Trojan marketing is quickly becoming one the best ways of
getting your products or services into the hands thousands of
people.

What is Trojan Marketing?

If the phrase "Trojan Marketing" has not been coined before, I
guess I am the first online marketer to use it.

This will be my contribution to the marketing world. :)

The term "Trojan" originates from Greek mythology that involved
the city of Troy (the residents were known as Trojans) and a
large wooden horse and I will give you a quick recap of the
story so you have an idea of what I am getting at.

This Trojan horse was used by the Greeks as an instrument of war
in order to get into the city of Troy.  The conflict apparently
started at the wedding feast of King Peleus and Thetis.  Peleus
was the King of Pthia and Thetis was the "Goddess of the Sea."

Eris, the Goddess of Discord was very upset that she was the
only God that was not invited to the wedding feast.  Eris, in
order to cause problems, threw an apple into the wedding party
with the words, "To The Most Beautiful" inscribed in the apple.

The problem started when more than one goddess claimed ownership
to the apple.  Hera, Athena and Aphrodite each wanted the apple.
A man named Paris, the King of Troy, was selected to judge who
was the most beautiful out of the three goddesses.

The goddesses tempted Paris with many gifts, such as power and
love, but in the end he picked Aphrodite as the most beautiful.
Aphrodite promised to give Paris the most beautiful mortal woman
in the world as a gift for selecting her.

The most beautiful mortal woman at this time was Helen, but she
was married to King Menelaus of Sparta.  Aphrodite cast a spell
on Helen so that she would go to Paris.  Paris would have
Helen for himself, and Aphrodite's promise to give the most
beautiful mortal woman to Paris would be fulfilled.

When Paris came to visit Sparta, Helen left with him to return
to Troy.  Enraged, the Greek King launched a fleet of one
thousand ships to go to Troy and bring back Helen.  Helen was
"the face that launched a thousand ships."

For the next ten years, the Greeks had tried to capture the city
of Troy without any success and were not able to get Helen back.
The city of Troy was built with formidable city walls that made
it almost impossible to penetrate.

The Greeks needed to devise a plan that would get them into the
city of Troy.  The Greeks built a giant, wooden horse with a
hollow belly.  Only a few armed Greeks soldiers climbed into the
hollow opening, and sealed it up.

At the same time, the rest of the Greek army piled into their
ships and sailed away to make it look like they had given up.
With no Greek ships in sight, the Trojans came out of Troy to
receive the huge horse thinking it was as a gift from the Gods.

The Trojans then decided to celebrate the gift and the retreat
of the Greek ships.  By nightfall the whole city was in a
drunken uproar that lasted throughout the night.  In the small
hours of the morning, while everyone was drunk or asleep, the
Greeks unsealed the belly of the horse, and climbed down from
it.

Silently, they killed the Trojan sentries at all the city gates.
The gates were then opened to the rest of the Greek army who had
returned on their ships.  Apparently, in their drunkenness, the
Trojans did not see the Greek fleet return to their shores.

Now, the Greeks were finally inside the city after ten years of
futile battles.  The Greeks had victory in their grasp and
proceeded to slaughter men and boys alike. The women, and girls
were kept and later sold as slaves.  By the next day, everyone
in Troy was either dead, or captured as slaves.

Well that is the story of the Trojan Horse.  Do you see how well
it relates to Internet Marketing?

... okay, maybe not. :(

Trojan marketing first evolved on the Internet in the form of
"scumware."  Companies such as Gator and Kazaa were secretly
installing software onto a users computers without the computer
user's knowledge.

Scumware is the term that is applied to software that puts links
or banners on Internet sites without your permission of the web
site owner.  Links or banners you would never dare put on your
web site.  Your competitors' ads, gambling links, adult links,
etc.

Gator does this by packaging a small program that is installed
on your computer after you download their free form filling
program.  This small program pops up ads on your computer when
you go to a targeted web site.  For example, it could be quite
possible to see a General Motors ad at the Ford web site if
General Motors decided to advertise with Gator.

You see how this could upset Ford?

Gator uses the free form filling software program as the "Trojan
Horse" for their pop-up ad program, which displays their
advertisers' ads.

Pretty scary huh?

Companies like Gator give Trojan marketing a bad name.  But the
question that remains is that how can *you* use Trojan
marketing *ethically* to help grow your business.

Here are a few of my own ideas (you may come up with more):

> Whenever you sell a product to a customer, you could package
other sales and promotional material for your *other* products
to go out in the order confirmation or thank you email messages
of the original product order.

> If you offer a digital product for free (i.e. ebook), you
could contact other ebook publishers and ask them if they would
include your ebook with every sale of their ebook as a bonus to
their purchasers.  Every time someone downloads their ebook, a
copy of your ebook will go out with the order!

> Offer people a free product or service in exchange for them
including your small ad in their signature file.  Every time
they send out an email to a friend or relative, your ad will go
out with the email message.

> Offer targeted pay-per-click search engine advertisers that
you will share in the cost of their ad campaigns if they include
your pop-up window on their site.  Two web sites getting a hit
for one cost!

There could be tons of other Trojan marketing ideas that you
could use.  The key concept behind Trojan marketing is piggy
backing on the delivery of another product or service.

But do it ethically, or you could also be classified as
*scumware*.  For example, if you are going to send out software
using Trojan marketing, you should make the end user aware that
your software is being installed on their computer and what
exactly it does.

I have a feeling that you will see Trojan marketing used more
often in the future.