In Ray Bradburys short story A Sound of Thunder, a group of peopletravel millions of years into the past to hunt dinosaurs. One of them accidentally steps on and kills a butterfly, which dramatically alters the future.
This idea was also taken up in a movie called The Butterfly Effect,starring Aston Kutcher, about a young man who managed to travel to his past and, by altering earlier events, changed outcomes in his future, including some that were unforeseen.
The butterfly effect has its roots in chaos theory, where a smallevent can have a ripple effect and bring about possible dramaticchanges - the fluttering of a butterflys wings possibly forestallinga monsoon that would have devestated an island.
Successful internet marketing is the result of many such trivialevents at work.
But which ones will prove to be significant and how do we sustain,and even build, the momentum which is generated
One proven technique is known a viral marketing, which adopts a strategythat encourages many people to pass on a marketing message to others.It makes use of multiplication to explode the distribution of the message by willing participants.
Hotmail used this method to get established. When the two founders set uptheir free email system, all the messages that were sent by subscribershad a text message at the bottom which identified Hotmail as the origin. People would send emails to their friends, who would be tempted toset up hotmail accounts and send emails to their friends...
Within 24 months, Hotmail had 22 million subscribers, eventually sellingout to Microsoft for about $400 million.
The viral marketing method is:
a. Cheap. Most approaches take just a little time to set up and then others promote your business for you.
b. It has the potential to reach a large audience by geometrical progression, limited only by the enthusiasm of the participants.
c. It can be effectively combined with other forms of promotion.
d. Its also possible to sell other products than the one you originally targeted. For instance, if you are selling garden products, those interested in flowers could also be interested in a catalogue that contains material on lawns, trees, landscaping, garden tools, etc.
e. A viral product is fairly easy to create. It includes ebooks,articles, branded software, audio and videos, free reports, or even the first three chapters of your ebook.
f. A quality product that users are willing to pass on to others is accompanied by an implied recommendation. They are effectively building your reputation.
Special Considerations:
1. Whatever the product is that you use, it should be of significant value and free - or of very low cost in relation to its perceived value. But usually it is free and easy to pass on.
2. Make it easy for people to pass on by using buttons, active links, tell-a-friend windows, etc. Many products also combine very well with an affiliate program when the affiliate receives some extra benefit from promoting the viral message. For instance, by being able to brand an ebook the affiliate gains credit when a reader buys through a branded link.
3. Buttons and links are not interchangeable. Many email facilities do not handle HTML well, especially those that are web-based. Codes can be easily corrupted. Use active links in emails and save buttons for web pages.
4. Be sure your message includes a clear call to action. There should be no doubt about what you intend recipients to do.
5. The INCENTIVE should be clear to those you want to act.
6. Offer clear instructions so that recipients know HOW to act.
7. The action you require should be simple and obvious. Dont complicate it or confuse the reader, such as by adding numerous links.
Viral Marketing is but one of many techniques that together have a cumulative effect in attracting customers and subscribers to your business - in attracting targeted visitors to your website. Momentumis gained by aiming every element of the overall strategy at developingthe relationship with your visitors. The momentum builds as it succeeds in identifying YOU as one of the white hats - someone who can betrusted to provide value and a solution.
Design your strategy in such a way that there is a positive flow-on effect into the future rather than one which diminishes after the initial zeal and enthusiasm which launched your product.
Focus on delivering benefits to your visitors and making it easy for them to collect. And dont step on the butterflies.
Copyright, Ivan Kelly.
Ivan Kelly managed a Direct Mail business with extensivemailing lists for ten years and has designed and promotedmany websites. He also provides quality free courseson a variety of internet marketing subjects. A list of thesefree courses is available at:
Just building a great website with some fantastic products is simply not enough to make your online business a huge success. A well planned Internet marketing plan is a must to drive traffic to your website and encourage sales. Here are some Internet marketing strategies that are commonly deployed by ecommerce websites to increase their sales.
Paid Banner Advertising:
Paid banner advertising is an online marketing strategy in which banner ads of your website are displayed on other websites. It is imperative to check that the visitors to the websites you choose to display your banner ads on belong to your target market. You can either do a CPC website marketing campaign or a CMP website marketing campaign.
A CPC or Cost Per Click banner ad campaign is one where you pay a certain amount of money for every banner that is clicked on. A CPM or Cost Per Thousand banner ad campaign is one where you pay a certain amount of money for every thousand impressions of your banner ads on the website.
Paid Text Advertising:
Very similar to paid banner advertising except the ads are in text form and not graphic banners. Research has indicated that customers tend to trust text ads and find them more believable than banner ads.
Email marketing:
The single most effective online marketing strategy. Almost 88% of customers in a survey said that they made an online or offline purchase as a consequence of an email received. You can choose between several types of email marketing campaigns. Email lists are programs or services that send your marketing email to a large consumer base for a low price. The drawback is that your email can be marked as SPAM and ignored by most of the recipients. Having your own ezine or newsletter is a far more practical and effective use of email marketing. The number of subscribers are lower but more likely to buy from your website since they are genuinely interested in what you are selling.
Search engine optimization:
Search engines are the tools that most people use to find websites. Search engine optimization is an Internet marketing strategy that is free and guarantees results. Proper placement of keywords, keyword rich content, title tags, description and keyword metatags and use of keyword links are all methods to improve your search engine rankings. This is an online marketing tool that is absolutely indispensable for any website.
Free traffic generators:
There are softwares that can generate large volume of traffic to your site for a small price. However, the only problem with such software is that the conversion ratio of visitor:buyer is extremely low. If your website is largely dependent on eyeballs and not purchases then this is a good Internet marketing strategy for you.
Exchanging links with other websites:
A surefire way not only to increase traffic and sales to your website but also to better your pagerank and boost your search engine rankings. It is always better to exchange links with websites that offer services or products that are complementary to the services offered by your website. This is a great website marketing strategy since it offers your website exposure to a target audience instead of random visitors.
Thus, Internet marketing is all about time and patience. You need to put in dedicated effort and consistently modify your online marketing strategy to ensure that you maximize the business potential of your online shop.
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