We tend to associate “going viral” with social media, but email forwarding is a much more powerful action-driver because its sharing is more targeted and more urgent. In this session, Chad White, Research Director at Litmus and the author of “Email Marketing Rules,” will share insights into email virality gained from analyzing 1 million emails tracked through Litmus. He’ll provide benchmarks for email forward-to-open rates, discuss different tactics for spurring email sharing, and analyze some real-world examples of highly viral commercial emails. You’ll leave this session with new ideas for sparking email sharing and with a new yardstick for measuring viral success.

1. How to Make Your
Emails Go Viral
Chad White, Research Director, Litmus
@chadswhite
Justine Jordan, Marketing Director, Litmus
@meladorri

2. We tend to associate ‘going
viral’ with social media—in part
because it’s relatively easy to
see and measure the noise of
social sharing.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

3. However, the much quieter
email forward is often a much
more powerful influencer.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

5. How consumers referred others,
across industries, according to
SocialTwist.

6. Distribution of new visitors, by
method of outreach of their
friends, according to
SocialTwist.
Although more consumers are
reached through Facebook,
email results in greater
response.

7. Nielsen research found that
“recommendations from people I
know” are the most trusted form
of advertising.

8. Nielsen research also found that
more trusted forms of advertising
drive more action in response.

9. The 1-to-1 or 1-to-few nature of
email forwards makes them
much more personal and much
more trusted—and therefore
more likely to drive action.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

10. Chad White @chadswhite
• Research Director at Litmus
• Author of Email Marketing Rules
• Written thousands of posts and
articles about email marketing
• His research and commentary
have appeared in over 100
publications, including The New
York Times, The Wall Street
Journal, and USA Today

11. Justine Jordan @meladorri
• Email critic and popular industry
speaker
• Directs all things marketing at
Litmus
• Recipient of the 2015 EEC Email
Marketing Thought Leader of the
Year award
• Organizer of The Email Design
Conference

12. To better understand the quiet, often
invisible influence of email forwards, we
used Litmus’ Email Analytics to analyze
the forwards generated by more than
400,000 email sends with at least 500
opens between Jan. 2013 and March 2015.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

13. To reduce the impact of list size, we
normalized forward activity by calculating
the forward-to-open rate—that is, what
percentage of opens generated a forward.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

14. And to understand the drivers of email
forwarding, we analyzed more than 200
emails from among the top 1% of viral
emails and another 200-plus emails from
around the 50th percentile—looking at
tactics, topics, and other email elements.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

15. Over the next half-hour we’ll discuss
The Findings from our “The Viral Email” Report
Benchmarks for
Forward-to-
Open Rates
Tactics that
Affect Forward-
to-Open Rates
Email Topics
that Affect
Forward-to-
Open Rates
1 2 3

16. Benchmarks for
Forward-to-Open Rates

17. The median email (50th percentile)
produced a 0.27% open-to-forward
rate. Put another way, the middle-of-
the-pack email generates 1 forward
for every 370 opens.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

18. The 1st percentile of viral emails
was 17.6 times more viral than the
median, generating 1 forward for
every 21 opens.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

19. Email Forwards per Open Benchmark

20. Email Virality Grows Exponentially Vs. Median

21. Tactics that Affect
Forward-to-Open Rates

22. Tactics we’ll explore…
• Audience Size
• Segmentation & Triggered Emails
• Personalization
• “Share with Your Network” Calls-to-Action
@chadswhite
@meladorri

23. Audience Size
Does an email sent to a small
audience or a large audience have
more viral potential?
@chadswhite
@meladorri

24. Small audience! The median email
among those with 500 to 50,000
opens was forwarded 90% more
than the median email among those
with more than 50,000 opens.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

25. Small
Audience
Forward-­‐to-­‐Open
Rate
Large
Audience
Forward-­‐to-­‐Open
Rate
Small
vs.
Large
1st
Percen=le
5.04%
1.91%
2.6
5th
Percen=le
2.29%
0.89%
2.6
10th
Percen=le
1.49%
0.60%
2.5
25th
Percen=le
0.71%
0.32%
2.2
50th
Percen=le
0.30%
0.16%
1.9
Source:
Litmus
And
it’s
even
more
stark
among
the
most
viral
emails
@chadswhite
@meladorri

26. Segmentation & Triggers
Are segmented emails and triggered
emails more or less likely to be
forwarded?
@chadswhite
@meladorri

27. More likely! The emails in the 1st
percentile were 4.3 times more
likely to be segmented and 2.9
times more likely to be triggered
than emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

28. San Diego Magazine
segmented these event
promo emails to attendees of
last year’s event and to
attendees of another event
they held. Both were among
the top 1% of viral emails.

29. Personalization
Are personalized emails more or less
likely to be forwarded?
Note: We ignored first-name merges and other superficial
forms of personalization.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

30. More likely! Emails in the 1st
percentile were 4.5 times more
likely than emails in the 50th
percentile to include personalization.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

31. “Share with Your Network” CTAs
Are emails that include SWYN calls-to-
action more or less likely to be
forwarded?
@chadswhite
@meladorri

32. More likely! Emails in the 1st
percentile were 13 times more
likely to include a “share with your
network” call-to-action than emails
in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

33. This highly viral email from Chevy
Safe & Fun included a photo taken
at an event, as well as prominent
“share with your network” links.

34. Recipients of this segmented
email from JustGiving were
very happy to spread the word
that they were among the top
1% of fundraisers during 2014.

35. Email Topics that Affect
Forward-to-Open Rates

36. Email topics we’ll explore…
• Promotions/Deals/Discounts
• News/Helpful Content
• Events/Webinars
• Transactional/Account Change/Action
Required
@chadswhite
@meladorri

37. Promotions/Deals/Discounts
Are emails about promotions, deals,
and discounts more or less likely to be
forwarded?
@chadswhite
@meladorri

38. Less likely! Promotions were the
most common topic among emails
in the 50th percentile and were
67% less likely to be the topic of
the most viral 1% of emails.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

39. News/Helpful Content
Are emails about news and helpful
content more or less likely to be
forwarded?
@chadswhite
@meladorri

40. Less likely! Although very common
in the 1st percentile of viral emails,
news and helpful content was
slightly more prevalent among
emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

41. Promotions and helpful content
are staples of email marketing,
so subscribers are only driven
to forward those that are
truly great.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

42. Plan your email content calendar
so that you’re occasionally
sending an awesome deal,
exclusive news, or similarly
impactful content.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

43. A really good deal—combined
with the announcement of store
closings—made this email from
Home Decorators Collection
highly viral.

44. Presented as an
infographic, news that
GameChanger’s app had
tracked 800 million
pitches for amateur
teams went viral.

45. Events/Webinars
Are emails about events and webinars
more or less likely to be forwarded?
@chadswhite
@meladorri

46. More likely! Emails in the 1st
percentile were 3.2 times more
likely to be about an event than
emails in the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

47. An exciting, controversial
topic and a compelling
speaker propelled this event
email into the top 1% of most-
forwarded emails.

48. Transactional/Account Change
Are emails about transactions, account
changes, and required actions more or
less likely to be forwarded?
@chadswhite
@meladorri

49. More likely! These emails were 4.6
times more likely to be among the
1st percentile of viral emails than
among the 50th percentile.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

50. Two Types of Email Forwards…
• Social forwards build awareness and
start others down their own funnels toward
conversions.
• Advice-seeking forwards help the
forwarder decide whether to convert.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

51. Whereas most forwards raise
awareness and help convince
others to convert, the forwards
of this triggered transactional
email from Glo primarily
helped the forwarder convert.

52. Final Thoughts

53. When your subscribers forward your
emails, they expand your reach,
increase conversions, and boost
your email engagement metrics—
which is good for branding, revenue,
and deliverability. @chadswhite
@meladorri

54. Forwards are a powerful indicator of
the overall health of your email
program, because they are a sign
that you’re fulfilling your subscribers’
needs at the highest level.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

55. Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs

56. If your monthly forward-to-open rate
is in the bottom quartile (less than
0.11%), then your email program is
probably not delivering experiences
that are deeply relevant.
@chadswhite
@meladorri

57. The Viral Email
To explore all of the findings
of our report, download it for
free at:
bit.ly/litmus-viral
@chadswhite
@meladorri

58. Questions?
Please rate our session. Thanks!
@chadswhite
@meladorri

59. Join Us For Dreamforce 2015
September 15-18, 2015 | San Francisco, CA