-by Sid Hale

Viral marketing is my favorite method of generating traffic and sales, so I am constantly looking for new ways to entice my readers, visitors, affiliates, etc.  to pass my sales message on to others.  

The beauty of this is that your sales message will be seen not only by those that you deliver it to directly, but also by their customers, visitors, etc.

How does that happen (??), you ask.

Well, for something to take on viral properties, there has to be some incentive, for anyone who receives it, to then pass it on to others.

Sometimes just the quality of an article, an eCourse, or some information product (i.e. an eBook) can be enough to cause it to be passed around a little, but that will normally happen only when prompted.  For instance, you might pass on a link to a good article if someone happens to ask you about some information it contained (and you can remember where you read it).  

But that probably only qualifies as "mildly infectious", rather than "viral".

To create a really viral product, you have to maximize the benefits to each recipient.  

If you create an ebook that contains product links, and you allow some of the links to be re-branded with an affiliate link, you are also passing on the ability to profit from the product.  When a reader of the book makes a purchase from one of the links, the re-branding affiliate receives the commission.

There is the incentive for him to pass the book around and begin the viral progression.  

Providing a free book related to your product, with re-brandable links, makes a great sales aid for your affiliates, but the viral effect would end once all your affiliates own the book.  Their customers would have no incentive to pass the book on.

There are many ways to offer an ebook.  It can be a free book or you can charge for it.  For either of these, you can allow re-branding of every link in the book or only some of the links - and you can charge for re-branding rights, or not.  If you charge for the ebook, you could also offer resale rights and/or the right to grant resale rights.

Let's look at what is needed to maximize the viral aspect of our ebook:

Wide Distribution

To get the widest possible distribution (so you get the most exposure/commission to the affiliate links), you should offer a FREE book and FREE re-branding rights.

By offering the book as a free download, you insure that the highest number of people exposed to the book will, in fact, download it.

By allowing free re-branding of your book, you create the incentive for others to offer your book to their contacts.  But only if you allow all (or almost all) of the links to be re-branded.  If you only allow a few of the affiliate links to be re-branded, you provide little incentive for the re-brander to distribute the book.

Quality Links

FREE may get your ebook downloaded, but it won't get the reader to click on the affiliate links.  That requires good content that addresses an important need of your target market.

After all, that's why the reader downloaded your ebook in the first place...

You also need to make sure that the links in your ebook are to quality products, are relevant to the topic of the book, and are placed in the proper context within the book.  A link must be presented as a source for additional information, not simply as a plea for a sale.

A very good example of how to do this can be found in 101 Super Tips - a free book from Harvey Segal with many very good tips for marketing online.

Maximized Benefits

By providing quality content and links to quality resources, allowing your ebook to be given away free, and allowing all of the affiliate links to be re-branded, you have already maximized the benefit to others.  But what about you?  How do you benefit?

First, if the links in the book are for your own products, you are simply providing a good tool for your affiliates to market those products and paying commissions on any sales from the copies of the book that they give away (you keep the rest of the profit).

Note - these could also be products for which you have resale rights.  There is absolutely no reason you can't let your affiliates promote those products, even if you were not the original creator.

Second, even if you don't produce your own product or own resale rights to a product, you can create an ebook where all of the links are for 2-tier affiliate programs that you belong to.  If a re-brander doesn't belong to that affiliate program, and you provide a way for them to join thru you, you collect the 2nd tier commission when that re-brander makes a sale.

Strike a Balance

You can include any combination of links in your ebook (for your products, resale products, or affiliate programs).

Harvey Segal's free ebook, 101 Super Tips, includes almost 30 links to ClickBank products, all of which can be re-branded for free.  Harvey will also sell you "extended" re-branding rights to this book.  This includes the ability to also re-brand 2 high commission, 2-tier affiliate programs, and to earn commissions from others who purchase these "extended" re-branding rights from your copy of the book.

Using these techniques you can begin a viral marketing campaign which will continue to generate traffic and sales with little on-going effort on your part.  And don't forget that you can use these techniques even without a product of your own.  Providing free valuable content in the form of an ebook, can be a great method to outperform all the other affiliates and become a super affiliate in any program you belong to.