Viral Marketing uses people's electronic connectivity to increase the velocity of word-of-mouth. People with similar interests, needs and lifestyles tend to pass 
on and share interesting and entertaining content. When sponsored by a brand, the message builds awareness of a product or service and can provide qualified prospects for the organization to pursue. 

If you are familiar with the concept of "word-of-mouth" , then Viral Marketing weapon available. Viral Marketing harnesses the electronic connectivity of individual to ensure marketing messages are referred from one person to another. 

A classic example of extremely successful Viral Marketing was the campaign for the email service Hotmail.  When the company launched,  every outgoing message from this platform contained an advertisement for Hotmail and a link to its website at the bottom of the email. As people emailed their friends and colleagues,they were also advertising the service. Recipients could simply click on the link and sign themselves up, and as they continued to email friends from their new account, the message spread within existing social networks and was passed along with little effort from the company. Hotmail went from zero to 30 million users in the first 3 years ,today. Hotmail has over 350 million users worldwide. 


Meaning of Viral Marketing:

Viral Marketing means,viral comments, status updates, tweets gone viral,blogs,  pins and so on. They all serve one thing. An immediate burst of interest. A spur of the moment spike in the content sharing activity due to the culmination of multiple factors, generating mass curiosity using extrame emotions which appeal to the 'Id'brain, either supported through paid distribution or influence. That may be the mechanism of going viral but the classification of  a viral content within Advertising,  Branding or PR disciplines would depend on the resulting change in perception or behavior. It is not guaranteed, it does not stick and it's hard to determine the relevance of the message. People will either love it or hate but won't ignore it resulting in a large number of shares, views and a large volume of the ensuring discussions. However a viral content is for passive consumption. It will spread without much change and will be shared indiscriminately. 


Aim of a Viral is Advertisement:

A viral video would simply become a sensation overnight. By that definition it won't last long. While branding needs consistent and patient efforts over long periods of time and hoslistic improvements both outside and within the organization,  a viral campaign would only serve the purpose of presenting information in a manner that it reache out to everyone in one short lived effort. 
It will trigger a mass psychology and cause a general sentiment ruling out the personalized intent of true PR. Viral is definitely a form of advertising, although inconsistent and with largely unpredictable results. Viral data can be produced by spending more on pushing the content through ads. Its is then much like the catchphrase from a TV commercial that has stuck in your head beacuse you saw the ad too many times. After a point it doesn't matter of you like it or not, you will recall it none-the-less.


Viral almost always turns irritating:

The resulting buzz of a viral will subside in a matter of weeks,if not days. What happens to the large volume interactions? Well they do continue but since the novelty is almost gone within a short period of time, a once viral content tends to get overwhelmed by other events across the web. If your video has gone viral accidentally,  then there is nothing to lose , unless it is in a negative sense. A viral event is like a lamb to slaughter. By its death , it will feast a lot of people but they will hardly remember it after some time. Some vague reference of it and the feast will exist that will continue to bear fruit year after year. Not only a viral die down in some time ,it also gets irritating after some time. It can get parodied, killing the essence of your message and eventually it gets lost into the viral archives.


How Does Viral Marketing Work?

There are 3 key elements to a viral marketing campaign that need to be addressed:
(1)   The Incentive 
(2)   Easy Forwarding 
(3)   Design of Message 

(1)  The Incentive: The most successful viral marketing will provide people with an incentive to participate- i.e. a resaon to pass on the message to others. The resaon for this should be obvious- why should people choose to forward your marketing message to others? You need to give them an incentive to do so. This incentive can take the form of a cash inactivate,  a free product/service that would otherwise have traditional commercial value
The important point here is that an incentive can take many forms the exact choice of the incentive depends on your goals, resources and audience. 

(2)   Easy Forwarding:  The Internet is the ultimate for of viral marketing beacuse of the ease and low cost of someone forwarding your marketing message. You can have it on Facebook, twitter, Whatsapp, wechat, etc.

(3)    Design of Message & Incentive: In order for a viral marketing email to be successful the design of the message and Incentive are also critical.  The idea of an incentive may be perfect but if you viral campaign does not communicate the incentive, and its benefits effectively enough, you may as well not have bothered.  An ineffectively communicated incentive is no incentive at all. 

The golden rules in such communication are that the message should be:
    ●  Clear.
    ●  Concise.


Online Advertising:

The focus of this chapter is largely on banner advertising but don't for one minute believe that banners are the be all and end all of Online Advertising.  " Banner advertising " is a bit of a misnomer- modern online creative advertising is about a lot more than just banners.

The Multi-purpose Nature of Advertising:

Advertising, whether online or offline,  always has a number of objectives:
●   Building brand awareness 
●   Creating consumer demand
●   Satisfy Consumer Demand
Advertising is based on the simple economics of demand and supply. Advertisers aim to stimulate a consumer need and then satisfy that need. Create the demand. Then satisfy the demand.

(1) Building Brand Awareness:

 Making people aware of your brand or product is an important long term goal. Once customers know about you, you've taken that first big step towards gaining their trust... and their patronage. It's a simple fact that the best known brands do more business. And there in lies the rub. The ultimate goal is to do more business and sell more.
Building brand awareness is perhaps the key strong point of online creative advertising. It's largely visual, making it an ideal channel for promoting brand collateral. 

(2) Creating Consumer Demand: 

Brand and Product awareness is also about creating demand. Advertising needs to convince consumers about what they should want and why they should want it. Modern Online Advertising can provide a great way to communicate the USP's of your product, thereby helping stimulate demand.
Aspiration is a function of knowledge. You can't want what you don't know about. 

(3) Satisfy Consumer Demand:

Once your consumer wants something, they needs to know of your ability to satisfy that want. If your brand building has been effective, they know you exist. Now tell them how you can deliver what they need.

Driving Traffic and Sales:
 If your Online Advertising campaign doesn't drive traffic, then there's really no point in it, is there? All forms of online marketing need to drive traffic in the long term. But what about the short and medium term?
That's where the immediacy of Online Advertising comes to the fore. Unlike traditional media advertising,  Online Advertising can turn the potential customer into an actual customer right there and then.

Payment Models: 
Depending on the primary goal of the campaign,  different payment models can be used:

CPM or CPI: 
Paying for exposure. CPM refers to Cost Per Thousand and CPI to Cost Per Impression. This is usually how a campaign would be priced when brand awareness is the primary goal.

CPC: 
Paying for Clicks. CPC stands for Cost Per Click. Normally associated with paid Search Marketing, banners can be priced this way when the aim is to drive traffic. 

CPA: 
Paying for acquisition. CPA refers to Cost Per Acquisition. This model means the publisher carries all the risk. The advertiser only pays when an advert delivers an acquisition. 
If you're into buying banners advertising, this is the best way to pay - if you're selling it, it's the worst way to change.

Flat Rate: sometimes, oweners of lower traffic sites choose to sell banner space at a flat rate i.e. at a fixed cost per month regardless of traffic or amount of Impressions. This would appeal to a media buyer who may be testing an online campaign generally targeting niche markets.