You may be wondering what viral marketing examples you could model and implement in your own business. Here are a few ideas that might help you get your story out there and see your viral marketing campaign really grow it’s own legs.

There are multiple formats you can use to create a viral mareking campaign, you could use email, video, audio / podcasts, ebooks and documents. The important factor here is to ensure that you offer a massive amount of value for whatever it is you give, this will essentially ensure your success. If per chance you campaign doesn’t take off as it should, always go back and re-explore your content and the quality of the content you’ve given away.

The first example could be a pure viral marketing campaign, where you offer an ebook, but before they get the ebook you offer a piece of software that is otherwise sold for $X’s and is very valuable on it’s own, but if they refer your free offer to 5 of their friends and thier friends actually opt-in, then it will unlock the free software for the person referring them.

This functionality is created by a bit of software called “Viral Friend Generator” and it’s extremely powerful and customizable in it’s use, so in essence it will fit any marketing campaign that you’re looking at doing.

The second example, would be where you have your product / service offered to a JV list (a JV stands for Joint Venture) and is particularly powerful if you know how to create them correctly. You might research a number of JV hubs through Google, find a partner that has a sizeable list and is open to promoting your product as an add-on benefit to the product he is selling online. This allows your product to be sold or passed on as a valuable addition, and will see people visiting your site, contacting you, opting in to your email lists as they absorb your materials.

The third example is probably one of the more difficult to pull off, and that is the pure viral marketing campaign that goes viral all of it’s own accord. You don’t see many of these around, but when they happen, they happen big time. Examples of these are, Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, Twitter, Skype and so on, because people now ask you, do you have and account with any one of those so they can connect with you, you then go and get the account and feel it wasn’t pushed down your throat, or you were bribed to join.

Mobile phones also have a very rapid absorption rate of viral methodologies, ring tones are a classic. As you download a ring tone, your friends decide they like and ask you to bluetooth it to their phone, it’s just a simple matter of “point and click” and they then have your ring tone (or virus) and so the whole thing replicates easily from there.

How can you apply these in your business?

Your business can use these by placing ads in papers, online, yellow pages, networking hubs both online and offline, where you offer a very easy to claim offering.

The key that all good viral marketing examples share is their ease of spreadability, you need to offer something that can be used right away, collected easily, and cancelled easily also if they wish, otherwise you’ll kill the virus before it really starts.

Here’s a real world example of a viral campaign, I’ve recently been looking at online CRM (Client Retention Manager) software,  and found a couple of great options, one being Oprius and the other is WT Powers. My ending option was that of Oprius only becuase it was so “Simple” to signup for their 30 day free trial, both of these programs have a 30 day free trial, but the most viral one was Oprius, because it allowed me to signup “FAST” and with no details whatsoever.

This is music to other peoples ears hearing such information, but the other program while I feel it could have been superior, didn’t have the ease or speed of setup that Oprius did. When I told my coaching clients about this, they all signed up to Oprius to trial it, because it was a no-hassle signup (in other words “VIRAL”).

I hope this has helped you understand some real world applications on viral marekting examples.