Just like the real world, the internet is home to many businesses that the competition for client base is pretty high. Businesses with high levels of transactions have either been there at the start like Amazon.com or used a lot of cash to promote and direct the flow of internet traffic to their site (I can’t think of any new web site that was an overnight success but I know you know what I mean).

It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website. If people don’t know that you exist, you are not going to make it.

While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these methods is Viral Marketing.

While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.

Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.

In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

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 pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.

Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentives they can be attributed with.

This method is certainly a novelty in marketing. It breaks away from the tired, old methods of advertising. To put another term to it, Viral Marketing can also be called Entertainment Advertising. You entertain people while promoting your product. If people are really impressed and highly amused with what you show them, they just might like to see who made that good comic strip and click on your link.