Viral and Grassroots Marketing

What it is

Internet Marketing is the art and science of reaching an online audience with the correct message at the most advantageous time. Marketing to a specific target market requires a deep understanding of how to locate, interact with, and stimulate individuals to take the action desired by our clients, which is one of W3PR's expert skills.

Grassroots and Viral marketing take these concepts to their most basic level. Grassroots marketing efforts reach out to individuals and groups with highly-tailored messages, with the goal that they'll be stimulated to take the action requested in those messages. The goal and desire is that the Grassroots efforts, started by W3PR on behalf of our client, becomes Viral. That is, that the message continues to spread amongst the interested user community with little or no further action required by either W3PR or the client, spreading from community member to community member by "word-of-mouth," becoming "Viral."

Why it's important to you

Viral and Grassroots marketing:

• Effectively reaches your target market while they're online
• Enhances Search Engine Optimization when targeted sites place links on their site directing traffic to your site
• Creates unique branding and brand awareness opportunities
• Stimulates "viral" interaction between people about your Web site, products and services.

Reaching out to specific groups and individuals is a highly-targeted way to spread your Web site's message. The groups and individuals receiving the message are chosen based on W3PR's research as being those most likely to appreciate your message and, very importantly, communicate it to others. For example, the editor of an online newsletter or blog can influence many thousands of people with a favorable opinion of your Web site and its products and services. W3PR finds and contacts those influencers on your behalf. This outreach is the Grassroots part of a Viral/Grassroots marketing program.

The members of an online community will often begin discussing a Web site, idea, product or service among themselves without further interaction from whoever introduced the message into their community. This is the highly-desired Viral part of a Viral/Grassroots marketing campaign: that you message gets "a life of it's own" and spreads throughout interested online communities, bringing targeted traffic to your Web site.

What W3PR does about it

We conduct a variety of Viral and Grassroots marketing activities on your behalf:

• Online Community Outreach (Blogs, Newsgroups and Message Boards)

We interact with your target market in Web logs (blogs), newsgroups and message boards by posting your news and information to those sites, or contacting the site owners for links or reviews. Coverage focuses on communities relates to your Web site content, to maintain discussion relevancy and brand integrity. (For example: A new television show would be promoted in specific, targeted, entertainment-related communities). Message boards may be located within communities (i.e. Yahoo! Groups, MSN Communities), portal sites (i.e. AOL, Yahoo) and niche-specific Web sites (i.e. mtv.com, gamespot.com), and many others.

• Online Fan (or Interested Party) Interaction (Chat Rooms & Instant Messaging)

We interact with your target market through chat rooms and instant messaging. Contacting individuals while they are online is an effective delivery method for generating "just-in-time" traffic when promoting online or offline events, special promotions and more.

• Webmaster Outreach

W3PR contacts Webmasters whose sites contain content relevant to your Web site to share your news and information. W3PR also requests that a banner or link be placed on the Webmaster's site to promote an event or content area at your Web site. Obtaining relevant links on existing Web sites provides advertising and brand awareness that is very cost-effective, and, in some cases, free. These inbound links to your site also improve Search Engine placement due to increased "popularity."