What works and what doesn't work in viral marketing

Stop forced email forwarding already! Trying to force or bribe people to forward your information to friends or family in order to get a reward or win seems strange in today's super-permissions-driven world. Especially when you don't tell visitors anything about their friends or family's privacy in the space right next to the email form.

A real viral campaign is retargeting because consumers are compelled to do so because of the glory of the content, not because you bribed them with points or anything else.

What will never work:

Suggesting that email recipients forward your message to their friends and family won't work. Adding a line at the bottom of your email that says "Please feel free to forward this message to a friend" is more likely to get it deleted than forwarded.

What will definitely work:

Offering something worth sharing such as a valuable discount or vital information or offering an incentive to participate such as additional entries into a sweepstakes, additional discount or premium service will work.

Relevant or timely information, research or studies included in your email may encourage recipients to share it with their family and friends. Interactive content like a quiz or quiz, especially if it's fun, will inspire redirection.

Jokes and cartoons are always sent to everyone the recipient knows. Why? Because it's entertaining and entertainment is meant to be shared.

A great multimedia experience will always bring you a lot of success. Rich media is new, and novelty and technology alone are often enough to make an email recipient eager to share it.

Ooops! You forgot one really important thing.... You can create a great email by following all the rules, but if the consumer visits your site and has less experience than you promised, you will achieve viral marketing, well... the bad is kind. So make sure your product or service is ready exactly as advertised.