Word-of-mouth popularity, properly referred to as viral marketing, is one of the more effective ways of promoting a business, thought, or product. For websites, one of the most successful methods of viral marketing is the use of Tell-A-Friend emails. These allow visitors to email a page and its contents to friends and family, or someone else who maybe interested.
Do You Use Tell-A-Friend Links? Discuss at WebProWorld.
However, with inception of the CAN-SPAM act, sending what some may consider unsolicited emails can potentially lead to trouble for the site the mailing came from. If someone misinterprets the mailing, they can report you as a spammer. This can lead to being banned by your IP provider or, in the worst-case scenario, having to answer to the FTC. There are certain steps that can be taken to ensure that Tell-A-Friend mailings do not appear as spam.
If you are having trouble deciding whether or not to use a Tell-A-Friend link on your pages, keep in mind that this is a very effective way to market your site virally. Fluffykins, a long-time poster at the SitePoint forums, who said: “Lots of the big players seem to use this system. And word of mouth is a tried and tested promotional medium.”
Other posters confirmed Fluffykins’ thoughts by saying the addition of the Tell-A-Friend link was one of the best things they’ve included on their site. One poster went even further by stating that over 60% of his site’s traffic came from T-A-F links.
For those considering using T-A-F links, SitePoint forum administrator mmj offers this advice:
“Here’s some steps you can take to reduce the spam factor:
– Make sure that everyone who uses your tell-a-friend form provides a valid email address.
– Place that email address into the “From: ” line of the email so that it’s clear to the recipient who sent it.
– Include a note at the bottom of the email saying that it was forwarded using a “tell-a-friend” feature. You may also want to say something like “in case of abuse, contact abuse@example.com”.
I also include, in the header of the email, a custom field called X-Form-User: where I give the IP address of the person using the form. That way if there is any abuse, then I can ask them to forward me the full headers of the email and I can just IP ban the abuser.”
Mike_FWT, offers similar suggestions. “Our site offers the use of a Tell a Friend’ form for all website users. The method we’ve employed takes note of the number of messages sent by IP through our mailserver and will automatically block transfers that exceed a certain threshold.
I think the main advantage here is that site visitors should never have to send more than one or two messages via this form, so it’s very simple to flag any unusual activity originating from this particular mechanism.”
These are two seemingly effective methods that people have employed to safeguard themselves when featuring T-A-F links. The consensus centers on ensuring that the sender’s name appears in the “From section” as well as the body section of the mailing so the recipient will understand that the email is not spam.
Also, be sure to inform those receiving the mail that their email address will not be captured. This is accomplished by simply including that particular text within the email’s body. A poster named Mike from Website Publisher forum recommends informing your hosting company that you are including T-A-F links. This helps ensure they don’t mistake these mailings for spam.
If you want to attempt a viral marketing campaign for your web site, but you don’t have any confidence in Tell-A-Friend links, poster tabula_rasa offers an alternative method:
“On my sites, I just have a mailto: link with no email address filled in, but with the subject and body filled in… This way, they can click it, type their message, and send it to everyone in their address book. I also avoid all the trouble that comes along with having a tell-a-friend script…. In the end:
– It is more convenient for users.
– It saves me email bandwidth
– I avoid being blacklisted
– No one can use my site to spam other sites
The downside is: You cannot control the message being sent and what you can include in the [body] is very limited.
There are no statistics… For all I know, no one has ever sent an email using the link.”
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
