Email sharing via socnets being overlooked by marketers

Email marketers are missing out on a prime opportunity to make their emails go social, or at least have them shared with a few friends, according to new data published this week by Smith-Harmon.

by Helen Leggatt

In their report, "FTAF v. SWYN: The State of Email Sharing", Smith-Harmon found that almost half of email marketers send neither a "forward to a friend" (FTAF) nor a "share with your network" (SWYN) link in their email communications with consumers. That's a lot of email marketers missing out on a lot of extra exposure for their emails.

While the FTAF, an evolution of the direct marketing member-get-member process, is used by 48% of email marketers (41% standalone and 7% together with a SWYN link), they have yet to embrace SWYN, even though the reach could be far greater.

FTAF involves the consumer selecting a few names from their email address book, but SWYN will broadcast the message to their entire network of friends on Facebook or whichever they choose use, who in turn can share it with their networks. However, just 6% use only a SWYN link.

"As the folks at ExactTarget say, 'Subscribers Rule!'," said Lisa Harmon, co-founder and principal of Smith-Harmon in the introduction to the 7-page, free reportlet. "If we want our recipients to share our emails, we need to give them choices as to how they'd like to do so. SWYN does just that."

Tags: broadcast, email reach, email sharing, FTAF, member-get-member, social networking, SWYN