Email is one of the most popular advertising methods for small and medium enterprises because of its ability to bring your marketing message to a huge number of people at very low cost. Not only can you contact a broad segment of your market directly, but if you design your campaign correctly, your direct customers will pass the word on to their friends and family.

Here are some tips on how to make your email campaigns go viral – so they spread quickly from person to person.

In order to create a successful viral email marketing campaign: 

• DO define your goals. Determine what you want to accomplish with a viral campaign before starting. Some possibilities include increasing brand recognition, customer loyalty, size of your opt-in mailing list, or direct sales.
• DO remind your email recipients to forward the mails to their friends. Use clear, strong language and place your reminder in an easy-to-see place.
• DO make sure that your email contains enough information about your company and services, so that even people who are not on your regular mailing list understand your offer.
• DO make sure you consider your email format carefully. Rich media emails may lose formatting when they are forwarded, causing them to look strange when they are received. Provide a ‘forward to a friend’ web link to make it easy to pass it on.
• DO track the results from your email forwarding. Some email programs make it easy to tell how often your emails are passed on to friends.
• DO test how altering the size, look, and placement of the forwarding link impacts how often the mail is forwarded and how the recipients respond.
• DON'T ask people to forward your mails without encouraging them to be responsible about it. If they forward to people they don't know well, or without being clear about why they are sending the mail, your message will look like spam, which could have a negative impact on your company reputation.
• DON'T use incentives to encourage people to forward your mail unless you can be sure that they won't send the mails to every email address they can find, for the same reason as above.
• DON'T try to do too many things at once. If you want your email to go viral, make that a strong central point of your message. Don't distract from your goal by also trying to get your readers to take too many other actions as well.

By following these do's and don'ts of creating a viral email marketing campaign, you can reach a far broader audience without breaking your marketing budget. If you would like a no-obligation consultation to explore how a viral marketing campaign could work for your business, please call 08452 579 606.