Attracting Readers: Forwards

Email newsletters allow for a kind of discovery not possible with other mediums: the forward.

If someone loves your newsletter enough to forward it to a friend or colleague, it becomes both a method of discovery and a testimonial in one. It's word of mouth that actually includes the product!

It's the most flattering and powerful form of marketing for your newsletter. It's the hardest to obtain as well. You have to produce really valuable content and you have ask for the forward to get enough of them to make an impact.

Brian Clark, one of the founding fathers of content marketing, has a newsletter called Further. He puts two requests in his newsletter dealing with forwards: one after his signature addressing new readers the email was forwarded to and one in his footer asking current readers to forward.

Here's how it look in the signature after his commentary:

— Brian Clark
P.S. Did someone forward this issue of Further to you? We'd love to have you join us by signing up here.

In the footer:

Please forward this issue of Further to a friend. Thank you!

You don't get what you don't ask for.

Check out the rest of this month’s posts on creating email newsletters.