Online retailers want their marketing e-mail messages to reach as many eyeballs as possible. Taking advantage of subscribers’ natural desire to share info about a great deal with their friends is one way to do just that.
Dedicated links that allow e-mail subscribers to easily “forward to a friend” (FTAF) or “share with your network” (SWYN) are two ways marketers can help their messages go viral. Though social networking is hipper than old-fashioned e-mail forwarding, marketers are much more likely to provide a “forward” link (48%, including those who provide both links) than easy sharing capability (13%, including those who provide both links), according to data from Smith-Harmon.
Only a few online retailers used both types of links in their e-mail campaigns, and nearly one-half did not offer any link at all for passing on messages.
Links to share content with a social network can potentially give messages much more exposure. After all, such e-mails are shared with the subscriber’s entire social network, rather than just a few friends chosen specifically for the purpose.
Smith-Harmon found that among those retailers that did provide social network sharing links, Facebook was the clear favorite. Every campaign studied that had a SWYN capability had a link to Facebook. Twitter came in second, at 67%, while only 44% of sharing-capable e-mails linked to MySpace.
Online retailers also directed subscribers to share offers via social bookmarking sites and social shopping sites.
“Despite FTAF’s incumbent position, I expect SWYN adoption to overtake FTAF usage over the next 24 months as more marketers and consumers become familiar with it,” wrote Chad White, author of the “FTAF vs. SWYN: The State of Email Sharing” report, on MediaPost. “Also, just as FTAF has to compete with the ‘forward’ button in every email client, I expect that we’ll see SWYN links built into email clients in the future.”
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