Viral Marketing also known as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of ones product or company.

Companies ride on the idea that if people like a good movie, funny story etc, they will pass it on to their friends and family. The company brands their logo or a product description to go with that particular media. Result? The company gets free advertising that keeps growing without them having to do anything else. .

Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pass on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they wont block it and open it as well.

The main advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of public awareness about your site and your company. You can generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives like prizes and discounts, you can reach out to a great number of people and get them to pass your advertisement along at a very low cost to you.

For instance If you write an ebook allow people to place an advertisement in your free ebook if, in exchange, they give away the ebook to their web visitors or e-zine subscribers.

Give permission for people to give away your free product. Just include your ad on them or require people to link directly to your web site.

Hold a contest on your web site. You could place the other website's ads on the contest page in exchange for them promoting the contest.

There are many ways to reap the benefits of Viral Marketing. Take advantage of them.