The most overrated idea to be talked about on the web has been
something called Viral Marketing. People have staked their
reputations on this fabulous new craze; they have staked their
livelihoods on the ability of Viral Marketing to work for them.
Proponents of this promotional technique have proclaimed the
richness of it to the masses, all in hopes to make a name for
themselves.
While Viral Marketing has been blown out of proportion and its
proponents have suggested methods for using it that cannot
stand the test of close scrutiny, there is still some value
in the concept that does work quite well.
Ezine publishers are in a unique position. Not only can they
use viral techniques to promote their own ezines, but also,
they are the source for the survival of the greatest viral
technique the web has known. Ironically, most ezine publishers
regularly engage in helping someone's viral campaign, though
they may not even realize it. In fact, the publisher of the
ezine you are reading right now is helping to keep the greatest
of viral marketing techniques alive and well.
The greatest viral technique known is that of free-reprint
articles. Free reprint rights for articles is, by a wide-margin,
the best viral campaign you can use for your business.
Before I continue, let me explain what exists at the heart of
the Viral Marketing concept. The term was derived basically
from that of a virus. A virus is known to quickly spread from
person to person. As we have seen with a few computer viruses,
a computer virus can literally take down thousands of computer
networks around the globe in a matter of hours.
Viral marketing endeavors to spread your marketing message from
person to person, moving like a wildfire driven by strong winds.
Returning to the free reprint articles. Ezine publishers
understand that in order to keep their subscribers, they must
provide valuable content. However, most publishers either lack
the time or creativity to keep rolling out new content to supply
their ezine. To compensate for this lack, ezine publishers turn
to free reprint articles to fill in the gaps. The free reprint
rights attached to these articles are important because the
publishers are mostly small and not yet earning enough from
their ezines to pay for professional writers to contribute to
their content requirements.
For the author of the article, this method is heaven sent. Let
me share the mathematics of this concept with you, and you will
appreciate why it is so very valuable to the person utilizing
it.
Say for example that you could deliver your free reprint article
to 1000 publishers and webmasters in one fell swoop. Consider
what would happen if only 5% of those publishers and webmasters
decided that your article was of high enough quality and value
to deliver to their readers. That would mean that 50 publishers
have accepted your article for reprint. Chances are that 40 of
these publishers have between 50 and 500 subscribers. Nine of
the remaining ten have between 501 and 5,000 readers. And one
publisher has 20,000 readers.
Since this is only a theoretical scenario, let us use the law
of averages to further amplify this calculation. Our 40 original
publishers have an average of 250 readers each. More in tune
with reality, the nine have an average of 2000 readers. And
our 50th is already known. Following this scenario, one single
article that you deliver as a free reprint article has the
potential to reach 48,000 readers in its initial release.
Considering you only sent your article to 1000 people, the viral
marketing equation says that each of these 1000 people sent it
on to another 48 people.
One thing that our example does not address is the article
archive sites on the web that publishers visit looking for
content, and it does not account for second run distribution
of articles either. Articles that show a good first run, tend
to show continued results over the longer period of time. I
have talked to some who say articles that were originally
published two to five years ago are still being reprinted
today. In effect, your initial mailing to 1000 people can
yield viral results into a ratio in the thousands!
Now let us return this to the perspective of how it is important
to the ezine publisher. Most publishers, though they tend to use
quite a few free reprint articles in their publications, they do
occasionally write articles on their own. As an ezine publisher,
you should consider going through your ezine archives and pulling
up articles that you have written in past issues. You should
then take the time to package these articles for free reprint
distribution, so that you too can take advantage of the viral
technique that you help keep alive and well for others.
There are literally dozens of sites and distribution lists
available to distribute your articles to other publishers and
webmasters. Rather than trying to list them all here, we have
made the effort to tell you about over 18 distribution lists
already available. For the run-down on these distribution
channels, you may visit:
http://article_depot.50megs.com/
By listing your ezine subscription address with a short
description of your ezine, in the resource box accompanying
your article, you can now utilize your own archives to build
your subscription base to ever higher levels. As a publisher,
you have aided in the viral campaigns of so many people in the
past, it is now time for the value of this viral technique to
serve you also.
****************************************************************
About the Author
Bill Platt owns The Phantom Writers, a company committed to helping people to
establish an Internet presence & promote their businesses through the use of
Free-Reprint Articles. All articles are distributed to 6,500+ publishers &
web-masters as part of the package. Do you write your own articles? Let us
distribute them for you. The Phantom Writers