This happens to be my title, but in reality, it’s an introduction to David Meerman Scott. I never heard of David but from his promotional video, I am impressed. Here are some of my takeaways as I am listening to the video:

Viral Marketing is the type of marketing that spreads from one person to the next, and then to the next and so forth. You to can go viral online, even if you sell toilets.

First step to marketing toilets, well, replace toilets with your product, is to understand your buyer persona. One possible campaign might be: YouTube + Humor + catchy music + Hot Chick/Clothes + catch phrase and something memorable/relatable and ergo: Your Viral Marketing Video.

Second, get rid of the old marketing techniques: Gimmicks and Bait and Switch. They don’t work online anymore. As you may have noticed or even experienced, there are loads of advertisers giving away iPods. And there are over 20 websites dedicated to helping people locate advertisers giving away these free stuff and other promotional items. If your audience is looking for what you are giving away free, they are not necessarily interested in your product. They want the promotional offer, but they’re not interested in what you are offering. Free giveaways might make more sense when at a trade show or offline in general. It makes more sense to lure people in that you can then talk to.

In the online, world another marketing mistake could be having your e-book, is generally an introduction to you, attached to a gateway i.e. if you give me your email address, you can have my white paper. It’s a mistake to bait and switch customers this way. If you’re only measure of success is how many emails you’ve captured today, then you are focused on the wrong thing. You could invariably alienate some of your audience if you create this threatening gateway system. Imagine how many more eBooks people would download if you create a e-book landing page with a creative comment/content license that would allow your audience to spread the word for you.

Finally and most importantly, as a rule of thumb, you should move away from talking about products or services and focus on your buyer’s persona. The example given in the video pertains to resolving problems for your different customer types i.e. if you’re hospitality provider and event planners are visiting your site, you should focus on what they would want immediately: information on rates, space, size, lighting, other past successful events, etc.

Just some content to get your mental juices going.