So what is idea? Well, what you need to do is have a short form on your web site, on each page of your web site, inviting people to send a free SMS to their friend about your site. Of course, so that they do not go about sending their own messages that have nothing to do with your site, you would pre-write your advert and make it unavailable for change by site visitor. So all you ask your visitors for is their mobile phone number and their friends’ mobile phone numbers. That is all. When they enter this in your form on your web pages and click send, a script sends your pre-written ad to their friend. Of course, you have to write it in a ‘friendly’ manner so that it does look like a ‘personal recommendation’ to recipient. You can show sender what outgoing message will be but don’t allow them to change it or else they will just type in their own personal story about dog at home – at it will still cost you $0.05. It is that simple.

Many people love to send and receive SMS messages so this is a very fresh and engaging way for you to advertise. And you know you are hitting right target because most people will not recommend something to their friend unless they like it and know their friend will like it. So you pay for good targeting. You also get good response because people trust their friends more than they trust you. So do remember to ask sender for their mobile phone number because that is how receiver will know that it came from them. You may also ask them for their first name and their friend’s first name and insert them in pre-written recommendation you send out.

Now all you need is to implement this. What you need is a company that has set up a ‘SMS gateway’ that has worldwide roaming. Open an account with them. You then send your SMS messages to that company and they will transmit it for you. It is all done easily via scripts. Some of best companies out there for this are Simple Wire and Deltica (see http://www.imagesofone.com/articles/reviews.asp for updated links to gateway companies and service providers). These companies will give you a starter kit that includes sample code that you can modify to implement what we talked about. You can implement this easily if you have some experience with CGI scripts or perhaps ASP or PHP. If you don’t, you can get someone to do it for you at www.elance.com for a small fee.

What have you just done? You have enabled your consumers to talk to each other about you in most personal and rapid way. This is where future of marketing lies. And you can get in on it right now. I wish you all best and hope to get an SMS from your site one day.

Either way you can keep your book, product or service dream alive by getting news of it into hands of thousands of readers rather than a few. You can send this out via print or via Online.

If other marketing and promotion campaigns have brought few product sales, left your wallet thinner, wasted your valuable time, and left you with a garage full of unsold masterpieces, you may now be ready to set up your book's virtual marketing machine- Internet.

Any newbie or non-techie can grab this opportunity as I did. It's as available to you as a friend, a business associate, a support group you attend, or a professional book coach.

You can start right now, even if you don't have a Web site. Learn non-techie how-to's you need to get started. Think of marketing and promotion as simple networking--friendly networking. This approach combined with Online promotion methods can help you start your lifetime book promotion journey. How? Like you would eat an elephant--one bite at a time! Watch your sales grow!