In Viral Marketing, people that find out about a new product inform many other people voluntarily. Like the old shampoo commercial, they tell two friends, then they tell two friends, and so on. Hotmail made this famous when they advertised free Hotmail accounts at the bottom of every email sent by Hotmail users. The result was explosive growth of the Hotmail brand.

This word of mouth marketing technique can be multiplied exponentially by the power of the modern internet. Just like a spreading virus in a living organism, video clips, web-based games, eBooks, on-line reports, software, emails and images can spread across the internet like wildfire.

A recent innovation in viral marketing is the use of viral reports. A normal non-viral report (often in the form of an eBook) almost always provides useful information to the reader. Inside a typical report, solutions to the readers problems are offered for sale through affiliate links. If the reader buys a product listed in the report, the report author make a commission. Unfortunately, the reach of the author is limited to the number of people he can get to read the report.

A viral report is similar to a non-viral report in that it provides information and product solutions in the form of affiliate links. However, a viral report can be easily and legally "re-branded" from the original author to a third party. During the re-branding process, some (but not all) of the affiliate links are changed to pay commissions to the third party.

Now, with the potential to make affiliate sales, the third party has a serious financial incentive to distribute the report. Many other third parties can re-brand the same report, creating an army of highly motivated report distribution agents. This viral report can spread across the internet like wildfire, making money for the original author (through remaining affiliate links that do not get re-branded) and everyone else in the distribution machine.

This viral report technique is powerful because everyone wins. The author makes money, the people distributing re-branded reports make money, and the people reading the reports get quality information on topics of interest.