The Power of Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is a phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. This type of promotion, also known as word-of-mouth advertising, has been deemed the most effective way of marketing.

According to Blake Rohrbacher - a writer for The ClickZ Network, a client will eventually tell at least 12 other people about their good or bad experience with your company.

This translates into two things for you:

1) Take care of your customers - The last thing you need is for one of your customers to be bad-mouthing your company to other people. 12 people is quite a bit, so be sure to keep your customers happy. Happy customers will say good things about you, and will encourage others to utilize your services.

2) Invest more into viral marketing - Now that you know the power of viral marketing, perhaps you can invest more time and money into it. Give your customers something to talk about, and encourage them to share their experience with their friends and family.

If you have a local business, get your business listed on Yelp.com and encourage your customers to submit online reviews for others to see.

Local businesses with storefronts should also give their customers coupons and/or referral materials to pass along to the people they know.

In addition, don't ignore the power of viral marketing on the Internet. Take advantage of social networks like YouTube.com, MySpace.com, Linkedin.com, BlackPlanet.com, and HBCUconnect.com. These web sites are extremely "viral", and if you're a part of them - your brand will be heavily exposed.

If possible, reward your customers for sending you new clients. This can easily turn the typical 12 referrals into 30 or 40.