Skip to main content

Forward to a friEND


If you're in direct marketing or simply deal with a fair share of email marketing campaigns, you would have no doubt included a 'forward to a friend' option in your emails. You would have then certainly looked at the campaign statistics surrounding your 'forward to a friend' option and somehow convinced yourself that it is still worth keeping...yes?

I must say that sadly, up until only a few campaigns ago, I nostalgically cradled the idea that people would still want to click on 'forward to a friend' instead of simply using the forward option of their email client. I was also part of the minority who would occasionally click on this option out of mere pity for the campaign creators still using it and continue to annoyingly type out my name, full email address, my friend's name, their email address (often having to double check it). All this in the hope that when I included a 'forward to a friend' option, the same courtesy would be reciprocated and recipients would click on it. But no more!

That one friend
Who is that one friend? That one whom we must share this email with anyway? I have Twitter followers, a number of Linkedin connections, friends on Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+, all of whom I want to share this content with and you're telling me to 'forward to a friend'? Really?

The evolution of sharing
The way we digest information has evolved significantly, hasn't the act of sharing emails evolved also? If what I've been emailed is a great read, then I won't hesitate in sharing it. I expect those who I'm connected with, to do the same giving me the opportunity to like, share, favourite, retweet, reblog and/or repin it.

Email marketing lives!
It's frustrating to read an article that claims email marketing is dead, and social media is now 'how we do things'. Social media is important in how we as marketers do things, but email is far from dead! Though SPAM is still prominent, and companies still send an email before thinking; we are getting better and becoming more conscious of user experience outside of our own website(s).

Products like Yammer (Microsoft) will certainly help alleviate the pressure of internal company servers; with that being said, server technology is getting smarter and cloudier... So yes, Yammer will reduce the CCing that goes on within a company. Facebook and Twitter et al will continue to reduce the emails between friends and colleagues. Emails though, will not yet conceit defeat nor will their importance be diluted, in fact an email will remain the gateway to accessing most social networks.

Have you ever tried joining a social network without a valid email address..? Exactly.

THE MORAL
REMOVE THE FORWARD TO A FRIEND OPTION AND REPLACE IT WITH SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING OPTIONS. IF THE EMAIL CONTENT IS A GOOD FIND AND WORTH SHARING, PEOPLE WILL NOT HESITATE TO DO SO. RESPECT EMAIL ADDRESSES. DON'T SPAM!


Labels:
Location: Australia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Technology. Freedom or Addiction?

While there is no shortage of claims of how there will be nothing a human will be able to do better than our AI counterparts in the future, the real question is, what is the actual overarching goal of technology today? I'm not addicted Whatever happened to technology enabling us to better live our lives, by keeping us better informed, connected and empowered? Instead, I feel we are heading down this path of acceptable addiction, where I download an app to help manage my apps. Where I use a SaaS (software as a service) that helps me use another piece of software as well as offer a service. Where I jump on Facebook to 'connect with loved ones' and find myself sucked into a number of rabbit warrens littered with cat videos, conspiracy theorists, memes, birds with arms and generally content design to keep me clicking, watching, consuming all while my details are pawned off to the next advertiser. Ok, I'm addicted Our addiction is so real but we can'...
Post a Comment
Read more

4 things to do first on social media

You have a website, now what? It's still somewhat surprising, that businesses (both online & traditional) are still in the dark about social media and what to do first. So below are 4 things to take care of first, on social media: 1. Get access: Is your I.T. department part of the silly bunch who still blocks YouTube, Facebook or Twitter? A study conducted by The University of Melbourne has found that, basically, you’re 9% more productive then someone who doesn’t surf the web (non-work related surfing). Video sum up of the study (University of Melbourne): http://youtu.be/Ga-8__7tgkE if you prefer to read about it, click here . 2. Get a copy of your company’s social media guidelines: A quick search on Google, for some of the bigger companies such as Telstra, Deloitte, etc have their internal social media guidelines available for download, and if you’re lucky enough to develop guidelines for your company, remind everybody they are called guidelines, not roadblocks. 3. ...
2 comments
Read more

SEO & Social Media Optimisation

SEO/SEM   Often people are confused by search engine optimisation and search engine marketing, so let me put it simply…good SEO incorporates SEM amongst other factors and good SEM incorporates SEO, in fact, if good SEM doesn’t incorporate SEO, then I would drop the ‘good’ and replace it with ‘not so good’ and if you’re not taking advantage of SEM when doing SEO, to at least fill in the gaps of your SEO, then your SEM still needs work and you’re probably spending too much on your SEM. Oh, and let’s not forget that if your SEM doesn’t incorporate SEO then you’re not maximising your impressions, ranking, CTR, cost and you’re certainly not appearing in that yellow highlighted “money can’t buy” area of the SERPs, which means both your SEO and SEM need to be reviewed. Simple right..?? Fact: SEO/SEM is not simple to most people, if you don’t have a digital expert looking at this, then you’re likely to be doing it wrong. Factors to consider Search engines have become a lot more sophi...
5 comments
Read more