how to make your emails go viral
TRANSCRIPT
How to Make Your Emails Go Viral Chad White, Research Director, Litmus @chadswhite
Justine Jordan, Marketing Director, Litmus @meladorri
We tend to associate ‘going viral’ with social media—in part because it’s relatively easy to see and measure the noise of
social sharing. @chadswhite @meladorri
However, the much quieter email forward is often a much
more powerful influencer.
@chadswhite @meladorri
How consumers referred others, across industries, according to SocialTwist.
Distribution of new visitors, by method of outreach of their friends, according to SocialTwist. Although more consumers are reached through Facebook, email results in greater response.
Nielsen research found that “recommendations from people I know” are the most trusted form of advertising.
Nielsen research also found that more trusted forms of advertising drive more action in response.
The 1-to-1 or 1-to-few nature of email forwards makes them
much more personal and much more trusted—and therefore more likely to drive action.
@chadswhite @meladorri
Chad White @chadswhite
• Research Director at Litmus • Author of Email Marketing Rules • Written thousands of posts and
articles about email marketing • His research and commentary
have appeared in over 100 publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today
Justine Jordan @meladorri
• Email critic and popular industry speaker
• Directs all things marketing at Litmus
• Recipient of the 2015 EEC Email Marketing Thought Leader of the Year award
• Organizer of The Email Design Conference
To better understand the quiet, often invisible influence of email forwards, we used Litmus’ Email Analytics to analyze the forwards generated by more than 400,000 email sends with at least 500 opens between Jan. 2013 and March 2015.
@chadswhite @meladorri
To reduce the impact of list size, we normalized forward activity by calculating the forward-to-open rate—that is, what percentage of opens generated a forward.
@chadswhite @meladorri
And to understand the drivers of email forwarding, we analyzed more than 200 emails from among the top 1% of viral emails and another 200-plus emails from around the 50th percentile—looking at tactics, topics, and other email elements.
@chadswhite @meladorri
Over the next half-hour we’ll discuss The Findings from our “The Viral Email” Report
Benchmarks for Forward-to-Open Rates
Tactics that Affect Forward-to-Open Rates
Email Topics that Affect
Forward-to-Open Rates
1 2 3
Benchmarks for Forward-to-Open Rates
The median email (50th percentile) produced a 0.27% open-to-forward rate. Put another way, the middle-of-the-pack email generates 1 forward for every 370 opens.
@chadswhite @meladorri
The 1st percentile of viral emails was 17.6 times more viral than the median, generating 1 forward for every 21 opens.
@chadswhite @meladorri
Email Forwards per Open Benchmark
Email Virality Grows Exponentially Vs. Median
Tactics that Affect Forward-to-Open Rates
Tactics we’ll explore… • Audience Size • Segmentation & Triggered Emails • Personalization • “Share with Your Network” Calls-to-Action
@chadswhite @meladorri
Audience Size
Does an email sent to a small audience or a large audience have more viral potential?
@chadswhite @meladorri
Small audience! The median email among those with 500 to 50,000 opens was forwarded 90% more than the median email among those with more than 50,000 opens.
@chadswhite @meladorri
Small Audience Forward-‐to-‐Open Rate
Large Audience Forward-‐to-‐Open Rate Small vs. Large
1st Percen=le 5.04% 1.91% 2.6
5th Percen=le 2.29% 0.89% 2.6
10th Percen=le 1.49% 0.60% 2.5
25th Percen=le 0.71% 0.32% 2.2
50th Percen=le 0.30% 0.16% 1.9
Source: Litmus
And it’s even more stark among the most viral emails
@chadswhite @meladorri
Segmentation & Triggers
Are segmented emails and triggered emails more or less likely to be forwarded?
@chadswhite @meladorri
More likely! The emails in the 1st percentile were 4.3 times more likely to be segmented and 2.9 times more likely to be triggered than emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite @meladorri
San Diego Magazine segmented these event
promo emails to attendees of last year’s event and to
attendees of another event they held. Both were among the top 1% of viral emails.
Personalization
Are personalized emails more or less likely to be forwarded?
Note: We ignored first-name merges and other superficial forms of personalization.
@chadswhite @meladorri
More likely! Emails in the 1st percentile were 4.5 times more likely than emails in the 50th percentile to include personalization.
@chadswhite @meladorri
“Share with Your Network” CTAs
Are emails that include SWYN calls-to-action more or less likely to be forwarded?
@chadswhite @meladorri
More likely! Emails in the 1st percentile were 13 times more likely to include a “share with your network” call-to-action than emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite @meladorri
This highly viral email from Chevy Safe & Fun included a photo taken at an event, as well as prominent “share with your network” links.
Recipients of this segmented email from JustGiving were
very happy to spread the word that they were among the top
1% of fundraisers during 2014.
Email Topics that Affect Forward-to-Open Rates
Email topics we’ll explore… • Promotions/Deals/Discounts • News/Helpful Content • Events/Webinars • Transactional/Account Change/Action
Required @chadswhite @meladorri
Promotions/Deals/Discounts
Are emails about promotions, deals, and discounts more or less likely to be forwarded?
@chadswhite @meladorri
Less likely! Promotions were the most common topic among emails in the 50th percentile and were 67% less likely to be the topic of the most viral 1% of emails.
@chadswhite @meladorri
News/Helpful Content
Are emails about news and helpful content more or less likely to be forwarded?
@chadswhite @meladorri
Less likely! Although very common in the 1st percentile of viral emails, news and helpful content was slightly more prevalent among emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite @meladorri
Promotions and helpful content are staples of email marketing, so subscribers are only driven
to forward those that are truly great.
@chadswhite @meladorri
Plan your email content calendar so that you’re occasionally sending an awesome deal, exclusive news, or similarly
impactful content. @chadswhite @meladorri
A really good deal—combined with the announcement of store closings—made this email from
Home Decorators Collection highly viral.
Presented as an infographic, news that
GameChanger’s app had tracked 800 million pitches for amateur teams went viral.
Events/Webinars
Are emails about events and webinars more or less likely to be forwarded?
@chadswhite @meladorri
More likely! Emails in the 1st percentile were 3.2 times more likely to be about an event than emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite @meladorri
An exciting, controversial topic and a compelling
speaker propelled this event email into the top 1% of most-
forwarded emails.
Transactional/Account Change
Are emails about transactions, account changes, and required actions more or less likely to be forwarded?
@chadswhite @meladorri
More likely! These emails were 4.6 times more likely to be among the 1st percentile of viral emails than among the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite @meladorri
Two Types of Email Forwards… • Social forwards build awareness and
start others down their own funnels toward conversions.
• Advice-seeking forwards help the forwarder decide whether to convert.
@chadswhite @meladorri
Whereas most forwards raise awareness and help convince others to convert, the forwards of this triggered transactional
email from Glo primarily helped the forwarder convert.
Final Thoughts
When your subscribers forward your emails, they expand your reach, increase conversions, and boost your email engagement metrics—
which is good for branding, revenue, and deliverability.
@chadswhite @meladorri
Forwards are a powerful indicator of the overall health of your email
program, because they are a sign that you’re fulfilling your subscribers’
needs at the highest level. @chadswhite @meladorri
Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs
If your monthly forward-to-open rate is in the bottom quartile (less than 0.11%), then your email program is probably not delivering experiences
that are deeply relevant. @chadswhite @meladorri
The Viral Email To explore all of the findings of our report, download it for free at:
bit.ly/litmus-viral
@chadswhite @meladorri
Questions?
Please rate our session. Thanks!
@chadswhite @meladorri
Join Us For Dreamforce 2015 September 15-18, 2015 | San Francisco, CA
salesforce.com/dreamforce