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Viral Marketing

You've seen it a hundred times. Maybe you've even heard it mentioned a hundred times. But, what exactly is viral marketing? The answer is simple: advertising and/or marketing techniques that "spread" like a virus by getting passed on from consumer to consumer and market to market. The concept can best be illustrated with a few examples. HotMail (pre- and post-Microsoft) and Yahoo! both use viral marketing techniques such as adding a tagline and link at the bottom of every HotMail and Yahoo! email users' message. The entire Geocities network of member sites is a case study in viral marketing. Many Geocities members build personal websites for themselves and encourage others to visit. Not only do these sites have the company name in the URL, but there is a company link on every page. As the name implies, viral marketing techniques have the potential to start very small and grow to enormous proportions. What has made such techniques popular for many Web companies is that effective viral marketing programs can be created and launched with less money, time, and effort than traditional promotion programs. Viral marketing has also been an effective online marketing technique because of the speed and efficiency of Internet communication.

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Viral Marketing

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