Increase Email Click Throughs By Abbie Drew Jan 13, 2012

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I was about to toss out an email I received this week, as
it was not targeted or relevant to my DEMC business when
all of a sudden I saw something in it. It was an "Ah-Ha"
moment for me.

Vovici had sent me a free research report offer, entitled
"How the Voice of the Employee Empowers Customer Experience
Efforts." DEMC doesn't have employees so why did this email
get my attention?

In the email, they had provided obvious social media
share links. While, the research report would not
benefit me - I knew a number of people who would
appreciate the information.

I clicked the share link and passed along the information!
My friends and associates got back to me thanking me for
the report.

Did I create the content- obviously not. But I still was
praised and appreciated for the info. That's the power
of social sharing - it benefits us all.

Just this week Getresponse released a new study on over 500M
emails which revealed that emails which include social share
buttons have a click-through-rate of up to 115% higher.
5.6% click-through-rate for emails that included social
sharing icons, versus 2.6% click-through-rate for those
that did not.

Now add that information to the research from BrightEdge
Technologies, which shows that including a Tweet Button
increases Twitter mentions sevenfold.

Clearly it time to make all your emails social media
share-friendly!

When you make your email message easy for others to share
with their personal networks, you extend the reach of your
content. Just as I was able to pass along the Vovici report
to those who would find it useful.

So how can you optimize your email messages for social sharing
and increase your email click throughs?

Here's my 4 step plan to making your emails social media
share-friendly.

1) Use Great Subject Lines (titles) for Your Messages

The title of your email is a critically important element.
Not only does your subject line title grab the attention of
your recipient, it also is the headline used when others
share your message.

Make sure your title has the following elements:

* Attention Grabbing
* Clearly Indicate the Content
* Brief

A short subject line title is important for increasing your
email open rate. Studies show between 25 - 30 characters
is the sweet spot for the highest opens. And, social
networks like Twitter limit the number of characters to
a post. A brief title allows your sharer to add their own
insight along with the title and link.

2) Post Your Email to Your Website

Your email content needs to be on a web site in order
for others to easily share that web site's link on
their social network.

While an email can be forwarded on to others, to get the
full benefit of social sharing your email's content should
be archived on a web site. Facebook, Twitter, LinkdIn,
Google+ all require you to input a URL for sharing.

3) Include an Enticing Meta Description

On the web page where you post your email content be sure
to add in a meta tag description. Facebook, LinkedIn, and
Google+, automatically grab this meta description. They
then use your meta tag description and include that
language when someone shares your web page email message.

A well written meta description acts as a sales tool
enticing Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ users to click
over and read your full message.

4) Have Social Media Share Buttons in Your Email

At the bottom, side or top of your email place the social
media share buttons. Ask readers of your emails to share.

You can grab code for all the major social media networks
using the service - AddThis.

If you want to focus on providing links to specific
social network sites here's how you do it.

Facebook

Create a Facebook Share Link using the url below
Replace the red bit.ly url with your own url.

http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://bit.ly/yPq2nL

Click here to Share this article on Facebook.

Twitter

Create a Twitter Tweet Link using the url below.
Replace the red bit.ly url with your own url and edit the
values of text and via with your own information.

http://twitter.com/share?url=http://bit.ly/yPq2nL&text=Increase Email Click Throughs!&via=sendfree

Click here to Tweet this article.

Google+

Create a Google+ Share Link using the url below.
Replace the red bit.ly url with your own url.

https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/confirm?hl=en&url=http://bit.ly/yPq2nL

Click to Share this article on Google+.

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Start leveraging the awesome power of social media buttons
and links in your email messages today!

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