The Traffic Snowball will feed of itself!

Unlike a computer virus that will destroy your software and damage your business, a traffic virus isn’t harmful at all…except to your competition. A traffic virus is NOT a computer virus but the concept is the same. A virus can spread around the net very quickly. This form of Marketing can be the most effective and far reaching.

Everyone who uses the Net will have heard of Hotmail.com which uses the concept of Viral Marketing to build a massive customer base.

How?

Well, everytime you send a message using a Hotmail account there appears a footnote at the end of each message promoting the Hotmail service. Imagine how many emails are sent out every day promoting their service.

Lets take a look at how we can emulate the same technique to create our own viral marketing plan.

Create an email signature:

As you will be using email a lot you should always make sure that you leave your mark on every message that you send. A signature file is a short message that goes out on the bottom of each of your emails. It should give people your contact info, usually your email address, and contain a benefit .

Here is an example:

————————————————–
Colin Hartness: admin@web-at-work.com
Web-At-Work Ltd
The Cheapest Domains: www.web-at-work.com
Traffic Builder Systems: www.trafficbuildersystems.com
TrafficBuilder can guarantee search engine listings with the potential
to deliver thousands of high targeted visitors to your site
—————————————————-

Of course there are many ways of presenting a signature file. You can basically post as many links or information as you wish as long as you think it will be useful and not distracting from your email content.

A good idea is to direct to an autoresponder rather than a website for providing further information on the products that you are promoting.

You can set-up your signature file(s) within your email client so that you are promoting your business each time you send a message.

Start Your own FREE Web based email service

To take this concept a step further consider again the Hotmail module. Every user that signs up for a Hotmail account will be promotion Hotmail services. We can do exactly the same by offering a FREE email service and branding our clients email with our own promotional message. This service is provided at www.everyone.net

Write articles for ezines

How would you like to reach a couple of million people with your products and services…for FREE? That is exactly what occurs when you start writing articles and submitting them to hundreds of ezines online. Currently there are tens of thousands of ezine publishers online and almost all of them have one thing in common. They are all looking for good content to publish in their newsletter.

If you have good content (not a sales letter cloaked as an article), then you can be their savior. You can give them exactly what they need. Then, they will give you what you need in exchange. They will give you exposure for your business. Every article comes with a resource box attached at the end of it. While your article should not be an effort to promote your business, your 4 to 6 line resource box should be an outright ad for you and your business. You are free to advertise your web site, your products, your services, or any affiliate program that you are a member of.

Recommend a friend

The main obstacle for any online business to completing a sale online is the element of trust. A sale can ONLY be completed if the customer feels secure and safe with parting with credit card information. The problem with online business is that the visitor does not have any idea as to the nature of company that is behind the website. For all he or she knows it could be operated from a back bedroom by a one man band and they may well be correct. Once we have established trust then the visitor will feel good about purchasing from our website.

You have probably heard the phrase “the best form of advertising is word of mouth”. Well this is certainly applicable to Internet business and even more so due to the total lack of physical presence .

Therefore recommendation is very, very important.

There must be a customer testimonials on the website. Get into the habit of storing any positive comments in a separate folder and publishing with permissions on the website.The testimonial is a vital feature and could sway a buyer to go for the purchase. But even more effective is the use of “Recommend a friend” feature.

This is a simple form of viral marketing that uses the “word of mouth” principle of advertising. A visitor may wish to inform others of your website using such a tool installed on your site. You can even offer a prize as an incentive to send the recommendation.

Check out www.recommend-it.com for a remotely hosted service of this type.

Logos

Your logo is important - close you eyes and think of McDonalds and what do you see? A logo will immediately establish identity and confidence. Your logo should be visible on your website but be careful not to over expose it. The logo should be there but not intrusive and subconciously the visitor will remember it and link the image with the product or service. On the Net image is all important . A good business site will be a mixture of corporate identity and sales pitch that establishes confidence with the potential buyer and at the same time pitches the sale.

The offer must be irresistible with a unique selling point and the full benefits laid out with explanations why for every listed feature. Remember the customer is thinking only one thing “What’s in it for me !”

eBooks

eBooks are amongst the most effective methods of viral marketing as they are products since they are both informative and can be used as bonuses for purchases. An ebook can given away free or sold with re-sell rights.

The ebook will be a collection of informative articles that are related to our products and services and will include links to our main website plus additional links to affiliated products that we are indirectly promoting through the leading articles. Once the ebook is completed and complied in the correct format then we can decide whether to give the ebook away as a freebie, either as a bonus for subscribing to our list or for purchasing our products, or we may wish to sell the ebook.

If we decide to sell the ebook then we need to produce a good sales letter and explain that the purchaser will receive the re-sell rights to re-sell the ebook on if they wish. If we decide to give the ebook away we need to include within the content of the ebook a statement that the reader can feel free to give the ebook away as a freebie to compliment their products /services or for any other purpose.

eBooks are a perfect for adding value to products and services and if the ebook is worth reading then readers will be inclined to use it and the word will spread fast!

The advantage of providing the ebook free of charge is that it will be downloaded and may be used many times over. The disadvantage is that it may not be read as often as the paid version. Why? Because there are so many free ebooks out there that lots are downloaded and not really read thoroughly. However if you have paid for the information then you are more likely to read it !

Customizing

As a real incentive for your readers to distribute your ebook you may like to include a customizing feature. This could allow the reader to be able add their own web address.

If you’ve been in the workforce for a while, you’ve probably heard hundreds of farewells to employees, presentations of awards, holiday greetings, dedications of new buildings, and motivational speeches. And you’ve also noticed some general guidelines in this software at the beginning of each of the categories on such speech occasions. Obviously, there are similarities in these speeches and all those you’ve heard through the years.

So how can one of these speeches, or any other, every really be uniquely yours? In the same way, old songs take on a new identity when they’re performed by different artists. Do Elvis, Sinatra, and Sammy Davis, Jr. sound the same singing My Way? Of course not. The artist makes the crucial difference in three ways: audience, delivery, and attitude.

First, let’s look at customizing for your specific audience. The key is immediacy. As Ronald Reagan so aptly put it about the tough economic times: “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.”

Immediacy of your ideas to the needs of an audience generates attention and interest.

As a child listening to your parents tell you about all the starving children in China who would love to have your plate of spinach, you weren’t too concerned with poverty. But after ten months without a job and only $188 in your checking account, poverty gets your attention.

Immediacy makes the difference.

When you read an article in Sunday’s newspaper about the cost of funerals in today’s society, you glance over the statistics, shake your head in amazement, and turn to the next article. But if your mother is dying of lung cancer and your siblings have already begun to argue about the funeral arrangements, you pay more attention to the options and costs detailed in the article.

Immediacy makes the difference.

Therefore, the key to gaining an audience’s attention is not to speak to them as business people in general. What is their immediate interest in/need for/use for your information? To focus specifically, you need to consider the following:

• What is their educational level?
• What is their income level?
• What are their prejudices and biases about your subject?
• What are their problems?
• What do they fear?
• What are their challenges?
• What are their goals and wants?
• What’s taboo with them?
• Will they appreciate humor or is this a solemn issue with them?
• What is their attitude about hearing you? Passive? Manipulated for having to attend or participate in any way? Competitive with you and each other? Unified with you and the others in the group? Resistant to your ideas and philosophy? Afraid they can’t do what you’re asking for? Challenged to adopt your ideas? Eager to try out your information?

With the answers to these questions in mind, you can go a long way in customizing your remarks to minimize or encourage their feelings and reactions.

A second way you make a speech uniquely yours is your delivery style.

Psychologist and social scientist Albert Mehrabian has done an often-cited study that shows content accounts for only 7 percent of the impact of speeches. That’s right, only 7 percent. So why did you buy this software? To save you time. After all, you have to have some ideas to express in the first place, and these ideas here help you collect your thoughts in an organized, succinct format.

And your words in presenting those ideas can work for or against you. Simple words and short sentences help your audience grasp those grandiose ideas quickly. Remember that listeners don’t have a written script, so they can’t go back and pick up the idea they missed because of a long tangled sentence. They can’t check a dictionary for the word that totally blocked their thought processes.

A good speech involves much more than talking through the ideas in a recently published journal article or ad libbing a monthly report.

Had President Bush told the American people that he wanted a “more benignant, more docile cosmos” rather than a “kinder, gentler nation,” would he have carried half the country? Ideas and word choice count.
But back to Mehrabian’s study: The other 93 percent of your impact while speaking results from your voice quality (38 percent) and your physical appearance (55 percent)—in other words, your delivery style. How you say what you say, not just what you say. You always have to decide what tone to take with your audience—that of expert, teacher, motivator, critic, or peer.

Translated that means your delivery is a combination of who you are and how you present yourself. Do you want to preach to them or do you want a “we’re all in this together” tone? There are occasions for both. Bush needed to overcome his “wimp” label. “Read my lips. No new taxes,” did that for him. Granted the idea came through clearly, but his effect resulted largely from his tone and expression—his delivery.

Consider your own voice and its impact on your audience. Can’t you remember your mother’s impact with these two very different statements and tone: “Billy Ray, Jr., come in this house right this very minute.” Versus: “Oh, Billy—did you draw these pictures yourself?” Examine the content of these two statements: taken alone, the ideas are neither positive or negative. But you’d recognize the tone of each anywhere, right?

Delivery makes a difference.

Volume, pitch, quality, and pace give your voice its impact. In today’s business environment, wimpy voices go unheard. Volume gets attention. Also, you want to aim for a lower pitch. Tension or relaxation in the vocal cords largely determines pitch. Stress makes you sound higher pitched, revealing insecurity and nervousness. Relaxation and confidence come across in a lower pitch. Authoritative voice tones are low and calm, not high and tense.
Voice quality involves such things as a breathy sound, a tense harshness, hoarseness, nasal tones, or a deep resonating solemn sound, slurring of words, accents, diction and so forth.

Pace is the rate of speaking. You should know the pros and cons of both fast and slow deliveries to determine the effect you want. A fast rate reveals excitement and energy and commands attention so that listeners do not miss what you say. A slow speaking rate, on the other hand, adds drama and emphasizes key points.

And don’t forget the use of silences. They effectively involve your audience in introspection.

The disadvantages to both slow and fast deliveries? A fast delivery may create difficulty in your audience’s understanding your words and reflecting on your ideas. A slow delivery may give your listeners’ minds time to wander. Worse, slow delivery may convey the impression that you don’t know what’s coming next or don’t really have much information to offer.

With variety, you can achieve just the effect you want.

To add emphasis, vary your voice volume, pitch, quality, or pace: A deep resonant, precise articulation of the fourth-quarter profits followed by a slangy conclusion, “There ain’t nothin’ doin’.” A quickly delivered rah-rah for the sales team, followed by a slow sincere thank you for their efforts. Variety.

Variety in voice volume, rate, and pitch also leads to an enthusiastic delivery. Don’t equate enthusiasm, however, with hysteria. We’re not talking about an unnatural acting career, a style that pits you against a football coach on the sidelines at the Super Bowl. We’re talking about your natural speaking style—your natural speaking style when you’re talking one on one to a close friend about your chance for a promotion and a huge raise.

Be your naturally enthusiastic self—only in front of a group. That’s not to say that you comment on everything with the same fervor in your everyday conversations. “These files need to be updated to reflect last quarter’s quotas” will not be delivered with the same feeling as “We just landed the $300 million contract with Universal!”
Those who argue “It’s just not me” when encouraged to adopt a lively speaking style need only to hear themselves with friends around the lunch table. In such settings, most people have a lively voice and an animated face with glowing eyes and nice smile. Their hands and arms gesture appropriately without their giving any thought to the conversation at all.

So to determine what your natural style is, catch yourself while talking on the phone to a colleague about the latest Wall Street gossip or the neighbor about the airport traffic. You’ll hear your natural self. Feel what it feels like and hear what your voice sounds like when you’re enthusiastic about your subject.
Think of your speech as a conversation with an audience larger than one. The idea is to duplicate that feeling, tone, and animation when you’re in front of a group. That’s the natural you, and that’s your most effective delivery style.

Your delivery either supports or discredits your ideas. You may be completely serious about and confident with what you have to say. But the audience may perceive you to be insincere because of poor eye contact, a slouched posture, a bored expression, or limp gestures.

Eye contact is the most noticeable mannerism. If you want to make the audience yours, look at them. When you’ve caught the eye of someone in your audience, you’ve established a bond. You’ve signaled your interest in that person and your sincerity in what you’re saying. In fact, we often hear it said, “I bet she couldn’t look me in the eye and say that.” It’s extremely difficult to turn away from someone who is looking at you.
Use your eyes to build a bond with your audience, even though they may have heard your sentiments time and time again. Don’t flit your eyes around the room as if they’re afraid to land on anyone’s face. Don’t stare at your notes. Don’t look around, through, or over your listeners’ heads.

Simply glance around the audience and sweep in the view of everyone. Hold your eyes on different individuals to establish personal contact with them. Let your eyes fall on one individual, hold that contact, make your point, then move to the next pair of eyes. What the audience notices that you’ve said to Joe, they’ll take as intended for them also. One or two sentences delivered to each person establishes intimacy for even the tritest words.
Your delivery—particularly your body language—conveys to your audience how you feel about them. That’s attitude, the third way to make a speech uniquely yours.

If you sense a friendly atmosphere, you tend to walk and stand closer to the audience. If you’re afraid, you cloister yourself behind a podium or table and lean away. If you want to shield yourself from challenges and establish authority, you can choose to stand on a platform, elevated above your audience.

Why do you think negotiators and heads of state spend weeks and months choosing just the right setting for their talks? Podiums, tables, or raised platforms put artificial barriers between you and your audience. Your audience wonders if these props are in place to protect you from them or to keep them away from you.

Here again, in your use of physical space as part of your presentation, your attitude shows.

Your attitude about your audience and subject also comes across when you choose either to memorize, read, or speak from notes. When you read, the audience often wonders if you believe what you’re saying, if the ideas are yours at all. Unless you’re a terrific actor, memorization can make you sound like a robot.

Speaking from a well-written practice script that’s been learned and committed to brief delivery notes is the best of all worlds. (More about this technique later.) You have memorized openings, closings, and transitions verbatim, but can still present your key points and illustrations, using fresh wording with only a phrase to jog your memory.
Your attitude about the subject and audience also comes across with your openness to questions and your attention to the accuracy of what you say.

Consider integrity and genuineness. Audiences want to listen to someone they feel has the same integrity they have, someone who holds the same moral values, has the same problems, and the same upbeat attitude about life. They want to know that what they see is what they get. They want to believe you when you give facts, offer goals, and relate experiences. They want you not to hide behind your content—formal, emotionless, and indifferent.

They want to see your personal involvement with them and with your subject. If you’re emotional because you really feel conviction about what you’re saying, then you’re on solid ground with an audience. When you feel that you are faking enthusiasm and sincerity, back off and cool down. Both you and your audience will be the judge about your enthusiasm, because genuine enthusiasm is contagious.

Whatever your ideas or your delivery, your attitude must reveal a determination to give value. How much salary are the members of your audience worth per minute while they listen to you? If you don’t have the time to prepare, don’t want to make the effort to customize, and don’t have the proper attitude toward your audience or subject, then let someone else have the stage for this occasion.

To sum up: To make a speech yours, take stage when the spotlight falls on you. Approach the front of the audience with deliberate, purposeful steps rather than as if you were being dragged forward against your will. Stand with your weight evenly on both feet, get your bearings, gaze out and take in your audience. Greet them and then respond to your introduction, acknowledge the occasion, or simply begin your planned remarks.
Just remember that these first few seconds are crucial as your audience takes stock of you and your attitude about the occasion and the subject. Impromptu comments about something that’s happened earlier in the meeting always impress your audience with your wit, your freshness, and your openness in departing from “scripted” comments.

And when you’ve finished, end with impact rather than whimpering to a close. When your ideas run their course, simply stop. Add nothing. Don’t mumble. Just smile and physically “close up shop.” Pause and sweep your audience one last time with confidence that they’ll agree with what you’ve just said. Take your ending time as seriously as you expect airlines to do. Land on time and with precision.

To make the audience and speech yours, take charge completely. Use your posture, body language, attentive gaze to the audience, voice tone and fresh comments delivered in a natural style to convey to the audience that your purpose is to speak to them specifically.

It’s your speech, you delivered it.