Tell-a-friend forms are a perfect example of viral
marketing. Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to
marketing techniques that seek to exploit pre-existing
social networks to produce exponential increases in brand
awareness through viral processes similar to the spread of
an epidemic. It is word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced
online; it harnesses the network effect of the Internet and
can be very useful in reaching a large number of people
rapidly.

Viral marketing is sometimes used to describe some sorts of
Internet-based stealth marketing campaigns, including the
use of blogs, seemingly amateur web sites, and other forms
of astroturfing to create word of mouth for a new product
or service. Often, the ultimate goal of viral marketing
campaigns is to generate media coverage via “offbeat”
stories worth many times more than the campaigning
company’s advertising budget.

Word of mouth is still an advertiser’s best friend - both
offline and online. With it, your visitors can recommend
your web site directly to their colleagues’ inboxes.

Email addresses are often long and complicated and most
people are not expert typists. Researches show that
without validation, as many as 40% of email addresses are
entered incorrectly or are invalid. So any professional web
application that asks a user for an email address will try
to check that the email address is ‘well formed.’

A good referral software does this of course - but also
goes one important step further and verifies that the web
server referenced in the email address both exists and is
up and running. This works for your visitors as an
intelligent assistant to help them address their referral
correctly and, if you are using the opt-in email check box,
it makes it more likely that you will receive good quality
email addresses for your database.

Now you can benefit from the power of viral marketing using
the Turbo Tell A Friend.

Without a doubt, old-fashioned ‘word of mouth’ is one of
the most powerful ways to publicize anything. So if a
visitor to your web site likes what he/she sees, why not
offer him/her a simple and attractive way to spread the
word? After all, put yourself in his/her position.

Say you want to tell a friend about a web page you have
seen. You don’t need to remember the URL, the web page
address. You don’t need to get on the phone and start
spelling out the URL. And you won’t even have to try to
type out the URL in an email. A sample code of a ‘tell a
friend service’ solves this problem by making it a simple
matter for a visitor to pass on their recommendation, and
consequently, they are more likely to do it. Not only that,
but this web tool makes sure they make the recommendation
error-free. The software knows the full and precise URL of
your web page and places it as a clickable link into the
recommendation email.

This can make a lot of hits to your website especially if
you have been patient about making your daily enhancements
on your website. This is another easy way to gain more
people’s trust, as these are often satisfied customers who
want to share their experiences. Adding this feature will
likely result in more traffic, resulting in additional
sales.

As a webmaster resource, a good referral software is a
perfect way to exploit a new kind of marketing, which adds
smooth, professional functionality to your web design and
at the same time is an invaluable web tool for driving
traffic to your web site through the power of viral
marketing.

Build now your list on auto-pilot and go viral with the
Turbo Tell A Friend!

Gilles Rais

Categories: Articles