E-mail marketing: Making it Viral © Chris Bloor

There's one element of e-mail marketing that isn't discussed much but it's an important one to consider: the viral nature of it…

By now you probably know that e-mail marketing is ultimately relationship marketing. You are building long term relationships with your clients and prospects through your mailing list.

When the average person is at home sitting at their computer and checking e-mail they aren't thinking about shopping or buying something. They are looking through their inbox and looking at their fun e-mail first. They are going to first look at an e-mail from their friend and bypass the e-mail from businesses that they know are just trying to sell something. They will also bypass the boring e-mails in order to go straight to the fun e-mails.

The ideal goal is for your e-mails to land in the coveted "Friends/Fun" category in the inbox.

At the very least, you want your e-mail to not be deleted unread.

How is this possible if you are selling, say, widgets? Is this only possible if you have a "fun" product or service?

First, it helps if you can develop a persona, even if the persona is just in your newsletter/e-mails and not on the main site. Even if you are selling widgets it's possible to use humor and deliver the information in an upbeat, helpful way.

Also, remember than an e-mail is one person communicating to another. It's person to person. Therefore, try to send e-mails that the reader enjoys so much that they forward it to their friends. Their friends read the e-mail and then go sign up for your mailing list.

This is how e-mail can become viral. Let your readers doing some of the work for you by spreading the word about your website.  An e-mail can be forwarded indefinitely and at no cost. Your readers will only do this for you if you provide engaging, interesting information.

This is one of the best ways to build your list and if you try this, you'll be amazed at how quickly your list can grow. If they get your e-mail from a friend they will be eager as they sign up and will pay attention to your e-mails as they arrive.

To get inspiration, just pay attention to the e-mails in your inbox that you ignore or that you like and think have clever subject lines, etc. If you have a company newsletter and more than one writer involved with each newsletter, you can have dialogue between the different writers and spark reader interest that way. You can solicit reader responses and input. Make your newsletters and e-mails as much of a two-way conversation as possible. You can post a link to the newsletter online and invite comments, similar to a blog post.

There are any number of creative ways to spice up your newsletters, regardless of your product. If you've used newsletter techniques that prompt your reader to click "forward" instead of "delete" feel free to share them below.