Viral marketing has been around forever. Consider one type of viral marketing – marketing through word of mouth. By our nature, when we love (or really dislike) a product, we tend to tell others. That’s viral marketing. It spreads like a virus.

Viral marketing continues to be one of the top ways to market any business whether it is online or in person. Creating viral reports is one way of kicking word of mouth marketing up a notch to the next level online. There are few marketing techniques that work as well as this one even in the age of Web 2.0 marketing.

Let’s start by defining the term “viral reports”. Essentially, these are pdf reports created by you that people in your target market pass along to others.

Why would others pass along your report? Your viral report will generally include something that is interesting, may spark a debate, or is entertaining…

Stop with the enforced e-mail forwards already! Trying to force or bribe people to forward your info to a friends or family in order to be rewarded or win looks skanky in today’s ultra-permission-based world. Especially when you tell visitors nothing about their friend’s or family’s privacy in the space directly next to the e-mail form.

A true viral campaign gets forwarded because consumers are compelled to do so by the glory of the content, not because you bribed them with points or something else.

What absolutely will not work:

Suggesting that e-mail recipients forward your message to their friends and family will not work. Adding a line at the bottom of your e-mail that reads “Please feel free to forward this message to a friend” is more likely to get it deleted than forwarded.

What absolutely will work:

Offering something worthy of sharing like a valuable discount, vital information or offering an incentive for…

Mobile devices, mobile phones and PDA’s are one of the last great frontiers of viral advertisement opportunities. However, we have become experts at filtering everything, our air and water, our e-mail and pop-ups, and our mobile devices as well. We are good at filtering.

The very idea of unwanted advertising streaming through our Blackberries is abhorrent. Mobile devices are the ultimate opt-in medium and, therefore, a great way for marketers to connect with users…if that’s what the users want. “WANT” is the key word here. How should marketers approach the medium?

There are three main ways to achieve this. They are:

1. Offer exclusive content. Anyone can offer ring tones. It’s the unique content, such as exclusive mobile images of new brand concepts, that drives interest and calls them out in other media like e-mail campaigns, newsletters, websites, etc. So a wireless campaign is most effective when it offers exclusive content for wireless devices.

2. Make…