"There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative. -W. Clement Stone.

Viral marketing works on the premise that your service or product is popular enough to advance through a word-of-mouth process. Whether this gets done in the real word by physical means, or whether it is done online, the method is usually the same. Viral marketing happens when word of your business or product is able to move through a "grapevine" without you having to do any paid or "free" advertising to spread the word about its benefits.

The word spreads more quickly from person-to-person-to-person when it is done via the internet. This happens quite frequently when your clients find worthy benefits from using your products or services and tells the "world" about them. Using the internet is one way of getting the word spread out to a global market. One email message sent to thousands upon thousands of people at a time with just one click of a button is awesome. Now the internet is the newest and quickest way to introduce viral marketing about up your business products and services.

The internet has many, many sites and forums available for posting new ideas and services. A new product can become enormously popular when endorsed by others who spread the word on your behalf. When you offer freebies that can be immediately downloaded online, like a special report or an ebook, give them permission to forward your ebook or report to others. Make sure it is of value or has quality content so they will want to forward it to others and they forward to others and on and on. In the ebook or special report your business resource information stays intact and gets passed around.

When someone voices their opinion, whether it is positive or negative, about a product, business, or service to others, and they pass it along to others, that is an endorsement and viral marketing in action. This happens all the time with a movie. One person goes to see it, tells another about it, they go to see, and tells more people about it, the word gets spread around and builds the popularity of the movie resulting in more ticket sales.

The important goal of viral marketing is to promote your idea, business, product or service over and over until it reaches thousands of people. The same with any free samples you offer. Set a goal and do it over and over again with a free quality sample until it reaches a maximum number of people. Then offer a second item to sell to those same persons. If a small percentage of the ones who liked the free sample purchases the second item, you will have a good number of sales from the free endorsement.

This method is done often by businesses both on the internet and offline with retail businesses. Even though this form of marketing takes a bit of effort, it can work wonders when you introduce your new ideas and products to the public. Is your business, idea, service or product worthy of the test?

Gerri D Smith

Gerri D Smith combines apparel fashion design and creative writing into a successful and growing mini-business known as Distinctive Impressions. For more then ten years, Gerri seeks to inspire thousands of others to realize their goals, to look and feel “distinctive” in the way they dress, and to improve their professional image.

With a deep passion for creating women's fashions and accessories for day and evening wear, her clients include professionals whom she has named "VIW's" (Very Important Women), as well as other small, medium, and large sized women . Her other interests include organizing, producing, and participating in promotional fashion shows, fashion contests, art and craft sales, as well as coordinating and participating in fund-raising events that show off both her fashion and small business/entrepreneur skills.

Gerri’s apparel and accessory designs are promoted and marketed both online and offline around the Bay Area, and are sold to private clients. As a free-lance designer, many of her designs are one-of-a-kind and by special-order.

Her love of writing is portrayed in her ongoing self-improvement and motivational articles, an inspirational non-fiction book, and a modern contemporary, and inspirational romance novel. Gerri’s published books are marketed nationwide through the world wide web and offline to business women and romance novel readers.

Gerri is host and publisher of an inspirational newsletter that encourages, motivates, and supports individuals, small business owners, and women entrepreneurs to go for their dreams. The newsletter is an internet resource creating multiple ways for subscribers to unlock the doors to success and improvement. And it is Free. Now, being able to share two of her deepest passions - creative fashion designing and creative inspirational writing with others is her greatest pleasure.

In addition to producing her fashions, accessories, and her creative writing to inspire and encourage others, in her spare time Gerri also finds great pleasure in researching, studying and learning new skills. She hopes to broaden her expertise with public speaking on business leadership and personal improvement. Her two self-published books, one a full length contemporary romance fiction novel, titled “A Challenge of Love,“ and an inspirational non-fiction book titled, “31 Cups of Inspiration,“ are modern classics and will inspire others for a long, long time.