Six Principles of Viral Marketing vs Hotmail.com - 1

What is virus? What does a virus have to do with marketing? It is because virus doesn't even have to mate, it just replicates, again and again with geometrically increasing power, doubling with each iteration, in a few short generations, a virus population can explode.

With refer to my first post: The Classic Viral Marketing – Hotmail.com, it can show how successful the viral marketing strategies used. Briefly, we can see in the six basic elements as below:

1) Gives away products or services
"Free" is the most powerful word in a marketer's vocabulary. Hotmail.com is the first Web-based e-mail services which away free e-mail addresses and services. "Cheap" or "inexpensive" may generate a wave of interest, but "free" will usually do it much faster. They may not profit today, but if they can generate a groundswell of interest from something free, they know they will profit "soon and for the rest of their lives".

Reference: http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles-clean.htm