Tell-A-Friend Forms

If you are a blogger, then you know how exhausting it is to attract readers to your blog. Unless of course you're a celebrity or have lots of bucks to spend on web marketing, getting a blog heard in the vast ocean of the Internet can be a very tricky task indeed. However, difficult is not synonymous as impossible, as there are many simple online tools which can help bloggers set themselves apart from the rest. One of these is the tell-a-friend forms.

One of the many cost-effective marketing tools which one can use in helping blogs attract more readers is the so-called tell-a-friend form. As its name implies, tell-a-friend forms are online forms that enable users to "tell a friend" and recommend somebody to a particular website. The form is made from either HTML or PHP and is embedded onto the programming of the website itself. Users simply have to fill up this form with the necessary details (including their name, e-mail address, and the e-mails of the contacts they want to send the referral to) and once it is completed the form with automatically generate an e-mail from the details provided and send it to the target recipients.

With tell-a-friend forms, bloggers can effectively get word spread around about their blog; readers will refer other people to the blog, and once lots of people recommend to lots of other contacts the traffic immediately snowballs. And since everything is done through e-mail, bloggers can save time and financial resources.

Whether done as a hobby or as a full-time enterprise, web businesses are becoming the hottest trend nowadays. Unlike their real-world counterparts, businesses that are based online are easier to set up and require lesser investment financially and logistically. And what's more, web businesses have more access to a wide variety of advertising and marketing potential. One such potential tool that can help web-based businesses thrive is the tell-a-friend forms.

If you have ever visited a company website or a marketing blog, chances are you may have already seen a tell-a-friend form. As the name implies, tell-a-friend forms are forms embedded on a website that allows visitors to "tell a friend" about the site. Users simply have to enter some personal details on the form (such as name and e-mail address), their personal message or recommendation, the e-mail addresses of the contacts who will receive the referral, and click the send button below the form. The form then creates an e-mail out from the details the user provided and sends it to the targeted recipients. Once received, the generated e-mail contains the sender's name, his or her personal message/recommendation, and relevant media (i.e. links, video) about the site being promoted.

Although they are described as tools to help visitors recommend the site to others, tell-a-friend forms benefit businesses online because it facilitates the viral marketing of these businesses. With the tell-a-friend forms, people are able to promote the website and business in general to others through e-mail. And if the people who received the received the e-mail liked what they saw, they in turn can promote it to other people. In the long run this succession of endorsements creates a viral chain that spreads awareness of the business over e-mail networks, generating public interest that leads to increased web traffic directed to the business website.

If you own and manage a business online, then you may have included at least one tell-a-friend form or similar marketing tool on your business website. A popular viral marketing gadget, tell-a-friend or refer-a-friend forms have been shown to be highly effective in spreading brand awareness to a large audience while using only a minimal amount of resources. In fact, everybody from bloggers to affiliate marketers have been using the viral form to increase traffic to their respective web pages. However this viral marketing tool also has its roadblocks, the most prominent of which being the issue of privacy among consumers.

One of the issues that concern viral tell-a-friend forms emails is privacy. As a standard procedure, the programs that generate the tell-a-friend email require the sender to include their name and e-mail address. This is so the recipient of the email will be able to recognize who sent the email and thus not mark it as spam. Most tell-a-friend programs also use the email to send commissions to affiliates. However, because it asks for their personal e-mail addresses some customers are apprehensive to use the form, fearing that it may be used for identity or included into mailing lists and sold to spammers.

If you have recently installed a tell a friend forms on your website, your site's visitors may be a bit hesitant at first to use it on the grounds of privacy. This is only normal, considering the fact that the Internet is full of cases of spamming and identity theft. However, by assuring these prospective customers that their personal information will remain confidential, their apprehension will soon fade and build trust towards your enterprise. And when you have gained the customer's trust, it is imperative that it should be maintained as such as this will become the base on which future business transactions with that customer as well as the prospects he brings in to the business.

Imagine the inconvenience of copying the URL link of an interesting website that you have found and then manually emailing it to all your online contacts. The situation can be further frustrating if you need to type the email addresses. In the past, some commercial websites required subscribers to list email addresses of referrals before the transaction could be validated. This type of referral system is already obsolete. It is now replaced by more sophisticated tell-a-friend software applications. This software can generate codes and validation links which can then be sent to the email address of new subscribers. By entering the codes or clicking the validation links, referrals will automatically be extracted and invitation letters will automatically be sent.

Many commercial websites are now using tell-a-friend software because of the convenience it brings. Some parts of the marketing aspect of website operation can be significantly automated by using the software. Although basic search engine optimization is still indispensable, automated referral system is a powerful marketing leverage that can attract steady flow of visitors and customers. The software provides convenience not only to the owner of a website but also to the visitors and consumers. For instance, those visitors who may not actually become customers can conveniently refer a useful and interesting website to some of their contacts.

Sophisticated tell-a-friend software provides referral option not only to customers but also to visitors. The invitation letters are also personalized and more attractive. People are more responsive to personalized invitation letters that are sent by other people that they also know. This is true even if the invitation letter is only auto-generated. This is best demonstrated by the auto-generated invitation letters sent by social networking websites using the identity of their existing subscribers. Invitations letters based on referrals are more effective than mere spam letters which are very easy to ignore.

Have you ever wondered how rumors spread? Even without the aid of mass media, rumor can spread and become well-known to a large number of people. Some urban legends start as rumors that became full-blown in proportion compared to the original context. Urban legends are modern folklores or myths that are believed to be true by some people. It usually takes the form of "it happens to a friend of a friend." This type of spreading information (factual or not) is also used in online promotional leveraging using tell-a-friend forms. If the information is interesting enough or useful enough, it has greater possibility of being spread through mere email forwarding.

In fact, urban legends are also popular in online communities that they are spread through emails. Medical urban legends are popular because they typically have "scientific" explanations and they also have some examples in the news. Urban legends such as misplaced medical instruments inside the body or organs wrongly removed are common and they take exaggerated forms. The bizarre, jokes, and supernatural also have mass appeal similar to urban legends. This is the reason why some commercial websites incorporate tidbits of interesting but not necessarily true information in their marketing. Some commercial websites may contain horoscopes, puzzles, and personality tests that are not really credible but interesting enough to be forwarded through tell-a-friend forms.

Promotional leveraging does not necessarily have to directly promote a product. Product promotion can be incorporated into something that is interesting to the public such as horoscopes, personality tests, and compatibility tests. Some websites that contain these types of hooks also have tell-a-friend forms that allow their visitors and subscribers to forward the information about the site to their email contact without the need of enumerating or listing all the email addresses. Automatic invitations will be sent using the email account details of the subscriber.

Commercial websites are very ineffective if they do not have interactivity. Aside from providing relevant information, a commercial website must also function as a store. This means that the customers, clients, or subscribers must be able to transact using the facilities of the website. It would be frustrating for any potential customer if a website is simply contains information about the product and the location of the physical store or shop. Most online customers want convenience in their transactions. This is the main reason why there are online payment and order forms provided by online businesses. Aside from transaction purposes, some online forms such as the tell-a-friend forms are used for promotional or marketing purposes.

Formerly, only big online businesses are able to afford and maintain tell-a-friend forms. Most of these companies are social networking sites that are almost exponentially expanding their subscribers/members by automatically generating email invitations every time a new subscriber signs-up. The principle is really simple but provides great marketing leverage. For every new subscriber who signs-up, automatic email invitations will be sent to all the email contacts of that subscriber. This is the main reason why the email address is required. Although not all email invitations will be entertained, there will always be new subscribers or customer that will be generated in this manner.

If you are new to online business marketing, tell-a-friend forms will be useful. These forms will allow you to multiply your customer base. You do not even need to supervise the operation. It can be automated. Only occasional maintenance will be necessary. You do not need to be a highly skilled programmer. You do not even need to invest large sum of fortune. Most of the scripts necessary to setup these forms can conveniently be found on the internet at very affordable prices.

In their simplest versions, tell-a-friend forms are typically consist of a textbox for email address and a submit button. Simple versions of these forms contain only one email text box. The box may only require the email address of one referral. A customer or visitor has the option to ignore entering a referral email address. This type of referral form is not very effective in generating significant traffic of visitors. Not unless a website contains very interesting or useful information and resources, a website is unlikely to be endorsed using the simple, single box referral form. Even if a visitor or customer uses the simple referral form, there is still only one new referral that will be generated.

Some tell-a-friend forms have multiple text boxes for email addresses. A visitor or customer (subscriber) has the option to enter multiple email referrals. Other details such as names and contact numbers may be entered. However, not all referral forms of this type are practical or convenient both for the website administrator and the visitors. The number of referrals is still limited by the number of text boxes. Furthermore, enumerating multiple referrals is also time-consuming if not annoying. Not unless this type of referral form is mandatory, it is likely to be ignored.

The best tell-a-friend forms are the ones that are simple, fully automated, and mandatory. An ideal referral form must only require the email account details of a visitor. It should be simple enough to only contain two text boxes (for the email address and password of the visitor) and one submit button. Some forms may only require the email address of the visitor. A validation link will be sent to the email address provided. The visitor or customer simply has to click the validation link to be taken to the transaction page. This type of referral form is also mandatory in a sense that no transaction will be completed without filling-in the required email address. Extracting referrals and sending invitations are automatically don upon validation of the email account of the visitor or customer.