People Viral Marketing Gmail Company Email Things Quickly

The Internet makes viral marketing much easier and inexpensive for companies that want to sell a product or service. Viral marketing happens whenever people "refer" (recommend) a company's products or services to other people. If a company has a fun and interesting website, online video, or email, then it is very easy for people to "forward" (re-send) these things to their friends and family members. When those people enjoy what they see, they often choose to forward it to their own friends. In this way, the viral marketing "scheme" (plan) grows very quickly and reaches many people.

For example, the company Hotmail used viral marketing very successfully. The company had few users, but it started putting "To get your FREE email account go to www.hotmail.com" at the bottom of its users' emails. As more people clicked on the link and opened their own accounts, the message was sent to even more people and the company grew so quickly that Microsoft decided to buy it.

Gmail is another email program that is using a viral marketing scheme. Originally only a small number of people had Gmail accounts. The only way to open a Gmail account was to be invited by a Gmail user. This created a lot of buzz about the new email program - so much buzz, in fact, that some people began selling their Gmail invitations!

Viral marketing can be used for other things too, including movies. The movie Snakes on a Plane allowed people to create messages in the voice of the movie's "star" (main actor), Samuel L. Jackson. Then they could send those messages to any telephone number. When other people received the message, they learned a little bit about the movie, and then many of those people created their own messages, which let even more people learn about the movie.