Email this to a friend

sending a page to someone

[raindog]

I see these buttons more and more now.
They appear at the bottom of a news story,
so that you can send the page to someone.

In frontpage
Creating a link for email is done by typing
mailto:[e-mail]

How would you set up a "Send this to a friend" link?
thanks

[tedster]

Welcome to the forum, raindog

There's a lot of free cgi scripts and javascript available for "email a friend" links. I'm not much of a perl guy, so I usually go for those pre-fab ones.

I used one from bignosebird.com for a client once -- it was pretty good, easy to configure, did multiple addresses and kept a log file.

[raindog]

Thanks for the quick response, I'll check it out. :)

[ggrot]

I very simple way of doing this is with complex mailto urls, for example:

mailto:[e-mail]&Subject=This+is+my+subject&Body=Visit+my+website+today

But you will run into problems with length if you desire to send out very large emails. I believe the entire url must be less than 256 characters which is hardly a paragraph in your body.

[mivox]

I'm using a script called BlueSend, which I downloaded from hotscripts.com... They've got quite a few different scripts to choose from, and most of the download sites have the scripts installed, so you can test them out and see which one has your favorite output email and extra features.

[bird]

Those things really seem contagious... I stumble over them more and more, although I never even considered clicking on one myself (I already know how to e-mail a web page, thank you very much ;)).

But I'm still curious: Those who have them on your pages, is there any measurable benefit? Do you really see traffic that originates from such e-mails, or does everybody have the buttons just because everybody else has them?

What measures do you take to avoid people sending tons of pages anonymously to someone they don't like?

[chiyo]

Hi bird, We avoided them for a while but then started using them and glad we did. Articles are sent quite a lot using it and we seem to get good referrals though them.

It just seems to REMIND people more to send an articile link on to someone else.

We use the Big Bird script which allows people to add their own message, allows for a lot of customization if you have even rudimentary knowledge of perl and HTML, and also does some validity checking for senders email address, which I guess helps with spamming, not that weve had the problem.

[GWJ]

But I'm still curious: Those who have them on your pages, is there any measurable benefit? Do you really see traffic that originates from such e-mails, or does everybody have the buttons just because everybody else has them?

I implemented this on my last site overhaul. In one months time the average per week seems to be around 50. I used an ASP based version. In it I have it send to a catch all account also so I can see who is using this feature, how often and what for. It seems to be used mainly for items that I sell. I am happy with the usage, not a lot but it helps.

Brian

[Woz]

GWJ,

could you point me in the direction of the ASP version please.

onya
Woz

[FreeBee]

> measurable benefits?

We had a discussion on this under viral marketing [webmasterworld.com] a while back.

On our one site we're still finding very limited usage (less than 1% of visitors) but the traffic that follows is generally well qualified.

Incidentally sugarkane posted a "Tell a friend" script [webmasterworld.com] that may be worth looking at.

[mivox]

I installed ours for the heck of it... and set it up to send me notification when a page is recommended. I've seen very few people using it, and haven't bothered to track what happened to those few visitors. :)

But it kept me entertained for a day while I was designing the button graphic, and I certainly don't think it hurts anything.

<added>I think a recommend-it script would be most useful on a site that isn't targeting internet/computer savvy individuals... I personally just copy & paste URLs into emails when I want to recommend anything. ;) </added>

[tedster]

> I am happy with the usage, not a lot but it helps.

My clients who use Email a Friend scripts notice that it brings in very highly-targeted and easily-converted traffic. The returns grow over time, especially when repeat business is considered. The lifetime value of a customer can be huge. And the associated costs are minimal. Once the script is set-up, that's it. No maintenance. No monitoring the rankings on search engines. No paying for another round of advertising.

Most of what we talk about on these forums is acquiring a first visit. On the average in retail, acquiring a customer's first purchase costs five times what it costs to get repeat business from an existing customer.

When a site is doing good retention marketing, I think Email a Friend traffic is a god-send. As the viral marketing stream spreads from friend to friend, the site builds a solid and frequently purchasing customer base.

I'd say that weekly usage number is really a lot bigger than it looks.

[FreeBee]

> The lifetime value of a customer can be huge.

Spot on!! A business principle in itself whether you apply it to the web or pure brick-and-mortar companies.

I think that the web in some respects is an ideal medium and has some excellent means of claiming "customers for life". Tell a Friend scripts are perhaps one - there are a few others. "Member-only" sub-sites is the one that stands out to me.

[GWJ]

Here is what I use [interweb-tech.com] Woz.

"This free ASP script is an easy way to add "Send this page" links on any web page. Requires that you have CDONTS mail service available on your server."

Easy to configure and molded right into my site. I have found Scott's add-ons more than usefull. He does a great job.

Brian

[tedster]

I recently noticed a similar feature on Amazon -- it sends a discount to a friend (and that's even nicer than just sending the URL). They call it "Share the Love" and they allow you to offer a discount on the same items you just purchased to your hand-picked friends.

The genius here -- the customer does the targeting for them!