Create a Buzz with Viral Affiliate Marketing

The topic of viral marketing is not new in Internet marketing circles. Most of the time, viral marketing is discussed in the context of product owners and merchants themselves using viral marketing techniques. It’s not often you will see discussions and advice which talk about viral affiliate marketing though, so I’ve decided to touch on that subject here.

Viral marketing is just marketing which has gained momentum by people talking about the product or service. Viral marketing can be word of mouth recommendations from one customer to another, or it can be people talking about the product on discussion boards and forums, or on blogs. Viral marketing can also happen through people complaining or bad mouthing products too though, so you need to be careful how you go about starting a viral affiliate marketing campaign.

The first step of course, is to make sure you’ve chosen an excellent product to promote, which is sold by a very reputable company. If you go out and try to promote an affiliate product that has a bad reputation, you’ll get a lot of talk going all right… but it won’t likely be very positive.

Viral marketing is not easy to start - whether you’re a merchant or an affiliate - but it can gain a lot of momentum and power once it’s begun. There are several ways you can help try to kick start it too, but not all of these will always work.

1. Create something funny. Post something funny on a blog, in a forum or discussion group, or in a give away report or e-book. If it’s funny enough, other people will link to it and pass it around. And of course if your affiliate link is included in what’s being passed around, you could get some visitors and sales.

Humor can be used in email too, as long as you’re not sending bulk unsolicited email - a.k.a. Spam - to people. Sending something funny to a group of friends or colleagues via email is usually ok though, and if your email signature has a small ad for the affiliate product you’re promoting, then you could get visits and sales.

2. Create something useful. This can take longer to go viral but it can also last much longer too. By creating something super useful such as a tutorial, help documents, a well researched report and so on, you can get a lot of traffic and links to that resource. If it’s really useful, many other websites will link to it, and many people will start recommending it in forums and in email. Put your affiliate links within the report somewhere, and as the visitors start to snowball you’ll get some of them visiting your affiliate product pages and buying.

3. Create a product review. By reviewing the very product you’re trying to sell - and especially reviewing it really well - you can stir up a lot of traffic and links from other places around the web where people are talking about the product or others like it. When people come to read your review, if they like what they see, they’re very likely to click your affiliate links and buy the items.