By implementing viral marketing strategies, you provide an incentive for web site visitors to carry a sales message. This incentive is usually a free "carrier" tool for that marketing message or a means by which it is easier for people to spread the word about your products and services.  The idea is not to push your visitors into delivering your sales message to others, but as a side effect of them gaining benefit from a utility or service that you offer.

How can a tourism related website implement viral marketing?

Postcards

• Electronic postcards are an easy way to let some who has visited your site send his friend a mail with a link to the postcardOther free viral marketing techniques include ecard plugin services, free software with embedded banners, surveys, tell a friend forms with incentives and some referral programs. You can find some of these free services by visiting our webmaster resources section:

Offline Brochure as PDF

• The main benefits of creating an eBook (off-line brochure) is that its quick and economical delivery via downloading, security of information and rapid package development. eBooks can also benefit any online business in a variety of ways, the most exciting being the viral marketing potential. 
  
  Here's a scenario: You own an online fishing tackle store and want to extend your market reach without investing huge dollars in advertising. Using an ebook generator you could rapidly develop a document that contained a series of solid fishing tips. Each page would have the layout and feel of your website, which would familiarize readers with your brand. Each page of tips would also have a message promoting your online store, and encouraging people to pass the ebook on to others. But it doesn't have to be just promoted from your site. I'm sure that many other online fishing destinations would be happy to offer your free ebook from their sites as well, as it would benefit their visitors. 
  
  If the tips in your free ebook were well presented, it wouldn't be long before the book was popping up all over the world - creating traffic to your site as people investigated the source of the book. Your excellent fishing tips would create credibility with readers, and credibility translates into sales over time.
  
  To further encourage web masters to host your free ebook, you could offer them co-branding options, which would contain a few ads about their own sites.
  

Tell a friend

• Buy building a form that sends a simple email to an entered email address you achieve that word of mout effect. Not only is this getting more visitors to your site but it is getting visitors who are recommending your site

Tell a friend and be entered into our competition

• This is the same as the abouve but you offer a reward for anyone who recommends your site to somebody

Writing Articles as a viral marketing tool

• A very successful strategy is the development of articles and tutorials.At the end of each article and tutorial in the copyright info, and a request that if the content is going to be reproduced that reference is made to the author and his site. If you are lucky a webmaster may place an article on a high traffic web site (along with the proper acknowledgement) and this will create some traffic to your web site. Using this strategy, you are relying on the honesty of the user to acknowledge the origin of the tool.
  
  Once you have published a number of articles, you can also submit them to article directories and archives.  I am still a firm believer that written content is king, and no matter what subject you choose write about, there will always be plenty of people wanting the information, especially if it's for free!  If you do decide to publish your own articles, ensure that the theme is related to your web site, otherwise the traffic you receive will be of little or no value.

Ezines and viral marketing

• Another very popular method of viral marketing via the Internet is through the use of ezines and newsletters. If your newsletter contains information of value, such as tips, hints, news or tutorials, you'll find that subscribers will forward it on to others.
  
  The use of newsletters can also help build content for your web site which increases search engine visibility. After we send out a plain text newsletter, we also publish it in a html version and add it to our online archive. Our stats show a number of visits from people who have hit the archive as a point of entry.
  
  It's very important to inform subscribers exactly what you will be doing with their details as the Internet is rampant with mailing lists being sold off by web masters. Depending on the industry and quality of list, an email address can be worth R10,00 - R25,00, so savvy surfers are becoming more selective in what they'll subscribe to - they'll expect some sort of commitment that you won't be distributing, selling or renting their email addresses.
  
  Most importantly, a newsletter should contain valuable information, not just sales copy - otherwise interest will quickly drop off and you'll be getting a number of unsubscribes. Worse still, your ezine will be deleted as soon as it arrives, leaving you with a valueless list that only sucks up your time, resources and bandwidth. 
  
  The ezine industry has grown at an exponential rate over the last year but the overall quality of ezines has declined.  This is another good reason for publishing back issues of your newsletter online, so that prospective subscribers can view the quality of the content. 
  
  If you don't have content available for an ezine and don't have time to develop articles , there's a number of resources on the Internet where you can gain industry specific articles which are free for reproduction - just try typing "free ezine articles for reproduction" into any search engine. If you do have the time, articles that you produce yourself are the best strategy as it helps to build up credibility with your subscribers.
  
  Ensure that you mention in your ezine that subscribers are welcome to forward the ezine on to others, but they must forward the newsletter in it's entirety. Also include directions for subscribing and unsubscribe functions.

Viral marketing doesn't stop online

• What if you could turn all your online visitors into willing offline marketers as well? One of the challenges in effective Internet marketing is the fact that prospective clients aren't online and visiting web sites 18 hours a day - also, not everyone is part of the Internet surfing community - I know, it was a shock to me as well ;0)
  
  There's still a huge section of the population that we can't reach. And regarding those that we can, how do we get them to remember our products and services once they have gone offline? Stand-alone ebooks are also an excellent strategy.
  
  The benefits of this online marketing strategy translate directly into offline benefits as well. Clients who download the documents for viewing later on may also print them out. These documents are sometimes left laying around or presented at meetings. This attracts the attention of those who may not have been exposed to the product or service previously! The PDF documents might also be reproduced and distributed, creating a viral marketing effect.
  
  Offline marketing doesn't come much cheaper than this! For the small outlay of an effective PDF creation software package, some development time and perhaps the extra bandwidth for distributing the marketing package online, your products and services can reach many more people than just having your online representation. The cost of offline distribution is zero, as your prospective clients pay for the printing and photocopying! PDF documents can incorporate images, sound and hyperlinks. The hyperlink feature allows clients to easily access other resources on your web site.
  
  In some scenarios, the information sheets you are providing may be the product itself for which you wish to charge a fee. In these situations, ebook creation software may be more suitable. Ebooks tend to be stand-alone software, not requiring a plug-in reader.
  

Viral Marketing creates a win/win situation for all parties. The user is provided a service or valuable information for free and in turn provides your site with free advertising. Start turning your web site visitors into part of your online sales force!

More resources about building an internet marketing strategy for tourism services using the internet

• Marketing your Tourism Service on the Internet

If you have any questions about any of this then drop me a mail or give me a ring 036/3523143 and I will see if I can help you. I am not an internet expert or an internet provider rather a tiny guest house owner in the foothills of the Drakensberg. All I can give you is a wealth of information on how to go about promoting your tourism service by building a website yourself affordably.