Birds do it. Bees do it. Even dull blue algae do it. So what’s the big deal about SEX? Sex is one of the hottest buttons in marketing and those who use it know that this primal instinct is guaranteed to bring tons of eager customers that ultimately translate into fattening the bottom line for their clients.Every single day, humans engage in two basic emotions – sexual and romantic. Let’s face it – without them there would be no human race.
A strong and intelligent marketing specialist plays these emotions through visual and suggestive messages and engages the customer on three levels – emotional, mental and desire.

COSMOPOLITAN
While standing at the “15 items or less” checkout line and constantly scanning for more than 15 items in the people’s baskets in front of me, the Cosmopolitan magazine caught my attention. It wasn’t  the provocative Lady Gaga’s outfit who I assume was getting ready to go night-night right after the picture was taken, nor her almost orgasmic semi-smile but the shocking headlines.

Whoever designed the cover of this illustrious magazine is very cleaver and knew that people in line like me will eventually get bored of scanning every inch of the perfectly Photoshopped flesh proudly exposed by the half-naked prima donna and sooner or later will start reading the headlines.

Here are a few:

• 50 Things to Do Butt Naked
• Find Your G-SPOT – Directions so clear, They are like GPS
• Sex up your eyes (with this awesome spring trick)
• Speak his sex language – We decode the secret clues men send in bed

And the best of all:

• THE SEX ARTICLE WE CAN’T DESCRIBE HERE!

At one point I glanced again just to make sure this was Cosmopolitan and not Playboy.

HOT FEMALE VICE PRESIDENTS
A couple of years back, while the entire country got a whiff of Sarah Palin’s “vast” history and geography knowledge, the website/blog trendhunter.com ran an article entitled “Female Vice Presidents”. In the heat of the presidential elections, one would think this might be a cool and informative article to read, especially when Caribou Barbie descended upon Washington with a vengeance. Minus the helicopter and the Remington. Well – it actually received only 30,000 hits. The blog article, not Sarah Palin.

The smart people at Trend Hunter tried something else; kept the article in its entirety and changed the title to “Hot Female Vice Presidents”. The “new” article got over 1,100,000 (for the mathematical impaired that’s over 1 million) views and was featured on CNN, Fox Business News and Associated Press.

HOT MODEL SELLS SALADS
While watching TV with an out-of-town friend – George, he alerted me to a very sexy commercial involving Kim Kardashian and some sort of salad. After viewing it he immediately vowed to stop by at the local Carl Jr and get a salad.

Here’s the video that got my friend all hot and bothered over a salad:

HOT & SEXY BLOG PHOTOS
Recently I was searching ways to add a Google map on a web site and I stumbled upon a very well put together video tutorial that explained in terms I even can understand how to do that. At the end of the tutorial, I was presented with a link to the video creator’s blog. The name itself made me curious – www.easykiss123.com.

Upon entering the blog I was a bit surprised to see that every article was accompanied by a semi-provocative picture featuring great looking women. They were all in good taste and most have quite an interesting twist.

Here is a screen-shot of this blog:

If the title of the article doesn’t entice you to open and read the articles, the photos definitely do the job, tickling your curiosity and pushing your desire button. I have to mention though - the articles and the video tutorials are top notch and drip of helpful information for any blogger or webmaster out there.

Conclusion:
Careful (and in good taste) wording and imagery choice can have an astounding impact on the viral potential of your marketing message. Next time you are launching a new product or service see if you can sprinkle a bit of emotion into your message and the results might just…surprise you.

Now back to my Cosmopolitan article “50 Things to Do Butt Naked”…maybe I can learn something new…

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It’s been said time and time again that links are the currency of the web. Without links, your odds of achieving significant online traffic (either from other websites or search engines) without big ad bucks are slim to none.

Without links, no one knows you exist online. Technorati ranks the popularity of blogs by the number of incoming links. Google’s search engine algorithm thinks you’re more important when you have links aimed at you from important people.

Viral Copy

It’s not enough anymore to just get people talking… they need to be linking. It’s more important these days that they spell your URL right, rather than your name. It can be awfully lonely on the web when no one stops by.

If you’re trying to do business online, lonely equals poor. Whether you’re selling products, services or advertising, you need visitors who not only stop by, but return again and again.

Download here the full version of “Viral Traffic” in Adobe PDf format

Viral Videos

Online video has proven to be one of the biggest phenomena of the internet.

By 2009 there were over 600 million people around the world who watched online video regularly.

Here are 3 ways marketers can take advantage of this new internet tool:

1. Emulate TV and advertise within the video by attaching a 15-30 seconds presentation that plays right before the video is being played. Google does it on the so called “in-stream” video.
2. Use video to provide content on websites
   Quality plays an important role and web surfers are looking for quality videos at all times. If possible, stream it as a Flash video from a professional video server rather than YouTube, although the technology has improved dramatically especially within the last year.
3. Use video as a catalyst for viral message distribution
   Viral videos require talent; the internet is full of failed attempts of non-creative so called video directors. Make sure yours is not one of them.

Leaving content aside, if you want your video to have the best chance of going viral, follow these 2 simple rules:

• Make it short and sweet – under 30 seconds if possible. More than that and yoy might run the risk of alienating your viewers.
• Avoid making your video a blatant advertisement; unless it really has a WOW factor.

Examples of good viral videos:
“Will it Blend?”
“In the Air Tonight” – Cadbury’s
“Levis”

Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing also known as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company in a more unusual way.

They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.

In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

Viral Marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.

Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.

Use Viral Marketing to Your Advantage

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that is potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

More and more companies are catching on to the effectiveness of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz; many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them moiré popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”?

Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.