how to make your emails go viral

How to Make Your Emails Go ViralChad 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 discussThe Findings from Litmus’ “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% forward-to-open rate. Put another way, the middle-of-the-pack email generates 1 forward for every 370 opens.

@chadswhite @meladorri

The 99th 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 AffectForward-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?

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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.

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Small AudienceForward-to-Open Rate

Large AudienceForward-to-Open Rate Small vs. Large

99th Percentile 5.04% 1.91% 2.6

95th Percentile 2.29% 0.89% 2.6

90th Percentile 1.49% 0.60% 2.5

75th Percentile 0.71% 0.32% 2.2

50th Percentile 0.30% 0.16% 1.9

Source: Litmus

And it’s even more stark among the most viral emails

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Segmentation & Triggers

Are segmented emails and triggered emails more or less likely to be forwarded?

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More likely! The emails in the 99th 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 99th 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?

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More likely! Emails in the 99th 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 AffectForward-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 99th 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 99th 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 99th 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.

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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 EmailTo 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!

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Join Us For Dreamforce 2015September 15-18, 2015 | San Francisco, CA