account number, where I live and that I’m a greasy little wanker who pays for porn. -Maybe this sponsor is going to tell my neighbors about it-” 2nd “How can I explain this to my wife?” On the other hand the dialer has advantages: 1st It is anonymous. Nobody knows who and where the surfer is. 2nd The dialer is faster than typing all the necessary information needed for a bank transaction. A few seconds for a 35kb download and the surfer is ready to go. 3rd You can always find a reason why there’s this 0190-number on the phone-bill. “Well darling, you know, I had problems with my new graphic card and I had to contact the customer-support. Those damn bastards are on a 0190-number what what can I do?”

Article written by Lee

Whats A Twink

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

I think you would be surprised at the number of times I have been asked, “What’s a Twink?” Or my, personal, favorite “So how do two men have sex?”

If you know me, you know I am never really bothered by questions – I never mind people’s candor. What does bother me, though, is the bulk of the people who ask are trying to work the gay market. Unsuccessfully, I might add.

So, let’s expand our webmaster knowledge. Don’t worry, I am not about to explain how two men have sex (that I will save for my story site LOL)

I have decided, however, to give you a Gay Glossary of sorts. There are many terms that can be included here. But, I thought to start off, we will hit the basics and add to it as time goes on. Keep an eye for future articles and additions on Gay Wide Webmasters.

Here is a list of the most common terms on the Gay Adult ‘net:

• Twink – A buff and lean young man; a 20 something. Age and leanness make the guy a twink. The best example is your typical bar room stripper.
• Teen – This is the same thing as in EVERY market, hot young and under twenty – but LEGAL at 18.
• Hunk/Stud – Beautiful, built and beefcake. The guys commonly posing for calendars and such.
• Chubs (or chubby) – Just what it sounds like, a larger man. Not just muscular weight, most often heavy set.
• Bears – This is a HAIRY man. Not a young guy, most often over thirty, sometimes with a husky build (but not always). You will probably see this niche sold as “Real Men”.
• Cub – This is a YOUNG hairy guy. Sort of a HAIRY TWINK…
• Daddies – Daddies are men over thirty, who like younger guys. (Just a side note here to clear up some misconceptions, not all gay men want to do young guys!)
• Sons – the young male counterparts to Daddies. The young of the two can be a twink, cub or teen – makes no difference. This term is based on the visual couple. For our non-gay friends think of this as an example: the businessman who goes away for the weekend with his NEICE. See the comparison? LOL
• Transvestite – is a man who dresses as a woman. Whether it is simple underwear or all our female attire. A lot of webmasters confuse this with Transsexual.
• Transsexual – is a person who has decided to make the complete change and have a sex change.
• Trans Gender – this is a more general term for people who live life as the opposite sex. They are in the process of, or have completed, a sex change.

So know go have some fun. Try to classify your friends and lovers in these terms! I enjoy it when a webmistress comes up to me and says, “I heard your interview and I think my husband is a bear. But he’s a little twink-ish. What do you think?” This just makes my day! I have to laugh at the look on their husband’s face when they think I’m going to ask to examine them or something. “Turn you head and cough – OH! You’re a Twink…”

Along with what works, I have to offer some terms that DO NOT work. If used incorrectly or out of context, then your attempt at marketing to gay men can be dreadful.

• Faggot – I hate this word, personally. This is a word that is as derogatory to the Gay Community as other words are to a race.
• Nancy boy – a typically non-US term that basically is used as a derogatory manner.
• Lil Boys – a derogatory term used primarily in the Southern and Mid-Western US. It’s derived from the negative connotation that gay men are pedophiles.
• Gay Owned and Operated. Allow me to be blunt – If it is not true, do not say it. This is probably the most OVER used phrase in the gay adult market. So much so, it is relatively meaningless today.

We all need to remember from time to time, the key to success in any business is knowledge. Whether you are up selling to a sponsor or designing sites, knowing some of the more common terminology in the gay community can only help your ventures in the gay adult market. And remember, do not be afraid to try and NEVER be afraid to ask.

As always, good luck!

Article written by Gary-Alan

Fighting Back Against Computer Viruses

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

Only 10 years ago, the only way that a virus could have infected your computer was through you physically putting a floppy disk into your hard drive and running the program file that initiated the virus however, today’s viruses have become more complex in how they operate and, can spread like wild fire if they are not recognized as a virus doing damage not only to your computer but that of your associates and peers.

So how do we minimize the risk of virus infection on our computers which, lets face it, for the Adult Webmaster are our livelihood and, need to be protected at all cost. This is what we will take a brief look at in this article, how to minimize the risk of getting a computer virus and, heaven forbid, how to deal with a virus if you actually have one on your machine already.

Computer Viruses – A Little History.

1981 – The first widely accepted computer virus is recognized. The ‘Elk Cloner’ virus was spread through floppy disks and, whilst by today’s standards, it was not a high risk virus it, non the less was still a virus, in fact, all this first virus did was to display a message on your computer screen.

1991 – The ‘Tequila’ virus was the first recognized ‘polymorphic virus’ meaning, it was the first virus which actually altered its state once on your machine in order to remain undetected.

2001 – 2001 saw the spawn of several highly potent ‘worm’ orientated viruses from the ‘Gnuman’ virus, the ‘LogoLogic Worm’ and the famed (is that the right word?) ‘Nimda worm’. These ‘worms’ were the first of their kind to actually spread themselves across the World Wide Web through infecting users email clients (specifically Outlook Express) and sending itself to every email address the infected machine had in the address book.

Virus Infections – Prevention Better Than Cure.

So we now have a little background on the main viruses over the last 20 years we will take a look at the ways in which we can prevent viral infections on our computers after all, as the subtitle for this paragraph says, a prevention is far better than having to find a cure.

Here are a few simple ways you can help to prevent the spread and infection of computer viruses.

1) Install a good anti-virus software package on ALL of your computers, Norton and, Mcafee, both have some good products to aid you in preventing viral infections of your PC. Also, you should ensure the software package you do install has updated virus definitions, a new virus is created almost every week so you need to ensure your software keeps up-to-date on the latest infections.

2) Scan any and all email attachments you receive, irrespective of whether you know the sender or not, anything that you get sent in an email should be scanned, as mentioned above, there are complex viruses that can ‘send’ themselves from other peoples email address book, what happens if you are on the address book of an infected users computer? Can you afford not to be online?

3) Ensure that, once you have an Anti virus program installed on your machine that you have it setup to start each and every time that your computer boots, the first thing that should be loading on your machine is an anti-virus program, you only have one chance to prevent infection.

4) Avoid downloading .exe and .com files to your desktop unless, you know the person you are downloading the files from and, even then, before you launch or open the files ensure you scan them independently.

Virus Prevention – Overview.

Hopefully this article will have given you some insight into how you can protect both your computer and the computers of your associates and peers from computer viruses and, hopefully, by following the guidelines within this article your time spent online will be productive and virus free. One thing you should remember however is that no matter how hard we all try to remain virus free, someone will create a new program that ultimately, could infect our machines no matter how hard we try.

Article written by Lee

Viral Marketing – Catching The Marketing Bug

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Viral Marketing | Response: 0

The term viral marketing is offensive. Call yourself a viral marketer and, people will often take two steps back. I know I would do. It is a sinister thing, the simple virus is fraught with doom, not quite dead yet not fully alive, it exists in that nether region somewhere between horror movies and disaster films.

That said however, you have to admire the skills of the viral marketer. They have a way of winning by sheer weight of numbers alone. They piggy back on everyone else and use their resources to grow their own. In the right circumstances the viral marketer can grow exponentially. A virus doesn’t have to mate, it just replicates itself again and, again and, again increasing its power, doubling its effect with each replication.

I
I I
I I I I
I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I

In a few short generations, a viral marketing population can boom as seen in the diagram above.

Viral marketing defined.

What does a virus have to do with viral marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for mass growth in the messages exposure and influence.

Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to hundreds, even thousands in a relatively short period of time.

Before the advent of the internet viral marketing was often referred to as ‘word of mouth’. However, for better or for worse, the term viral marketing has infected.

One classic example of this marketing technique is Hotmail.com one of the first free web based email services. Their strategy was simple.

Give away free email addresses and services.
Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out.
Watch people email their friends, colleagues and family.
Watch these same friends colleagues and family join up to their service.
See the message propelled to an ever increasing audience, all for free.

In closing viral marketing is like watching the tiny ripples of a single pebble dropped pond, one small splash can create ever increasing circles which in turn could create ever increasing revenues.

Article Written By Lee