Successful viral email marketing for better open rates

Think of this for a minute. I send an email message to 10 friends. Those friends send a message to 10 further friends. If that transaction happened 10 times, 10 billion emails would have been sent. That is more than the world's population; in fact, there are less than 5 billion email accounts in existence.

Why give this theoretical example? The answer is that it makes two general points that lie behind the concept of successful viral email marketing. The first is that emails need to be shared, or passed on by others. The second is a modification of what Einstein (supposedly) described as the eighth wonder of the world; compound interest. With viral marketing, we are talking about compound connections rather than compound interest, but the effects are the same. I have focused below on email marketing but most of what is covered apply to viral videos as well.

The importance of the heading

With large numbers of emails going into inboxes these days, many now are not opened by potential customers. If this happens it does not matter how good the contents of your email are, your message will not be seen. The headline is crucial and it is good for it to include both a curious element and a benefit. For example, a headline could be "the little-known email strategy that only specialists use". A headline prefaced with "the right way to...." works well because the recipient with be questioning whether they are doing "it" the right way. A heading stating "how much do you know about..." will again leave a question mark in the mind of the receiver, and you want them to be intrigued.

The email should if possible be a pre-qualified list. One of the ways to "amplify" the pre-qualification is to look for what topics are popular on Buzzsumo. This can give you a powerful heads-up on what is trending on social media. You can see how popular the niche you are targeting is and then either change niche if you discover you are going down the wrong path, or adjust your target slightly within the same niche to a more trending topic. If the list is going out to a statistically relevant number of contacts (say over 1000) then it is worth split testing with two different headlines and then refocusing on which works best.

The body of the text

Wherever possible emails should be personalized as it leads to much better open rates. Then the email should start with a hook, something to draw the reader in and make them curious as to what follows. It might be a controversial fact. This could lead to a statement saying "here is the truth" or "here's why it is the truth". Another ploy is to go along the line of "I thought this was the case, until..." a certain event unfolded. Any statements must then be backed up by evidence so that you create a level of trust. For example "scientific evidence shows that", or "Facebook's figures confirm".. etc.

When the structure and content of the email have been fleshed out it is recommended that it is checked, ideally by using Grammarly and Hemmingway.com, both of which have a free user facility. Grammarly checks all spelling, and punctuation and can advise on when a sentence can be written in a more readable way. Hemmingway.com looks at the overall structure of the piece and determines what is easily readable or not. People will often stop reading if they are faced with a large block of text unless their interest level is high.

The email must include a request that the recipient sends to relevant friends or contacts in their address book who they believe will appreciate it, via the share with a friend button which is included with the body of the email. This is essential for tracking purposes since the tracking facility is lost if they simply forward the email to others.

Other standard housekeeping points include;

• One or more images or a video need to be included as they have been shown to have a more emotional impact on the reader than pure text.

• There is no need to include banners or anything flashy in the email because it appears spammy. It is better to be under the radar so that the recipient is reading an email that looks like it could have come from a friend.

• Attachments should not be included. In the US in particular, 75% of people do not open email attachments because of the perceived risk of doing so.

• Before any email is sent it should be checked to see if it is optimized for mobile and adjustments made if required.

• Finally, the reader of the email should be left in suspense, for the next installment, in true Hollywood tradition. Something along the lines of "you will be amazed/excited when you discover the secret behind this new system", should be enough to ensure your next email is opened.  

Once you have found something that is successfully trending in your niche or a related niche, you want to rework or re-purpose the content. Headings will need to be changed and text as well. If you leave anything in that is even close to being considered plagiarism then it is best to come clean and flag up the original author as the content creator. You should also check CTTO regulations. Generally, though there is no problem if you have referenced the creator since effectively you are both in a win-win situation since traffic flow should increase to both of your offers. Care is the watchword, as you obviously do not want a criminal case against you. 

The psychology involved in email marketing

It is worthwhile considering why someone would forward an email to others. To a great extent, ego is involved. The recipient wishes to send something on to a friend or contact that they have found (or been sent) and they want to be seen as being hip/cool in knowing about it or seeing it first. Generally, it is no bad thing if the email panders to the ego or vanity of potential recipients. It has to make them want to impress their friends so that they appear cool!

The email or video needs to be emotional.  Emotions play on our willingness to share material. We have all seen a funny or cute cat or kitten videos, and a number of these have gone viral. However, a lot of similar videos get hardly any shares, indicating that originality is important.  Negative emotions can also work well, particularly where shock value is involved. Videos of people behaving in ways that are alien to the majority of us (for example people committing crimes or driving in a frightening way) tend to get lots of views.

I heard a story about a salesman at a company that made toughened glass, whose sales were off the charts compared with his colleagues. His sales manager wanted to know why he was so successful, so they went to see a new customer together so he could gain insight into his success. Whilst most of the other salesmen would talk to their prospects about the product and why it was so good, this salesman had a different strategy. He would say "watch this" and place a sheet of glass on the prospect's desk bring out a hammer and attempt to smash the glass. Both the prospect and the sales manager jumped out of their seats in shock. The glass did not break which of course demonstrated the toughness. This is a perfect example of the shock factor. 

More generally, products grab our attention if they can make us money, save us money, save us time, or improve our situation such as our fitness or health. All of these attributes make them candidates for viral emails. Products that are highly visible also increase the chances of causing viral communications. For example, there has been a huge growth in the number of e-scooters in the UK. Their profile has been lifted by their visibility on the roads where people often travel on them at significant speeds.

The above ideas were brought to light in "Contagion" a book by Jonah Berger to whom I pay tribute. Another feature of "viral contagion" at work is through stories, and there is one story that Berger tells in his book that I particularly like. It is a story about a guy who opens a restaurant in Philadelphia. He knows he needs to bring in customers fast if he is to survive. He notes that the standard food item served up in local sandwich shops, and cafes are cheesesteaks, which consist of a roll filled with grilled beef and provolone cheese. He decided to take this meal to a new dimension, by having a brioche roll, with sliced Kobe beef from Japan, special quality Taleggio Italian cheese, topped with black truffles and lobster tail. He served it with Verve Clicquot Champagne. He put a price tag on the dish of $100.

It caused a social media storm, as people talked about this incredible dish costing $100. People wanted to know why it was so expensive, what the ingredients were, and of course, there were those that wanted to have the bragging rights of saying that they had eaten one! Soon the Letterman show had done a piece on it and there were queues down the street to get into the restaurant. The dish and the restaurant effectively went viral!

I have really only been covering the sending of one email, so no consideration has been given to the standard use of auto-responder sequenced mail, which is a new subject of its own. Most of us are familiar with the idea that customers do not usually buy at the first point of sale, and that repeated contact allows for the development of trust, and allows us to provide, information, and value before "capturing the customer". If your customer is receiving repeated mailings then whilst a lot of the factors recommended above are still relevant, they do not have to be delivered with such intensity. You are after all in a sense, developing a relationship through sequenced mail and there is less or no need for a hard sell approach, although you still have the danger that the customer might unsubscribe.

Now the task becomes synthesizing the viral email marketing strategies with relationship-building and value-providing aspects of sequenced auto-responder mail.