In many respects marketing by word of mouth can be said to be the “hidden statistic” for all programs, as it’s well near impossible to actually gauge the effectiveness of marketing done this way. Saying that, however, it should be noted that almost every product in this increasingly digital age has, at one time or another, relied on this method of marketing to increase public and corporate awareness of product or service availability.

A recent study exemplified that two thirds of online marketing is expected to be done this way next year, which when coupled with the advent in leaps of Web 2.0.0 social networking and social marketing sites point towards promoting your product by word of mouth may be both more cost effective, and have an increasingly better ROI than more “traditional” online advertising media.

Think about the business model of the current social networking sites. There has yet to be a successful site of this type that charges, instead relying as they do on advertising income to turn a profit. While there is not in a real sense a metric that can be used to measure the effectiveness of marketing by word of mouth, it should be noted that there is one method of knowing if your campaign is succeeding – sales.

A company or client should know from their output volume exactly what the difference between before a campaign, during a campaign and after it’s stopped. This gives businesses a measurable statistic to show effectiveness of this type of marketing. It is true that not all businesses need or desire this form of sales technique, but is also through that not one business turns away prospects garnered from the by word of mouth method either.

Whatever your area of expertise, a study completed by Hill and Knowlton this year showed that decision makers are highly influenced by personal experience’s (58%), with recommendations tied at 51%. Coming in lower than expected was direct marketing at 21% with internet advertising lat 17%. These figures may only reflect the purchasing habits of key decision makers, but a young lady in Oregon deciding to buy one car insurance or another IS the key decision maker for that purchase, and her buddy Becky telling her to go with this company over that company will have a greater influence than any gravel-voiced actor pushing the product in a TV advert.

Essentially, this statistic can reflect any industry, any segment, if each purchaser is the key decision maker. This makes the resurgence of the world’s oldest sales tool a given – so get talking or tweeting, but tell everyone!

If you do a web search for free viral marketing, you will see the system at work. Giving something “free” is part of the tactic. None of these companies actually offer free advertising. They could provide free information. But, it will be just enough to make you curious and want to learn more.

Reports, trials, tests and getting leads are many of the things they offer. Of course, if you want lots more, you must pay. That’s how this method of advertising campaign works. It is what you decide to do with your company, too.

It doesn't matter what you offer for sale, you need to think of something that you can give away. You might be an expert at carpentry. You might provide do it yourself tips and publish the information on your website or online magazine or even create a newsletter specifically for people that are interested in carpentry. Then find a way to let people know that you offer this information.

The only way to do free viral marketing is to do it on your own. You would need to create or buy a list of e-mail addresses. Join social networks, follow blogs, get on twitter. Post on all relevant forums. You can purchase a list of e-mail addresses and as well, some companies offer a “trial” for free. We know for certain that giving something away free often generates customers and gains interest.

Success of any campaign depends on reaching a big group of people and offering a free item. But, your success depends on the quality of the item or service that you have to offer. Any product only reaches virus levels if people really love it or they think that that it is a "must have" item. The cool aspect wears off. Valuable items usually always stay around.

Actually, I’m giving you free viral marketing advice right now. Do some companies charge for this kind of advice? There are actually classes that you have to pay for and what they teach is what I have just told you. Of course, they go into great detail to make you feel that the seminar was valuable. But, there really is not a lot to learn.

Do businesses charge to do the marketing for you? Yes. You can attempt these kinds of advertising campaigns , but they take up alot of time and effort. Your website might not even possibly be ready for the amount of business that a viral campaign might generate. If you read some more about free viral marketing, you’ll see what I mean.

The viral marketing business model was first described by Tim Draper and popularized in 1997 to describe Hotmail’s practice of adding advertising to the outgoing mail of their users. Viral marketing had been around for ages. So, it is word-of-mouth marketing.

It is in the nature of a person’s tendency to “tell their friends”. It is really just the terminology that is new. Surveys tell us that the average individual online has at least six close friends they communicate with on a regular basis. If they have a good experience with a product or a service provider, they will tell those six people about it.

Those same surveys tell us that when an internet user finds something valuable, informative, funny, interesting or free on the internet, they will share that with 12 of their “online friends”. Thus the internet is the stage for most viral marketing business models that are successful.

We have also been told by the pros that in order to sell something, you need to give something away. I recently read a free e-book about dieting. It made perfect sense. It was written by the marketing department of a supplement manufacturer. He suggested that you share the book with all of your friends. His main motivation was to sell supplements.

He could have sold the book. It contained just as much information as some of the diet books out on the market, but he realized the value of giving something away, what he would get in return would be far greater. Not only do people love give aways, they have a tendency to put trust in people or companies that give them something of perceived value with no strings attached.

You will see countless software programs on the web that offer a free versions and a “ultimate” version. This is another example of a viral marketing business model. If a person sees any free software program, they usually share it with up to 12 people they know would like to try it as well.

Social networking is becoming increasingly popular. People on MySpace and Facebook literally have hundreds of online friends and they “share” things with them on a daily basis. If you can provide something that they want to share, then you may have struck it rich.

There are other elements of a successful viral marketing business model. Coming up with something free that allows individuals to share it with others is the most important.

There are several strategies that you can use for viral video marketing.Your video will not go “viral” if you do not plan out your strategy well.No matter how great you think it is.To reach tens of thousands of viewers takes time and luck.Here are some tips you can use.

Keep it simple.  A 30 second clip is perfect.People have very short attention spans.If you have a long clip, shorten it.If you use the correct targeted keywords, parts will show up in the “related videos” area on YouTube. You don’t have to think twice about getting the entire story out.People will look at it, if they have interest in it.

Post all videos that you have together.  The more videos that you have out there, the more likely you are to get a click-thru to your website, which is of course the ultimate goal of viral video marketing.

Try to avoid making an obvious or outright advertisement.People will never share your videos with their friends if it looks like an advertisement.When you get their business, you can use e-mails to bring in friends of friends.Your first goal is to get viewers.

Once people see a thumbnail of your video, the important step is to get them to push the “play” button.You can do that by using a shocking or amusing headline, something that gets their attention.

Viral video marketing works best if “you” have a lot of friends.If you don’t have a Facebook profile and a My Space account, get one.Join chat rooms, clubs, groups and networks.Collect as many friends as you can.  Whenever you have new videos, you share it with all of them.You can include your real friends, you business acquaintances and your existing customers. 

Here’s why this is important. There are so many millions of people that have these types of accounts.Each one of them may have a few hundred close friends.When they come across an interesting or funny video, they will often share it with a large group of friends, who then share it with their entire list of friends.f you can get listed, you can literally reach hundreds of thousands of people in a day or two.

This all takes time and effort, that’s why there are companies that will do your viral video marketing for you.They have created a business out of enhancing your company.  Why not make it easy on yourself?