There are some basic viral marketing elements you should familiarize yourself with, before you institute your marketing strategy.
More and more businesses are using these viral marketing elements to pull in their share of the market.
It’s better to learn the basic elements of viral marketing before aggressively developing your marketing plan.
Do your homework first, and do it right, for a successful outcome.
Of the five or six generally recognized principle elements; it’s only necessary to use the ones applicable to your product. However, the more elements you can adopt to your particular business, the more effective your results will be.
Of all the viral marketing elements you should know about before you begin, the first and most basic, is to FREELY give away your products or services.
The word FREE, will always arouse interest in people. When you offer a product or service for FREE, you can be sure your potential client will take advantage of the offer.
Extremely inexpensive products also work, but achieve much slower results than a freely given product.
Giveaways are usually a long term strategy, so patience is definitely a virtue when using this element for creating a customer base.
- Easily Transmitted Medium
Although the Internet, is the medium best known as the easiest mode of transmitting a viral message; emails, software downloads, blogs, and web sites are other mediums used for easy transmission.
A simple, short, easily copied, and transmitted message, is the best way to achieve the desired results using easily transmitted mediums.
A Viral marketing element that exploits an individual’s motivation or behavior for it’s transmission, will be extremely effective.
Most people want to be popular with others. You exploit this motivation in people to be loved and well know, to get them to communicate with others, and spread your viral marketing message throughout their community.
- Employ Existing Social Networks
Learn to use existing social networks to spread your viral marketing message.
Most average Americans, surround themselves with from 9 to 12 close family members, friends, and associates, that comprise their close “social network”.
Each of these family members, in turn have their own sphere of friends, and associates, that constitute their “social network”.
When you consider how many of the people in these social networks use the Internet; you begin to realize just how vast the existing social network structure can get.
Learning how to exploit these existing social networks will increase your viral marketing results enormously.
- Be Prepared For Rapid Growth
One of the viral marketing elements you should be aware of before you begin, is the selection of a host server that is capable of handling an unexpected surge of traffic in a short period of time.
You don’t want to crash your server, or have your web pages loading slow due to the increase in web traffic.
When using viral marketing strategies, you need to be prepared for rapid growth in your business. It serves no purpose to generate tons of traffic, only to have your server slow down, or in extreme cases, crash.
The essential tools for starting your eBay business described here, will enable you to sell more of your products, and increase your online profits.
Starting your eBay business is easy, when you have the basic tools necessary to sell your products.
Many newcomers, who lack the initial operating capital to open their own websites, and who don’t care to get into affiliate marketing, choose eBay to start their home based business.
If you are interested in becoming a successful eBay seller, it’s important that you get the essential tools for starting your eBay business, before you blindly jump into it.
A computer with at least 2 GB of memory, along with a fast reliable internet connection, is mandatory for anyone starting their own home based internet business.
A telephone is an essential tool for starting our eBay business; or any legitimate business on or offline. You need to occasionally directly communicate with your clients and sources other than by email.
An all in one fax machine, is also a necessary tool for sending and receiving documents, orders, etc.
Business cards are essential tools for starting your eBay business for several reasons.
Your full contact information and logo, are important to your eBay customers.
Including your business card with your shipments, displays your professionalism to your customers; not to mention the obvious fact that they have your contact information readily available, if there are any problems with the order.
Although having your own website is not initially necessary to start an eBay business; it will earn you a much better income than not having one.
You can set up a blog, in lieu of a website with your own domain if capital is a severe problem, however, your chance of success is much greater if you run your eBay business under your own domain.
Market your products, by linking from your website, to your eBay store; and then funneling traffic to your website.
By funneling traffic to your website, you increase the amount of traffic going to your eBay store. This obviously increases the amount of sales, and in turn, your bottom line.
Another one of the essential tools for starting your eBay business, is a digital camera capable of providing clear, closeup pictures.
When you sell your items on eBay, you need accurate descriptions and photographs of what you are selling.
Most buyers will not purchase from you unless they see pictures of what they are bidding on.
A quality digital camera is not only an essential tool, it is indispensable to any eBay business.
- Compression and Resizing Software
This software can be downloaded free from the Internet, for compressing and resizing pictures of your eBay items. Do a Google search for “free picture resizing software” and you will have several products to choose from.
Although you need very little money to get started with eBay; the computer, business cards, internet connection, digital camera, telephone, and fax machine do require an initial investment.
Most people already have some of the essential tools available to them, but for those who do not; some start up capital will be needed.
Making money selling merchandise on eBay is a serious business. If you approach it as just a hobby, you will not make any serious money.
If you are not yet an eBay member, but are thinking about becoming one, remember to follow the rules!
eBay is regarded as the worlds largest online marketplace; and for good reason.
It gives its members the ability to buy and sell a variety of items online.
Although it’s highly profitable to be able to buy or sell your merchandise on eBay, it does have the potential for security problems and inappropriate conduct.
To minimize the problems you may encounter, it’s a good idea to follow the rules.
eBay has guidelines for both buyers and sellers that you should thoroughly familiarize yourself with, before you get yourself into trouble.
- One of the most important rules you need to pay attention to, if you’re an eBay seller, is the marketing of prohibited items.
Just about anything can be sold on eBay, including your kitchen sink, however there are some common sense prohibitions. These include selling items such as drugs, porn, alcohol, weapons, counterfeit and stolen merchandise.
If you follow the rules, you will have no problem on the site.
- Paying all of your selling fees on time is another eBay rule you must follow if you intend using their site.
eBay gives you advance notification of their pay schedule. To remain a seller in good standing, you must pay your fees on time.
eBay buyers also need to follow the rules.
- As an eBay buyer, the main rule you MUST follow is to only bid on items you intend to purchase.
When you place a bid on an eBay auction, and you are the successful bidder; you are required to buy the item you bid on.
This rule is also applicable to “Buy It Now” listings.
Don’t bid on an item if you don’t intend to buy it!
- Follow the rules on being honest with your purchases.
Don’t scam a seller. If you don’t receive the item you purchased, contact the seller and notify them of the problem, and wait a few extra days for your item to be delivered.
An honest seller will gladly refund your purchase.
Unfortunately, some unscrupulous eBay buyers, report a delivered item as not being received, in order to pick up a refund along with the delivered item.
If you follow the rules, you’ll have no problems. If you don’t, you will eventually get caught, and have your eBay account temporarily or permanently suspended.
In the most severe instances, such as fraud, counterfeiting or theft, you could find yourself looking at the possibility of legal action.
