In 96, 4 Israeli men, 2 of whom didn‟t even finish senior high, dreamed up a communication system called ICQ (I Seek YOU). After their ground forces service, the 4 men took jobs at a local PC store. At night, they worked at their dream project....a program for blink of an eye easy net communication. They named their company Mirabilis.

Net service was really expensive in Israel, so the men moved to California and later to Greater New York. It took less than eighteen months for more than ten million PC users to download and install ICQ. ICQ was free of charge.
Those ten million individuals had heard about ICQ by “word-of- mouse” advertisement. (What we call Viral marketing or Buzz marketing). Mirabilis stated a solid „NO” to Microsoft, but accepted a three hundred million dollar take over from AOL. ICQ then swiftly exploded to 100-million downloads and a 1000000 fresh subscribers every week.

The interesting principle about ICQ is their marketing. They simply didn‟t do any marketing. All of their efforts were directed at inspiring users to spread the word.

They made it simple to spread the word by utilizing the standard e- mail that will ask your friends to join, but the software may likewise be instructed to scan your address book and send all your acquaintances invitation letters. Their thought was to construct a tool that includes an inherent mechanism for circulating the work and then simply letting it grow!

Now, to the meat and potatoes – You might not produce a program like hotmail or ICQ but your membership site or online community may go viral, bringing in tons of new members, subscribers and revenue.

Fasten your seatbelts as you're about to learn how. How e-books can be utilized as a tool for viral marketing?

Let‟s suppose that your membership web site is in the baking genre. If on your site you provide a free of charge download of an e-book with recipes that require ingredients you sell, it's conceivable that you'll sell more of the products that you manufacture. That's the primary concept but there are a lot of ways that e-books may help acquire free viral marketing for you.

If the free of charge e-book you give away on your web site is great, informative, funny, or incorporates timely info, the public will pass that info along to their friends and loved ones and thereby, yield a lot more traffic on your web site.

The cost of an e-book is just about zilch, which makes it a pretty magnetic tool for marketers big and small. The only cost is in time and creative thinking and the advantages are endless.

Naturally, e-books don't have to be exempt. They may likewise be sold. The trick to selling your e-books is to be sure that they're worth the price you charge for them.

Many e-books now come in PDF format, as you are able to really easily and quickly convert a text document to the PDF format. The document need not be produced in HTML first. You are able to have images and hyperlinks to web pages in a PDF e- book. Among the greatest benefits is that the PDF format may be read by both windows and MAC users.

In the next article you'll learn how to utilize your e-mails to produce a viral machine that steamrolls over the rivalry!