5 rules to make your emails ‘shareable’

Social proof is a massive driving factor in the buying process for the majority of modern shoppers.  Whether it’s a product review or social media share, customers trust the opinion of their peers. More so than the promises of brands.

As well as including reviews and ratings on your products and services, making your emails shareable helps you increase the number of impressions of your marketing efforts. The customers who share your content are effectively becoming brand advocates, creating a secondary audience for you to connect with and engage.

There are more ways you can drives shares than simple email forwarding. In fact, if you think beyond email forwards, you’ll find customers much more receptive to your tactics.

To create ‘shareable’ content follow these five rules and watch your audience flourish.

1. Write editorial content

Editorial content should be a core part of your email marketing strategy. While the bulk of your email marketing will take the form of promotional emails, your daily, weekly, or monthly newsletter should consist solely of content designed to engage and educate your customers.

In this age of content consumption, subscribers are hungry for information that’ll help them connect with a brand. Blogs and updates about your brand’s efforts to be eco-friendly or examples of your corporate social responsibility policy are great to create an emotional bond with your customers.

When you have a clear understanding of the persona’s you’re targeting, you can identify key issues, causes, and interests your audience shares. This will help you plan topics for your newsletter. As you produce articles that connect with readers, they’re going to connect and share your content with friends and family who share they believe would be interested.

2. Add social share buttons

To make sharing even easier, ensure you’re adding social share buttons to every email you send.

These are particularly useful for brands who produce reports, educational, or insightful editorial content. Pulling out interesting facts and figures and pairing them with a ‘share on social media’ link will drive email recipients to post about your content.

Social share buttons are not just great in your newsletters. Add them to your transactional emails such as order confirmations to drive shoppers to share about their new purchases. For B2B brands, add them to your event marketing emails.

Wherever you add social share buttons, you’re making it easier for your email recipients to become brand advocates with a simple click of a button.

3. Run competitions

Competitions are a tactic guaranteed to engage your readers. After all, who doesn’t want that chance to win something for nothing?

There is a range of competitions you can run from your email marketing. Social competitions using hashtags or comments on your posts to enter is a great way to get your email subscribers to connect with you on social media. It also helps increase the number of impressions your brand has. Encourage users to combine both tactics for more chances to win and really get noticed by their respective followers.

You can also add gamification to your email-based competitions. Doing this is just another tactic that’ll surprise and delight readers. And, the more delightful they find the experience, the more they’ll want to share you with their friends and family.

4. Reward referrals

Referrals are just another way to get customers to share your brand with others. Running a referral rewards program encourages email recipients to share your emails and spread the word about your business.

There are various referral reward strategies you can adopt. Whether you choose to reward every referral or implement a points-based loyalty program that assigns points for every share, offering additional benefits creates a stronger connection between you and the reader. Recipients will begin to recognize your brand as one that values its customers making them more engaged with your marketing, and willing to share your brand.

Always include the refer-a-friend CTA in your email marketing to ensure customers are always aware of the option and rewards they’ll receive for sharing your business.

5. Keep subscribe buttons in the footer

As well as unsubscribe links in your footer, you should also include a link to your email subscription form.

When customers share your emails, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to subscribe to your newsletters and email marketing. By keeping a subscription link in the footer of all your emails, you’re never missing a chance to expand your marketing mailing list.

Final thoughts

These are our five rules to follow if you want to increase your organic list growth.

Every business is different, as are your audiences. While these tactics work for the majority of brands they may not suit your brand. Always be testing your email marketing strategy to ensure it’s working for you. Taking the time to optimize these tactics will provide greater returns in the future.

For more ideas about how to grow your mailing list check out our cheatsheet: How to grow your mailing list.