Can a viral eBook beat advertising? By The IMC Team | Posted January 5th, 2008
Let’s look at five ways viral marketing clearly beats out traditional advertising:
Advantage #1: Viral marketing exponentially increases the visibility of your business
If you can persuade 10 people to pass your eBook on to 10 of their friends, and those friends each pass it on to 10 of their friends, you will exponentially increase the impact of your marketing message!
After only three generations…
- First generation: 10 people see your eBook
- Second generation: 100 people see your eBook
- Third generation: 1,000 people see your eBook
… 1,110 people have seen your eBook!
Obviously, this example has been oversimplified so it is easily understood. There will always be people who don’t pass your message on, and there will always be people who pass your message on to significantly more people than average. Still, you can see that even with only a handful of people participating, your exposure on the Web can increase at fantastic speeds.
Advantage #2: Viral Marketing establishes credibility and trust
With a free, informative eBook, you’re not beating someone over the head with a message that shouts, "Buy this product!" Instead, you’re offering them something they’re likely to find useful and inviting them to share it with anyone else who might like it.
This way, every time your eBook is shared with a new person, it will come with a personal recommendation from one of that person’s friends or family members… and this can be extremely powerful!
People are very open to these third-party recommendations because it’s like one friend telling another about a favorite restaurant or movie. They are doing their friend or family member a favor by recommending a quality product or service. And that’s why people who learn about your eBook via a friend or relative are much more likely to trust you!
Amazon.com knows this strategy well. Anyone who has visited or bought something from this Internet giant has probably noticed that they encourage you to send a gift to a friend or relative. But did you know that with every gift you send, Amazon.com includes a flyer that promotes their products?
You send a gift to a friend. They open your package and discover your gift… and the flyer. You have just sent your friend a very subtle — but VERY effective — endorsement for Amazon.com.
Advantage #3: Viral marketing compels people to interact with your message
Viral marketing compels people to actively engage the message you send, rather than passively hear or view it. This dramatically increases the probability that they’re going to absorb that message, remember it, and repeat it.
For example, if someone tells you a joke, and you repeat it to one or two friends, chances are pretty good that you’ll (a) remember it, and (b) repeat it again when the opportunity arises. If you hear a joke, but don’t repeat it within a reasonable period of time, you’ll probably forget it forever (unless you have a fantastic memory). Viral marketing works on the very same principle.
When people think about sharing your eBook with friends or associates, they’ll likely feel compelled to consider what they’ve just read and come up with an explanation of why they’re sharing it. For example, if they know that a friend is having difficulty housebreaking a new puppy, they might share your eBook on puppy housetraining and add a comment like "Check out the strategies in Chapter 5 — I’ll bet you haven’t tried all of these yet!"
Interacting with a message makes people more likely to remember that message — and pass it on!
Advantage #4: Viral marketing keeps your advertising costs low
The beauty of viral marketing is that it keeps advertising costs down by getting your customers to do the advertising for you. If they see real value in your eBook, readers will feel compelled to share it with friends, family, and colleagues, who will in turn sing the praises of the eBook to their friends, family, and colleagues.
And no matter how many people start recommending your eBook, you won’t have to pay them a cent! It’s human nature to want to be the first to share exciting new information with people we know. By using this knowledge to your advantage, you can get your message out to thousands or even millions of people — and after you’ve created the eBook, you won’t need to pay a single penny to spread it across the Internet!
Advantage #5: Viral marketing keeps the integrity of your message intact
Ever notice how a rumor can shift and change until its original message has been replaced with something entirely different? Well, the great thing about viral marketing online is that it’s far easier to keep the content of your original message intact so that…
-
Everyone gets the same, compelling message, and
- Your message has the same impact on the first generation of people who see it as the 30th generation of people who see it.
For example, let’s say you publish an article in your local newspaper. The article is filled with useful information that your target audience has a direct interest in. At the end of the article, you include a brief plug for your business and say, "If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to share it with a friend!"
This month, I’ll be sharing strategies you can use to quickly spread
the word and get a ton of new readers downloading your viral eBook. Please leave me a comment if you’d like me to cover any specific topics on using eBooks to drive your Internet business.
How many people do you think will share this article? Probably a few, but not as many as you’d like. Why? Because to share the article, they have to either clip the article or haul around the bulky newspaper until they can give it to their friend. And if they don’t forget about it entirely, the fact is, they’ll probably only give it to one friend.
Of course, the other possibility is that the reader might try to tell their friend about your article during their next conversation, but this means that the impact of your original message will be lost. At most, their friend will probably express polite interest, and then move on to another subject. The friend wasn’t exposed to your original message, so the impact has been significantly diluted.
With a viral eBook, using our eBook Pro software, these problems are easily eliminated. When someone decides to share your eBook with a friend, they can simply click the "Share" button to instantly create a new e-mail message with your eBook attached, along with all the instructions their friend will need to download and unlock a new copy! Within seconds — and with a single click — your message has been shared, without editing, in its entirety!
This ensures that your message is just as powerful for the hundredth generation of people who see it as for the first!
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