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TOP 10
VIRAL E-MAILS »
Top 10 best viral e-mails web sites rated by the LoveToKnow editors. |
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Top 10 List how we choose |
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Celebrities
You'll find many examples of viral e-mails in the
Viralbank. Celebrity emails are often meant to get the word out about a
celebrity. A viral e-mail is essentially free word-of-mouth promotion. More
recently, The White House has begun to use viral e-mails to get the word out about
various topics. Viral e-mail is no newcomer to politician. In fact, it is
often used to get negative media out about the opposing candidate. In
addition, political groups have been known to start viral e-mails on topics
of import. |
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Friendship
If you've been on the Internet for any length of
time, you've likely received one of these viral e-mails. The topic is
friendship. These messages typically contain either poetry or cute pictures
or a combination of the two. There are many different versions of friendship e-mails. When combined with a link to a website, these types
of e-mails can be a powerful marketing tool and also serve to brighten the
life of those who receive the forwarded emails. |
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Funny Videos
Funny videos can gather millions of hits. Most
of them are passed around from friend to friend via e-mail links telling the
other person to "check this out". A truly humorous video is worth its weight
in gold. If you are looking to use viral marketing to increase traffic to
your site, look at models that have been successful such as Jib
Jab. You can also find out which videos are shared most often at sites
like ViralVideos.com, such as the Evolution of Dance and The Ninja Chipmunk. |
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Holidays
During the Christmas season, you may have received
an e-mail or notice to go "Elf Yourself". This is a viral phenomenon of
elves doing various silly things with the faces of the people you love.
Similar to the way Jib Jab puts your face into a video, but the focus is
exclusively on elves. The elves are a brilliant marketing campaign from Office
Max and have continued to grow in popularity. The Elf Yourself site
shuts down during the year and opens back up for the holidays. |
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Jokes
Viral e-mail jokes can tickle our funny bone, cheer us
up on a sad day or be a nice break from everyday monotony. This site offers
many different jokes that can be sent via e-mail in a number of categories.
Categories include jokes about police, science, school, moms, golf and
computers. Some jokes that have recently gone viral include jokes about Tiger Woods, most of which are quick one-liners about the situation with
his cheating on his wife or crashing his car. |
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Music or Ringtones
Since viral marketing is all about giving
stuff away for free, you'll find many bands offering free music or downloads
of ringtones and will often get e-mails about these offers. You can find a
lot of information about how new bands are using this free marketing tool to get the word out about
their music and gain new fans. Social networking sites like Twitter have gotten on board, even offering to help you tweet about a
free download. You can also offer music through MySpace and Facebook. |
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Newsletters
Regularly mailed electronic newsletters can be a
great viral marketing tool. Many companies choose to send HTML newsletters
these days because of the many options in appearance. Newsletters can be
used to provide information, take online surveys and even plan event marketing. Think about a basic format for the newsletter and
any free items you can offer to turn the newsletter viral. Many newsletter
creators offer to let the reader forward the entire newsletter to friends as
long as the complete newsletter is forwarded. |
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Religious or Inspirational
Dayspring is one example of viral
Christian e-mails. However, there are also many poems and words of
encouragement that seem to float from person to person, passing around the
Internet over and over again. Religious viral e-mails can be a great way to
express your faith to others in a fun and encouraging way. Some churches
have used these e-mails to promote an event or Sunday services. There are
many other free resources on this site, including some Christian videos. |
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Rewards for Forwarding
While there are some legitimate
companies that offer points for reading emails or clicking on links, such as MyPoints,
most e-mails that claim to offer rewards to the person who forwards to
friends are simply fiction. In fact, it would be impossible for the company
to track who the email was forwarded to. However, there are many sites who
offer points, rewards or discounts for referring friends on the actual
website. One such company is BzzAgent which offers points and advancing to new levels for people referred and
other activities. |
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Something for Nothing
One of the beautiful things about viral
e-mail is that everyone usually gets something for no cost. The person
forwarding the e-mail gets to send a cute post to friends, the friends are
entertained, and the company being advertised gets free promotion every time
that e-mail is forwarded. Offering something to get people to sign up to a
mailing list or even become a fan on FaceBook can be a great technique. What
is offered can be completely free of charge, such as information, an e-book
or a podcast. |
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