Viral marketing offers an array of possibilities and different ways to achieve your overall goals. Pre-planning and the right setup to create success are the things you will need to make it work for you and your online business, just like any other traditional businesses.

The first thing you want to be sure you don’t do is get over-zealous. The one thing you need to avoid at all costs is spamming. Spamming is still used widely, but with the government establishing more restrictions and penalties for violations, no one wants to be in that situation. The professional image of your site is at stake if you just go on sending emails blatantly.

Spamming requires a database that contains a huge list of e-mail addresses set up so that the message can be delivered with one click. The problem with it (aside from the governmental restrictions and associated fines) is that it annoys the recipients and kills the validity of your campaign, which in turn kills the factors that would motivate someone to refer your site.

You need to personalize by creating your website with personal appeal. You must see to it that your website makes your customers feel safe, secure and cared for. Email is important because it is and has always been one of the most affordable ways to keep in touch with your customers.

To properly handle email permission, you must assure your customers, first and foremost, that their email addresses will not be sold or shared to third party companies. The next thing to do is to attach the benefits they can receive to the need for their email addresses.

A good way to go about it is to attach coupons or discounts that are only available to members who are signed-up to email notifications. Viral marketing effect takes place every time you send out an email.

Increase your sales with better marketing techniques using new and improved autoresponders. Here are ways to get started:

1. Publish free reports to send via your autoresponder. The reports should be related to your business or website, and contain information, ads and links to your sites. People love getting freebies. I bet even you do.

2. Collect vital customer satisfaction information by publishing a survey to send via auto responder to those who sign up on your site in exchange for a free eBook, software or trial period at your membership site. This type of information will help you understand their needs, preferences and dislikes better.

3. Instead of answering each customer question that is e-mailed to you, publish “Frequently Asked Questions” of FAQs, and make them available via autoresponder to those who sign up. This will definitely save time and spare “support” headaches.

4. Instead of publishing all of your customer testimonials or endorsements on your website, publish only a few, and then set up an autoresponder form that invites visitors to receive a complete list. Give them a power-packed list including some video testimonials. This proves to be more effective than including all of them in your website all at once.

Learn the art of mixing and matching. Changing your autoresponder strategies will definitely change your auto responder results!