Viral List Building Series: Piggy Back Strategy…

Let’s talk about a few of the viral list building projects that I did.

Well, the first one is DIYMiniSite.com. You see, I am really good with web design and graphics. Maybe not really good, I can still put together a website with good design easily. In fact a few days ago I helped a rather popular online piano teacher with her website. She just needed some minor changes.

Anyway, when I look back, I see that I was always looking for some event to ride on. The projects that I did was fairly success (at the time) because some big names launched something, and I launched something related to them. Pretty smart eh? And it was all before Sal the Site Stealer came along. And I never really thought of it that way until I started writing this Viral List Building series.

With DIYMiniSite.com, I remember that Jim Edwards launched Mini Site Creator. It was a home study course on how to build mini sites and make money. Of course everybody took a look at what Jim Edwards was offering. Whenever Jim does something, everybody take notice. Obviously Jim’s product took off.

I took a different route. I offered videos on how to build mini sites for free.

Some may see it as an anti-guru movement. But it was not. I didn’t really put together DIYMiniSite.com to compete with Jim. That never really crossed my mind. At that time, what really went through my mind was that putting together a website is easy and cheap that anyone can do. And I wanted to show people how to do that.

In fact DIYMiniSite.com could have been an introductory version to Mini Site Creator. I could have promoted Mini Site Creator in the backend. I didn’t do that though.

Let me tell you about another project of mine, WOWPopUp.com.

If you have been around the Internet marketing niche for a while, maybe you remember InstantAttention.com, now known as AdImpact.com. There are two things about AdImpact.com that is really cool. One, at the time when pop-up blockers are on the rise, AdImpact.com cannot be blocked. That is because it’s not really a pop-up window. It’s just another CSS layer in your website. Two, AdImpact really grabs the attention of your website visitors because of nice, smooth transparent effect of the graphics. It’s not like what you have seen before. This is done with the lesser known web graphic format, PNG.

But at the time, AdImpact was selling subscription to its service for $97. Later I figured out how to make it yourself and launched WOWPopUp.com. Of course, it was just a simple tutorial with a subscription box at the bottom for the codes. That did quite well too.

What I want to point out is that you can take something popular at the moment and spin off a viral list building project. It can be about current affairs, huge product launches, celebrity-related, event-related (like Christmas which is very near) or anything else. If you have read anything about getting media attention, this is something like that as well.
Remember not too long ago, everybody was talking about VRE. Then everybody was talking about Bum Marketing. You could’ve created a Bum marketing viral site when it was hot.

I remember one of the things that Joe Vitale said in Hypnotic Marketing is about getting media attention. What you can do to get media attention is relate your business with current affairs. The easiest thing to do is release a 10 Ten report.

Have you watched David Letterman lately? They use to have it here in Malaysia. I don’t follow much of TV lately and I don’t know what time, what channel they are on anymore. But anyway, I remember that David will always have his Top 10 List. And some people watch the show just wanting to hear the Top Ten list. And it always relates to current affairs, pick on George W. Bush, or probably any other top celebrities at the time.

So you may want to think like Letterman (or his writers) the next time you think about putting together your viral list building project.