Viral marketing and adverising is a non-traditional “word-of-mouth” online and internet marketing tactics and strategies that utilize your social networking to raise awareness for your company or business. It can be a very powerful marketing tool as your website or business information can get passed through social networking onto others, from consumer to consumer.

Here are some articles that explain the concept of viral marketing for your Las Vegas business or company:

Tips for Optimizing Viral Marketing Campaigns
By Brady Brewer, ClickZ

Viral marketing, or “refer-a-friend,” email campaigns have received a lot of attention in the media recently. These campaigns, which encourage recipients of promotional emails to forward the messages to their friends, have garnered both positive and negative reviews from consumers, privacy advocates, and industry pundits. read more.

Viral Marketing Articles, Online Viral Marketing Tactics - www.geocart.com

Everything that we’ve been taught online and off says that we should prevent rather than spread viruses…right? Well, when it comes to creating a buzz about your online business, spreading a virus—or more accurately—leveraging the power of viral marketing, could be just what the doctor ordered. read more.

Viral Marketing Ideas - Out of the Box Viral Marketing Tactics - palmerwebmarketing.com

If I were to rank the effectiveness of each marketing avenue for most businesses I’ve worked with, here’s how they stack up. Word of mouth, Email Marketing, Organic SEO, Paid Search, Display Advertising… read more.

You may have heard of the term “guerilla marketing” and wondered, what in the world is that? Guerilla marketing is a strategy of marketing your Las Vegas company or business with little to no budget, but a fair amount of your own time. It is a way of marketing and advertising that is unconventional, sometimes controversial, and buzz-worthy and involves such unconventional advertising tactics as:

• Publicity Stunts - sometimes newsworthy that might get you place on the evening news
• Business Card Assaults - visit your local libraries and bookstores and place your business cards in every book that relates to your business
• Bumper Stickers - you already know how many people see the back of your bumper in a normal work week
• T-Shirts - giving away free t-shirts with your company’s logo and marketing messaging and web address can lead to awareness and word of mouth advertising
• Open Houses - Invite your clients to an open house at your office, have them bring friends for the fun, great opportunity to introduce yourself and your business products and services
• YouTube videos - create an informative, outrageous or noteworthy video pertaining to your business and post it on YouTube, you never know, it might just become an internet classic
• Business Partnerships - finding other businesses that offer related services to your services and feeding each other business is a great way to help market your business
• Write Articles - for newspapers, magazines, or blogs
• Customer Giveaways and Recognition - give away prizes to clients and honor them with a Customer of The Quarter award

To reach a broader audience in your Las Vegas marketing efforts, many companies and businesses consider outdoor advertising. With outdoor advertising you can reach a large audience to communicate your message and get your product’s companies and services out into the Las Vegas community’s mindset.

The Benefits of Outdoor Advertising in Las Vegas

• More and more vehicles on the road delivers more commuter viewers to your outdoor ad
• Efficient, lower cost, most effective cost per 1000 viewers
• Makes a statement, big bold ads in public, creates brand awareness
• Repetition, your ad gets viewed over and over again, 24/7 - it never turns off

If you are considering outdoor advertising in Las Vegas, the following are some resources and websites to visit for more information, options and rates:

• ClearChannel Outdoor Advertising, Las Vegas, Nevada
• Gotcha Mobile Media, Las Vegas
• Las Vegas Billboard Ads
• Connell Outdoor Advertising Co.
• Border Billboard
• Mobile Media Mobile Billboard
• OutdoorBillboard.com

Internet Marketing can really encompass several different concepts or terms - online marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), website marketing, to name a few. Whichever terms you’ve heard before is not too important; the important take-away is that you need to promote your business online, grow traffic to your website, create an awareness and brand your business online, improve your search engine result rankings and make the Las Vegas community aware that your company even exists.

Many companies and businesses in Las Vegas make the mistake of launching a website and thinking that drones of visitors will magically arrive each day. Not true. Just like a business card that sits in your pocket if you don’t hand it out to people, most of the time a website can sit out on the internet and if you don’t market that web site, people may not even know you or your business exists.

Here are some ways you or a professional internet marketing company can help market your business online:

• Launch a Website - if you don’t already have a web site you are WAY behind the curve.  Get one up right away.
• Search Engine Optimization - research keywords and key phrases that people would find your website during a search on a search engine and put those words and phrases into the copy on your website, make those same words links between your website pages and place those same words into your website’s site map.
• Online PR - There are many opportunities for online PR and Press Releases. For more information see my article on Press Releases for Your Las Vegas Business.
• Google’s Free Online Marketing Tools - here’s a list from wikipedia.org. Very helpful and mostly free.
• Pay-Per-Click Campaign - ever wonder what those Sponsored Listings are when you search on google, yahoo, msn or aol? That’s right, they pay. You can set up your own campaign, choose they keywords, set your monthly budget and start coming up right along side your competitors by setting a pay-per-click campaign.
• Email Marketing - Use a company like Constant Contact  to set up an email marketing campaign. You can upload your list of contacts, choose a template and write your email newsletter, it’s easy and fun.
• Launch a Blog - Do you have a lot to say about your particular area of expertise or industry (like I do, hee)? Then launch a blog and tell visitors what you’re thinking and let them find out who you are and what your business specializes in.
• Banner Advertising - Consider buying space on a targeted web site that promotes your products and services. Set up a special landing page so you can track the results

You may have heard of Social Networking before but do you know what it really means and what impact it could have in growing your business?

In case you don’t know what Social Networking means, I thought I’d start by defining it. Social Networking is the grouping of an individual person into specific groups via websites.

On Social Networking websites, you can create a profile, upload your photo, fill in your stats (personal and/or professional), state your interests, then find other members that have some sort of common thread to add to your own personal networking community. You can find and add contacts that have similar business interests, live in your zip code, connect with people you went to high school or college with - create your own online community.

Here are some free Social Networking websites you should definitely join:

• facebook
• myspace
• LinkedIn
• twitter
• jigsaw

Once you have your profiles set up, search for people you know, or search for people you don’t yet know but that have similar interests and add them to your networks. Participate in these online communities, let your contacts know what you’re up to periodically, check in with people, socialize and network!

Benefits to Social Networking:

• You will make new business contacts in Las Vegas
• You’ll meet up with people from your past that can help market your business or company
• Provides you and your company visibility on the internet
• Gives you an awareness of what is happening in your community
• Your contacts can learn about your business which give your business “mindshare”