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You cannot make your emails viral. Email marketing becomes viral when your recipients feel the need to forward your message to someone they know. Although you can't actively ensure an e-mail's viral success, you can however improve the likelihood of people forwarding it on.
Basic tips that can improve viral forwarding:
Supply great content: Your database will forward your email only if they feel compelled to do so. That is why you will need to plan and create all viral email marketing campaigns to “compel” your readers to forward it on. In order to get this right, your emails need be targeted and contain something of worth that is original, entertaining and informative. Don’t write too much or too little and remember to make your subject line striking, yet enlightening.
Incentivise through free content, coupons or prizes: Giving away free gifts, discount coupons or complimentaryebooks is a great way to encourage people to forward your emails. However, providing a free item is no excuse to have sloppy or boring content in your email. Remember, content is always important, whether you have a give-away or not.
Add a tailored Call to Action: If you want your readers to forward your message to colleagues, family or friends add it in your email. Tailor your call to action to ensure that it makes sense for them to forward it. For e.g. “Forward this email with a friend that shares your interest in flower arranging and make their day.”
Keep it simple: Don’t complicate your campaigns. Keep it to the point and as straightforward as possible. Having interesting articles, a competition, a free ebook and requesting a forward-to-friend all in one email are a complete overkill. Focus each email on one purpose. E.g. Provide information on a new product. Then ask your readers to forward the message to a friend who will value knowledge of this new product and offer them a discounted voucher of the item in exchange.
Simplify Forwarding options: Make it easy for your readers to forward the message on or else they won’t. Do you have a forward option on each email? Is the button easy to find? Utilise email marketing software that makes it easy for your readers to add forwarding email addresses.
Depending on your target audience and the results you want to gain, you will still need to strategise each email campaign cleverly. At the end of the day the most successful factors in any email is good quality, unique content. Without this, you will have difficulty gaining your reader’s attention long enough to request anything else.
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