Viral marketing is a sales technique that involves spreading information about a product or service from person to person by word of mouth or sharing via the internet or email. The goal of viral marketing is to inspire individuals to share a marketing message with friends, family, and other individuals to create exponential growth in the number of its recipients. Viral marketing is a deliberate enterprise, though the distribution of a message happens organically. Viral marketing often involves and utilizes customer participation and polling services, industry-specific organization contributions, web search engines and blogs, mobile smartphone integration, and multiple forms of print.

Viral marketing is content that spreads from person-to-person in the same way that a virus spreads through a population. In other words, the goal of any viral marketing campaign is to create a piece of content that has a high probability of being shared and presented by social media users with high networking potential. Viral marketing is a digital marketing strategy where the goal is to reach as many people as possible through word-of-mouth and social sharing. Viral marketing can take many forms, including viral e-mail campaigns, viral videos, viral web pages, and even viral applications for mobile devices.

Benefits of viral marketing include exceptional reach, natural approach, cost-effectiveness, and the ability to generate attention and engagement online.