Viral marketing has been around for quite some time and had matured a bit over the years. Web advertising had made it big and now holds its place as another tick box for any ad campaign. Now being the medium where a campaign is launched to create a buzz before it hits TV and print, big business gets it.

Buzz works! It can work for small and start-up businesses, as well. The planning stage of a viral campaign will set out objectives and develop the viral theme for a buzz. There are three core components to any viral campaign and businesses of any size can use them. They are:

1. The creative material: The viral agent that embodies the message you want to spread in a digital format (image, video, text, etc). The trick is to put together material that people will be eager to share with their family and friends and people are much more eager to share “advertainment” than advertisement.

2. Seeding: Distributing and placing the agent online in places that provide the greatest potential spread. Direct viral material downloads or links on specialist viral third-party web sites in order to create awareness and spread before users get to the campaign destination site.

3. Tracking: Measuring the spread of the campaign to provide accountability and prove success. It is absolutely vital that you know what is or is not working. The only way to get that information is to track the results of your seeding.

Trends have evolved, lessons have been learned and there is definitely some science involved in creating a buzz that will linger on lucratively. We all know that the buzz technique is here to stay. One only needs to learn how to use it strategically. When done correctly, it can make a difference to the success of any online business.

It’s very rare to come across a site without an option to subscribe, better known as opt-in. It is fundamental to any site or online company to have one. Big or small, an opt-in list can do wonders to your profits. Even small business enterprises such as a niche profit website can benefit highly from it.

Businesses, particularly internet-based, capitalizes on the opt-in list to market their products and company website via an e-mail. When a subscriber “opts-in” to your website, he automatically consents receiving a newsletter from your company. By this means, you can keep your subscribers abreast of what is currently available in your site as well as whatever is coming out.

Because mutual consent had been established between the two parties, any mail sent to the list is not considered as spam mail. There is a great number of successfully read promotional materials such as catalogs, newsletters and such that are sent because the subscribers themselves have signed up for them, meaning, they do want and are actually looking forward to receive them.

Building a list is vital, though only a small percentage actually subscribes for an opt-in list. Many people find promotional mails annoying but if you provide a good newsletter or promotional material, you will see your list build up and grow. This can be achieved by simply having good content on your site. If people like what they see and read on your site, then they surely would want more. Newsletters would be a way to attract them back to your site, a little teaser or appetizer if you will.

Other than marketing your products and your services, an opt-in list can also be used to earn profits on the side. Not all that comprises your list can be used though. It would be good to first build a successful list with a huge number of subscribers. More subscribers simply equate to more money. Here are seven ways to make money using nothing more than your list:

1) Placing advertisements. There are many corporations who will be willing to pay to put their banners and ads on a list with many subscribers. Selling or renting out lists is not very much recommended, or at times flat out advised to be avoided, so rather than doing that, many companies would opt to place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. Your newsletter could be placed with a number of ads and each one spells money.

2) Having affiliations with other companies that relate to what your site is about. Here, other companies will provide links and brief descriptions of what they offer- their products and services. With every click made on the link that directs or leads a subscriber from your list to their site, the company will pay you. This is what is known as P4P or pay for performance.

3) Making deals with other companies by asking for a small percentage of sales done through your list. With every sale done by customers that have come from your list and have gone there because of your newsletter, the other company will pay you a small percentage of your sales. The more people who buy from them, the more earnings you get.

4) Consigning products from other sites or companies and selling them to your list via your newsletter. Place descriptions, articles and photos of the product in your newsletter. There will always be those who will buy from you than anyone else, and when that happens, you can order the product from the other site and sell it to your buyer.

5) Sell e-books or a compilation of your articles on your list. Manuals and how-to articles are in great demand. People will be willing to shell out money to gain knowledge about a certain topic or subject. With your existing list trusting your expertise in that area, an e-book could be offered and sold or used as an incentive.

6) Create a network out of your list. Get people to invite more people to view your site and subscribe to your list. The larger your list, the more people will be able to click on your links and affiliate links as well as makes your advertisement rates higher.

7) For as long as people know that useful information can be trusted and relied upon, they will be more than willing to pay for it. If you put your list to work, it can get you more and more people to subscribe, thus increasing your traffic as more and more people visit. Additionally, you earn money from your list by making them your partners. Your list will be the bloodline of your growth and increasing revenues.

Let me ask you first, do you love your job as a business owner? For most of you this should be an easy question. If this is not an easy question, then you may want to consider why you are even own a business.

For those of you that love your business, have you ever figured out the reason why you continue to be successful in your business? It’s likely not the way you mix different songs or how much equipment you have, but rather the way you treat your clients.

NOW IT’S TIME TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR CLIENTS!

Your clients are the reason you are successful today instead of being just a bedroom DJ. Yeah, that’s right. They obviously felt something towards you to make them want to book you for an event. Now it’s time to turn the tide and fall in love with your clients.

Love is a powerful word. Webster’s Dictionary says that love means “to have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person.” I know that this is getting pretty deep for some of you, but it’s the reason that you have been given the opportunity to do what you love. It’s also the reason that your clients will come back to you year after year to use your entertainment services for their events.

What do I mean when I talk about falling in love with your clients? When was the last time that you called your clients just to say hi? Did you send a sympathy card when you heard about the loss of a family member? Did you cut out the photo of their son/daughters on the front sports page and mail it to them? Did you call them and offer to take them to a collegiate football or basketball game because you had extra tickets? Did you send them a nice birthday card on their birthday? Did you offer to take them out to lunch or dinner just because you had some time during the day? Instead of going golfing by yourself, did you invite a couple of clients to go with you so that you could hang out with them and they could also meet each other to network with one another?

You might think I am crazy, but these are some of the things that you should be doing if you want to fall in love with your clients. This will keep the relationship happy for many, many years to come. If you decide stop loving your clients, like all relationships, you will most likely BREAK UP or be DIVORCED! After that, you will be left out on the street looking for new love.

Cherish the clients that you currently have and show them the love and appreciation that you have for them. If you continue to do that, then they will continue to love you unconditionally throughout the journey of your career, providing you with substantial income every year.

In the business world, you are out there in the competing against other small businesses and large businesses like Wal-mart, McDonald’s, etc all the time. And you have to try and keep up with marketing against all of these other companies. You also have to try and provide as many services that these companies provide in order to make yourself stand out as the solutions provider.

It’s a tough road as many of you know. Do you want more business? Of course you do! Why not make some new friends first? When I am talking about friends, I am talking about the florist, the photographer, the caterer, the banquet facility, the limousine company, etc. After the friendships begin flowing, then the real business will also begin.

You may be asking yourself what I am talking about. I am talking about the power of joint ventures. Joint ventures are still today, one of the most underutilized relationships that a business can have.

What are joint ventures? Joint ventures are when two or more businesses come together, share their resources, customers, expertise, etc for the benefit of both businesses and everyone’s customers.

Here is just an example of one of the joint ventures that I coordinated: January and February are normally dead for us. It is also usually that way for many of my business friends too. We decided that we would put our resources together and sponsor a Valentine’s Day celebration at one of the banquet facilities whom I am also business friends with. The sales manager at the banquet facility loved the idea, because they were making money on a night that they probably wouldn’t have been booked anyways. The florist was happy because they got a lot of flower sales because of the promotion, sold additional flowers at the event, and did some marketing after the event to all the guys who came offering them a chance to sign up for flowers to be delivered monthly to their significant other (which they sold a lot of). The photographer made some nice money taking photographs of couples and upselling packages. The limousine service made more money than they normally would on that night because they charged per ride, instead of an hourly rate. The hotel was happy because they booked a large amount of rooms because of the extra people who wanted to stay over.

Overall, everyone was EXTREMELY happy. You are probably thinking that this took a lot of hard work in order to pull it off. In fact, it wasn’t that tough at all. Why? Because every person that I choose to be a part of this event, I have total confidence in. They are total professionals and experts in their industry. We all pitched in our expertise, figured out the numbers game, and then threw out our client lists for marketing purposes.

At the end of the night, we totaled everything up and we had OVER 400 people attend the event. We were hoping for 200 people, but were totally amazed at the results of our marketing. People raved about it and wanted it again the following year. The best part of it all, we all made more money than we hoped for and all the vendors were equally excited about doing it again.

I don’t usually tell this to many people, but I guess I am telling the world now. I have made MORE MONEY with joint ventures in all my years of business THAN ANY OTHER BUSINESS PROJECT I HAVE EVER DONE. I am serious about this.

There was one joint venture that I did with a local charity. I won’t go into details now, but I might talk about the joint venture later. Anyways, I worked TWO Friday nights a month and made just over $25,000 per year. This took about 10 hours a month of my time. I continued this event for over four years until I moved out of the area. It was all because of the networking I did to build the business friendships that led to the joint ventures.

What are you going to do with your business? Make a list of all the people that you already know and where they work, what they do, or what business they own. This can include other vendors, suppliers, competitors, businesses with the same audience or community, your bank, or maybe even your service providers. Make sure that whoever you decide to start a joint venture with they are cooperative instead of competitive. This will make or break the success of your joint venture.

Start piecing the puzzle together and see how you can work together with your friends to make EVERYONE more money and bring each other more success. Believe me, if you do it right and find the right combination, you will be very successful. Good luck and happy joint venturing!