.: Stop Committing These 10 Common Viral Marketing Mistakes
By:Portia David
Category:Home / Internet Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
Unsuspecting computer users consider themselves to be doing favors for their friends with whom they are sending these referrals, but they are not the only ones jubilant with their discovery. They do not exactly feel it, but they are part and parcel of the mechanism which makes viral marketing promote and increase website visits like luscious pancakes.
Viral marketing is currently being used by most online business people because it works. Who would pass up the opportunity to have a website endorsed exponentially by all its users and viewers? However, not all viral marketing ploys work. Before you concoct your own viral marketing portal, here are a few basic things you need to avoid.
1. General Unhappy Perspective-- One cannot do viral marketing without having a good dose of confidence that it will actually WORK. Even if you don't communicate that directly to your marketing ploys, a disbelief for whatever you have set out to do has already started to sabotage your attempts.
2. Not-So-Viral Marketing-- You need to be very competent or at par with other websites in viral marketing. Study other existing excellent viral marketers online and see what makes them secure the top spot. Timing is essential. Your viral marketing can backfire if you do it without researching first on your target groups and executing your moves in an unproper time. Conditioning is just as essential as the actual marketing itself.
3. The WIIFM (What's in it for Me) Factor is Missing-- Most people are encouraged to refer to friends only if they have something to get out of it. Some viral marketers forget this very important thing. Giving out rewards or incentives can boost or motivate every visitor to pull more people in. Watch out for the extremes of giving too many rewards, though. It must boost and not take the limelight off the main concept.
4. Marketing without Asking-- Some websites employing viral marketing techniques forget to let the customers interact. Javascripts are useful tools.
5. Giving up the first time-- Some users tend to get irritated the first time they receive recommendations from friends. People behind viral marketing fail to anticipate this and end up giving up on what could have been a most promising buyer.
6. Too Many Details--This is a common and often commited mistake! No one would want to hang around that long just for one offer. There are other websites which would be less concise and yet drive the point home with pizzazz that yields a lasting
impression. Time is not just gold in viral marketing. It is everything. The fact that a person is surfing the Internet for
information already communicates that he or she is already trying to save time by retrieving information in the fastest
possible way. If websites offer good products but takes forever to load or for one reader to get to the bottom of the page,
it still would not be worth his time or looking effort, for that matter.
7. Hoops and Hurdles in Transactions-- Related to the mistake above is the transaction hurdle itself. Given that you have
already convinced or gotten a buying signal from a customer, if the whole process is tedious and hard to follow, it will most likely dropped by the customer. No one would want to buy or refer something which is too intricate or complicated.
8. Lack of Uniqueness and Follow-up-- Viral marketing needs to be continuous and not just a one-time big-time shot, and it
must not merely duplicate what is already available with other competitors. There must be something unique about the offer,
and at the same time, you must have a line of products prepared after the first purchase, in order to experience the
long-range effects of viral marketing.
9. Forgettable By Clicks-- Some viral marketing websites do not make use of javascripts. A user or viewer may easily be
distracted by other links within the page and click it in the middle of his or her evaluation of your offer. It may be an
affiliate website or an outside link, but it totally diverts the attention off your product and may lead him away from your
page.
10. Lack of Assurance in Privacy-- Privacy concerns are also important for every person who wants to take part in the process of viral marketing. Asking for referrals without making any assurance that the personal information to be given will be kept confidential and not forwarded to other websites makes a person think twice before typing up those email addresses.
After learning the abovementioned viral marketing boo-boos it will be definitely easier to work out your viral marketing campaigns.
Note: This article may be freely reproduced as long as the AUTHOR'S resource box at the bottom of this article is included and all links must be Active/Linkable with no syntax changes.
Article keywords: viral marketing, techniques, common mistakes
Article Source: http://www.articles32.com
-------------------------
For more SEO know-hows please go to: Isulong SEOPH
-------------------------
.: New Search Engine Optimization Articles
1). How to Improve Search Engine Ranking
Powerful 4-step process to improve search engine ranking
2). How to Make Websites that Search Engines Love
How you can apply the fundamental basics to create a website that the search engines will love to spider.
3). Articles Are Seeds of Knowledge - A Biblical Look at Duplicate Content
Article Marketing compared to the successful distributon of the Christian Bible.
The Christian Bible is the Worlds most successful publication, with over 6 billion copies printed, similar to the total World Population.
4). Content Management Systems Equal Business Suicide!
One of the fastest way to minimise your chances of web business success is to use a Content Management System (CMS).
5). Importance of Search Engine Marketing Firms
Literally speaking, there is no business in todays world of World Wide Web, which doesnt have online business. To reach ever growing population of internet all across the world it is mandatory to have a good online presence for any business. Moreover, meeting customers online is the cheapest possible way.
6). Internet Search Engines, Important Details Everybody Should Know
Internet Search Engines see something totally different than what we see when we look at a webpage. It is all in the webpage code. Have you ever seen webpage code? Place one of your webpages into your browser.
7). Why Websites Get Banned From Search Engines
These are methods and techniques that end up getting websites banned from Google and other search engines.
.: Top Search Engine Optimization Articles
1). SEO Contests: Good or Bad?
As a webmaster you probably already know what a SEO Contest is or you surely came across some of them or even participated in. Some of the major SEO contests organized are the v7ndotcom elursrebmem (by v7n.com), Ambachdotcom, Carcasherdotcom, and more recently the Cpayscom2 Online Casino where the winner gets $10,000 for ranking number one on MSN. Now the big question is whether it is good or bad to organize SEO Contests.
2). High Paying Lateral Keywords
If you run AdSense on your site you know that some words pay more than others, much more in fact. More than likely you have also learned that terms like "structured settlements" and "mesothelioma" can produce incredibly high PPC revenue, if they show up on your site at all. Unfortunately hundreds of thousands of other webmasters are "on" to this practice judging by the number of sites created regularly to capitalize on the phenomenom.
3). Is Your Website Invisible? The Google Sandbox Solution
What is the Google Sandbox? How Do You Know if You’re Stuck in the Sandbox? Does the Sandbox Really Exist, or is it Just the Google Algorithm? Why Do You Get Sandboxed? Is There a Way to Trick the Sandbox Filter?
4). An SEO Glossary - Common SEO Terms Defined
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become an essential weapon in the arsenal of every online business. Unfortunately, for most business owners and marketing managers (and even many webmasters), it's also somewhat of an enigma. This is partly due to the fact that it's such a new and rapidly changing field, and partly due to the fact that SEO practitioners tend to speak in a language all of their own which, without translation, is virtually impenetrable to the layperson.
5). Creating Sitemaps For Google, MSN AND Yahoo! - The Easy Way
If you own or maintain a website or intend to own one, wouldn’t it be great if you get frequent visitors who find satisfaction in getting exactly the information they need from your page?
While that satisfaction largely depends on the contents of your website, how you get to be accessed by website users is the most critical factor of website development.
6). How to Make a Sitemap For Your Website In Five Steps.
A website's sitemap can be compared to the table of contents of a book. The sitemap is important because it guides visitors to the parts of the website in which they are interested. The sitemap allows surfers to reach their destination without wasting time.
Sitemaps are also important from the point of view of search engines. If the search engine finds a sitemap it is much more likely that your page will be fully visited (spidered) and indexed; allowing web surfers to find your pages in their searches.
7). 301 Redirect - The SEO way to rename or move files or folders
In this article I will discuss page redirection techniques, what works and what to avoid.
What is page redirection and why would you want to use it?
Let’s say you rename a page on your website, for whatever reason. Perhaps you decided to revamp your entire naming convention, perhaps you decided to restructure your site and need to move pages into different folders, or you just realized that you are missing valuable keywords.