Shea Beck

As every email marketer knows, email forwarders are very valuable customers. Every email marketer also knows that email forwarders are few and far between. Attempting to change that, I was recently brainstorming ways to get our subscribers to use the forward to a friend feature in our email campaigns. Specifically, when they sign up and receive our Welcome email.

There are several ways to do this, but nearly all include providing some type of incentive to encourage the subscriber to forward an email. Whether it be entries into a contest, a discount on a purchase, or even loyalty points. This is where my fun came to a screeching halt…

I was planning something illegal, and it felt great, I mean, I had to go back to the drawing board. Listen carefully! According the Can-Spam Act revision of May ‘08, if you are running a forward to a friend campaign, I am willing to bet you are in violation of the Can-Spam Act. According to the new law Brands doing forward to a friend campaigns – where participants are rewarded or incentivized – must adhere to these new rules.

“Under the new rules, an advertiser is considered the ‘sender’ of the forwarded email, and thus responsible for scrubbing the friend’s name against its ‘Do Not Email’ list and ensuring that the forwarded message has a functioning opt-out mechanism – among other requirements,” says Terri Seligman, Partner, Loeb & Loeb, LLP. “However, in contrast to the FTC’s earlier proposed rules, the final rule acknowledges that simply encouraging consumers to forward a message, without [incentives or rewards], does not subject the advertiser to ‘sender’ liability under CAN-SPAM.”

-MarketingSherpa

That excerpt seems simple enough, “hey my program allows people to unsubscribe.” Not so fast, this is tricky because I guarantee your email program doesn’t allow the “fowardee” to unsubscribe without custom modification and API calls. The reason behind this is because of the original Can-Spam Act where a marketer is not allowed to capture any email address from a Forward to a Friend mechanism without the “forwardee” explicitly opting in, therefore, you cannot place the “forwardee” on a list to unsubscribe from.

Okay, settle down…you can still create Forward to a Friend incentive campaigns with some API work. All you need to do is place a custom unsubscribe link in the forwarded email. Once clicked, this link will then add the “forwardee” to your email database and unsubscribe them. Simple enough, but make sure the email still has the aforementioned compliance in place.

Too many words, need a synopsis?

Here’s what you need to be aware of with your forward to a friend viral campaign:

• You are now considered the sender of a forwarded email
• The forwarded email must be scrubbed against your unsubscribes before being sent
• The forwarded email must have your physical address
• The forwarded email must allow the “forwardee” a mechanism to unsubscribe

I leave you with this one piece of advice, like all things viral, make sure you are protected :)

We are now in a recession, everyone is worried about their jobs. How do I know? Because my inbox is loaded up with marketing. It seems as if the stock market bombs, my inbox skyrockets. The chart to the left is a scientific graphic displaying my inbox (in black) vs. the stock market (in gray).

This is all fine and dandy if you are marketing with a purpose. After all, email marketing is currently returning an average of $45 for every $1 spent on the tactic. But, that’s not the case…I am getting bombarded with more of the same aimless emails.

That’s cool…what can I do about it?

• Post a greater incentive on your “Thank-You for Signing Up” emails. This can be used as a viral lead generation tactic. Once the word is out, people will post the discount on various coupon sites and bargain hunters will eat it up. There’s two online tactics using one budget.
• Leverage your existing programs for unique content. You already have reviews on your site; get more value out of that budget by syndicating the reviews into email. That is some unique and relevant content I want in my inbox. Hey, look at that. Another use of two tactics from one budget.
• Speaking of reviews, are your customers getting stale on you? Set up an automated campaign reminding them to share how much they love (or hate) your product. This will add fresh content to the site and feed the Search Spiders.
• Optimize your confirmation email using an intelligent offer engine that will automatically include “You might also like” items in every receipt sent.
• Generate a Shopping Cart Abandonment campaign. Be careful when you are executing this, you don’t want to be too big brother-ish. To get the most value, you will want to test different tactics for Cart Abandoner’s and Checkout Abandoner’s.
• Reengage your dying list, get the subscribers who haven’t purchased or been engaged with your campaign active again. Let them know what they are missing; I know I would be upset when I stop receiving 25% off, No Minimum email and nobody told me I was going to.
• And lastly, well last because I’m done writing…Save the world! First, urge your direct mail list to provide email addresses so you can stop killing trees aka start saving money. Second, Stop Sending Direct Mail!

A few things I don’t want you to do:

• Don’t increase your batch and blast email sends. Rather increase automated lifecycle campaigns.
• Don’t reach into your database for those email addresses you have, but don’t actually say “please email me.” Resist the temptation to build your list unethically.
• Oh yeah, don’t let your CEO cut Email. Make sure they know there is more to it than the pretty sales that come on Monday afternoon when your email is sent out.

Before I go, I just want to remind you to take all your money out of the stock market and invest it in email!

“Second isn’t so bad…as long as I can have first place too.” As quoted by the Google logo itself. ComScore just released the August Search Engine Rankings. ComScore reports that there were nearly 2.6 billion searches for videos on YouTube alone. This is 200 million more searches than Yahoo! produced. Of course, that is minuscule compared to the 7.6 billion searches Google served up in August. What is more interesting is the fact that we all know everyone is watching videos when they should clearly be working. With that, it is clear the banks and real estate market isn’t to blame for the recession, YouTube is the cause of this recession.

Wait, there is more…Many of you know Google owns YouTube, this equates to Google properties earning over 10 billion of our total 17 billion searches in August. The Google monopoly is controlling 60% of the internet.

You may be wondering who else is on this list. Well Microsoft is third with 1 billion searches, AOL is fourth with 839 million, then MySpace with 585 million.

I hope you enjoyed reading my first actual post.