When it comes to Internet marketing, there's nothing quite as successful as a viral marketing campaign that hits the mark.

Viral marketing is similar to word-of-mouth advertising. In Internet marketing, the reference to the word 'viral' refers to the way the campaign works ' like a virus ' in that information is spread and passed around from one person to another. Unlike a virus, however, viral marketing does not do any harm. On the contrary, its effects on the brand or product being talked about are positive.

If you want to spread your Internet marketing message quickly to large number of people, viral marketing is one of the most effective ways to do so. The Internet is tailor-made for just such a thing, especially given the popularity of e-mail and the existence of many social networks like Facebook and Friendster. In addition, given the Internet's ability to add graphics and animation to the marketing message, viral marketing campaigns have the potential to be quite magical.

Examples of viral marketing campaigns that really got people talking include the 'Evil Twin' campaign by Ford Motors and the 'Big Ad' campaign by Carlton Drought.

With regard to Internet marketing, there are many campaigns that have illustrated the effectiveness of viral marketing , including the 'Subservient Chicken' campaign of Burger King, the buzz for the 'Blair Witch' movie and the Gmail launch.

The Subservient Chicken campaign, now a classic in Internet marketing, was undertaken in 2004. Web surfers were encouraged to visit a Web site set up by Burger King which presented a Web cam view of a man in a chicken costume. Visitors could command the guy to do practically anything they wanted ' such as jumping, spinning, doing the moonwalk of Michael Jackson or walking like an Egyptian ' and the Subservient Chicken would do just that. Overall, there were more than 300 actions that the Subservient Chicken could perform. This campaign was good for a lot of laughs and for creating excellent recall for Burger King's slogan, "Get chicken just the way you like it". Any time you have an Internet marketing campaign that's hilarious, you know you have a winner.

The first successful viral marketing campaign implemented over the Internet for a movie was the one for the Blair Witch Project. It revolved around a back-story that claimed that truly horrendous and mind-boggling things had happened to the film's principals. People began speculating wildly and quickly began passing around whatever nuggets of information they had read about the film. Before long, it seemed like everyone was talking about the movie and the online buzz turned the film into a mammoth box office hit.

The Gmail viral campaign was an effective Internet marketing thrust because of two things ' the e-mail was desirable and it was scarce. Google made Gmail available to only a handful of users in the beginning. And since it was so hard to come by, people started considering Gmail precious and desirable. Owning Gmail meant you belonged to an exclusive club. Soon enough, everyone was talking about Gmail and dying to try it. That was another triumphant Internet marketing campaign.