What's Gilbert Doing? - An Example Of Viral Marketing

Some people have heard of Viral Marketing and some may shrug their shoulders and say "What's That?". Well viral online campaigns have been around for quite sometime and have probably been a feature of your day-to-day online lives since you've been using email.

The concept of viral marketing can be as simple as a humorous joke to sophisticated fully function loaded online solutions like Facebook(tm). A person receives an email, they find it interesting, and then they send it to friends, relatives and working colleagues and associates.

OK, so now some of you say, don't they always have that bad ending that says "And if you don't send this to 10 of your friends within 30 seconds the sun will collide with the moon and ..."? Well some of them do, but its not our recommended approach.

The Purpose

Reach is the fundamental goal of viral campaigns. You have a network of clients, suppliers, associates, prospects and friends/relatives but this can only stretch so far. You need to reach bigger audiences so that you can grow your prospective client base with an ultimate goal of converting more prospects to new business.

What are the rules?

There aren't any fixed fast rules but some key points to bear in mind are:

• Keep it clean
• Make it interesting either visually or intellectually
• Fully brand it
• Make it easy for viewers to send it to others

Commercial Email

Nowadays so called SPAM is plaguing the Inbox. Some of the people that have visited this page may consider it SPAM, but is it? Our feeling and that of over 80% of the email user community don't feel that way.

The difference between SPAM and Commercial Email Marketing is one of relevance. The reason you would have received an email from us is because we have either had dealings with you previously or perhaps you have just been part of a business network which we have been developing over the last 7 years.

SPAM is a broadcast of rubbish to as many email addresses as possible. SPAM is not often relevant to the people who receive it and it follows the old adage "If you throw enough ...". So does commercial email work? The answer has to be yes! The cost is low compared to snail mail and other advertising mediums, its instant and can be fully tracked and accounted for, so it does absolutely work.

Transmission Of Campaigns

The secondary problem with SPAM is that of SPAM filters. These try to block unwanted email before they arrive in the Inbox and this is where some badly managed email campaigns fall over.

It's vital that your content is delivered and read. In order to do this you must ensure that the content is constructed correctly, that the distribution is done in accordance with email broadcast protocols adopted by large Internet Service Providers and that you manage opt-ins and more importantly opt-outs correctly.

In order to do this you should choose a provider that is geared towards maximum delivery, to find out more about our email transmission services please visit our Email Marketing page.