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viral reports - Do they really work? And if so, what's the best way to do it?

by xxxJamesxxx
17 replies
Hey guys

Thinking of creating a viral report but I was wondering if it's still a worthwhile thing to do?

I do have a high quality short report and I was gonna sell it but I thought I'd try turning it into a viral report that brings in traffic 24/7.

So if there's anyone out there who's trotten the beaten path and had success doing this, I'd love to hear any hints and tips you're willing to share.

Cheers guys

James Scholes
#reports #viral #work
  • Profile picture of the author AceOfShirts
    Does your viral report promote one of your products or your website?

    What is the reader's incentive for passing it along to someone else? Is their affiliate link in the report somewhere so they will make money by passing along?
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim3
    I suppose they still work to some extent, I have also yet to try it myself.

    The best I have ever seen is one from Harvey Segal, it is a work of genius.

    He's on the WF I saw a post from him a few weeks ago, of course I have no idea if it is still successful for him.
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  • Profile picture of the author dazkat
    In my opinion I think the viral strategy has evolved with the emergence of Social Media. This is what I believe should be the corner stone of your viral marketing campaign for your free report. All in all I still think its a worthwhile strategy. As Ace of Shirts mentioned there needs to be an incentive for it to go viral or must create a buzz that people are willing to share it.
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    Here's an idea I know works. Create a viral report. Give it a really cool name like it's really exclusive and then put a big fat pricetag on it. Be sure to have a few affiliate links in there too.

    Then upload that sucker to every torrent site you can find and watch what happens.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Thomas
      Originally Posted by travlinguy View Post

      Here's an idea I know works. Create a viral report. Give it a really cool name like it's really exclusive and then put a big fat pricetag on it. Be sure to have a few affiliate links in there too.

      Then upload that sucker to every torrent site you can find and watch what happens.
      i myself wouldnt do this.

      You are single-handedly putting your site and products on the map for pirates...Once they get a hold of you and your sites name it more than likely wont go off of their radar
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      • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
        Originally Posted by Kevin Thomas View Post

        i myself wouldnt do this.

        You are single-handedly putting your site and products on the map for pirates...Once they get a hold of you and your sites name it more than likely wont go off of their radar
        What can they do to you? Everything else I have is well protected. 10 years ago someone jacked an ebook of mine and it ended up all over the Web. And in the resource section there was an affiliate link to a $1000 product with 50% commission. And tons of them sold. Eventually it all died off.

        If I were to do this deliberately I'd get myself a $3 .info domain well away from my main stuff and let 'er rip. If it's not for you, no problem.
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        • Profile picture of the author Kevin Thomas
          Originally Posted by travlinguy View Post

          What can they do to you? Everything else I have is well protected. 10 years ago someone jacked an ebook of mine and it ended up all over the Web. And in the resource section there was an affiliate link to a $1000 product with 50% commission. And tons of them sold. Eventually it all died off.

          If I were to do this deliberately I'd get myself a $3 .info domain well away from my main stuff and let 'er rip. If it's not for you, no problem.
          I was just thinking about the fact that they were able to get your original viral report from torrent sites or file hosting sites. And I was just thinking that whatever affiliate things you had on the report they could obtain most of the stuff the same way for free..

          (and i wasnt really aware how you sold your other products)

          But you did it and it worked..congrats lol

          I guess I was just thinking about it from my niche standpoint.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    It still works. Simply tell people on the first page of your viral report that they have the permission to pass it around and put it on their website for download. Since i've been doing this, i see that people really are hosting my free viral ebook on their website. Just make sure that you include your links back to your website or product, along with any affiliate products that you're promoting.
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  • Profile picture of the author RevenueGal
    I think viral marketing is one of the best free advertising options available...I mean, having others spread your content around so that you get free exposure to your site allows you to reap the rewards for a long time just by creating some viral content.
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  • Profile picture of the author AceOfShirts
    I'm running a free "viral report" WSO right now. I am letting them rebrand the report with their links. I'll let you know how it turns out.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dann Vicker
    For your viral reports to work well, you must keep them short, preferably 4-6 pages but packed with good information. Then integrate lead-backs to your site in the form of other free offers on your site. This is then where social media viral plugins come in. Before they get to download your second free offer, have them like your page, share it or tweet about your first free offer.

    Most will do this and you'll end up with a viral traffic that may spiral into thousands of hits if the content is killer.

    Dann Vicker
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    Looking for high quality solo ad traffic? 200-2000 clicks available/day. Testimonials here. PM me

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  • Profile picture of the author xxxJamesxxx
    Okay thanks guys

    I've decided to go full steam ahead with it. I'm gonna give all the links away that are promoting my product as they'll get 100% on the backend and frontend.

    Also, what I've just decided to do as well is, give away ebook graphics and squeeze pages etc to really help it go viral.

    Should be done in about a week.

    Thanks guys... Appreciate the feedback for sure.

    James Scholes
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  • Profile picture of the author imdomination
    Yeah, it's definitely still doable, go for it! The annoying thing about viral reports is just that you'll create five of them, and the one you think is the worst is the one that will inevitably be super popular, and your other four awesome ones will never catch on.

    Murphy's law, applied to IM!

    That said, don't let me discourage you, I absolutely think there is huge money to be made in viral reports.
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  • Profile picture of the author marcuslim
    Yes, make your report short, have relevant affiliate links at the end (or links to your own products if you have them). Then submit to pdf directory sites like scribd.com and slideshare.net
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    Marcus Lim
    Silver Bullet Publishing

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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      James, I'm not taking a shot at you, so please don't take this personally...

      You (the universal you) can create reports. You can add features that facilitate spreading them around. But you don't get to decide if they go "viral".

      So talking about making a viral report or viral video just doesn't make sense to me. What does make sense is putting a lot of baited hooks in the water, and doing some chumming, because you never know which bit will be the one to start the feeding frenzy.
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  • Profile picture of the author sizzlemediauk
    Viral marketing definitely is useful and is resulting too as here you could hit the biggest marketplace on the web which is most interactive. In SEO published URLs are shared for URLs boost up and visibility which even search engines find valuable and place the URLs in response to the search term, and so backlinks from that URLs helps in boosting SERPs ranking.
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    SEO Manchester | eCommerce web design | Web Design Manchester
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