I recently read a DMNews article published a while ago that had comments from two marketers about forward-to-a-friend links. One marketing Special leads expert supported the use of a forward-to-a friend link, saying ‘pass along readership’ helped share the message and that personal endorsements are powerful. The other marketing expert said that forward-to-a-friend was a ‘gimmick’ that failed and at most causes people to hit their forward button that’s already Special leads built into their email software.
While I agree that seeing the words forward-to-a-friend may Special leads remind a reader to forward a message to someone (and I love referrals), I have seen that it can also hurt your email marketing success. The forward-to-a-friend link is typically placed at the top of the email, which is considered prime space in an email. According to MarketingSherpa, the average email reader Special leads only spends 15-20 seconds looking at your email (if it is opened). So you should want to make sure that 3 of those seconds aren’t lost reading Special leads the words “forward-to-a-friend” in the beginning of your email.
Since these links are typically at the top of an email, readers who are Special leads viewing the email on their mobile device, and only skim the content, may never actually get to the meat of your email because they are stuck scrolling through the links in the forward-to-a-friend portion at the top of the email. In a MarketingSherpa survey, 64% of decision-makers said they regularly Special leads view emails using a mobile device, making the success of your current email program highly reliant on its ability to be viewed on a mobile phone.