For years email marketers have been creating viral campaigns in the hopes of reaching receptive new audiences. But until now, successful viral email marketing has remained an elusive strategy.
Email marketers are set to change that. A new viral marketing tactic called social email marketing promises much better odds of success by making it easier for recipients to pass along messages to friends and for marketers to track results and apply insights to future campaigns.
Social email marketing entails placing links to social networks inside your message, along with a call to action for subscribers to share the message with friends. Recipients click the links to share the email on their social network profile page. The message then can be viewed, clicked and re-shared by friends and friends-of-friends.
It’s easy to see why email marketers are excited. One message to a single recipient has the potential to reach hundreds. Magnify that by every brand ambassador on your list, and the viral potential is staggering. But that’s not all social email marketing offers. It also enables you to:
- Increase the size of your email list. By expanding into social networks, your messages can work as an acquisition tool capable of adding qualified subscribers who share the interests of your most engaged recipients.
- Track the viral effect of your messages. By combining the reporting capabilities of email with the consumer-oriented nature of social networking, you can understand who is sharing your messages and into which social networks. You can also track downstream viral activity, such as how often a shared item has been re-shared, and how many of these shares and re-shares are attributable to the original recipient. The ability to understand how your messages are working virally enables you to shape ensuing messaging based on analysis rather than guesswork.
- Identify and cater to your most influential customers. Social networking sites allow people to share thoughts and connect with others. The ability to understand your most avid sharers—who they are, what motivates them and how they differ from your general subscribers—is key to giving them content they love and are likely to repost.
Online users are embracing social networks. According to Forrester Research, an estimated 19 percent of online users log on to social networking sites at least monthly, and 41 percent of users age 12 to 21 visit social sites daily. And, according to JupiterResearch, as many as four out of 10 participants use sites like Facebook and MySpace to gather product information and recommendations.
As people diversify into new communications channels, marketers can benefit by finding different ways to reach them. Email marketers who understand and respect the ethos of the social networking environment can be invited in by their customers, introduced to their friends, and be both welcomed and successful there.
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