Tell-a-Friend

NEED is a bit strong, but the reality is ... a Tell-a-Friend webpage could lead to more traffic, more sales, more referrals and did I mention more sales?

Have you ever had THIS experience? You visit a web page and think ..."Marty was looking for this kind of information the other day ... I should tell him about this." Then you copy the URL and plan on sending Marty a short email ... later. The later never comes.

OR ... you are visiting the Writing Contest section at the proofpositive.com site and you tell yourself ... I should let my writing group know about these contests. So you bookmark the page and ... good intentions don't always turn into the intended action.

Contrast this with the same scenarios, but this time you see a Tell-a-Friend link. You click on the link, fill out the short form and send the information off immediately. You feel great because it was fast and easy and your friend(s) get the information they need.

Do these things really work? I never used to think so ... until I actually put up some Tell-a-Friend links at the proofpositive.com site (in the contest area) and was surprised to find that people actually DID use the forms. For me this means a bit more targeted traffic.

I installed a link at a coaches site ... and it lead to a sale for her. At first she was quite disappointed because her website is very low traffic and she wasn't getting any referrals. After about a month someone made a referral and she got a coaching assignment out of it. The utility cost her $50 (including my installation) and she has made over $400 in coaching fees so far. That's a pretty good investment!

The way a Tell-a-Friend panel works ... is that the visitor fills out a form, and the form sends an email to your friend telling them to visit the site or the page.

You need 1) a form and 2) a programming script that sends the emails. The form is the easy part. The script is what hangs up most small website owners from doing this.

So where do you get the scripts?

1)They are available for free by searching for "tell a friend scripts" on your favorite search engine. Once you find a script, you have to install it. The free scripts are limited in function and often "launch" the recipients email program to do the sending ... vs sending it while online. The free programs will probably not keep any of the referring addresses or any statistics on how many referrals were sent.

2) There are also dozens of scripts you can purchase. These range in level of sophistication ... prices range from a few dollars to over $100. Again you have to get the script installed. I don't know about you ... but I am NOT a programmer. Whenever I am faced with something that has a php or cgi label on it, I hire someone to install the program and make sure it works ... so in addition to the cost of the script, there is the cost of installation.

Additionally ... there is an inherent problem with some of the scripts. They do not protect against unscrupulous hackers who use your site to send thousands or hundreds of thousands of spam mails. Your site could be shut down because someone else uses it to do their business.

Which is why I prefer, recommend and only use 3rd party programs on my site and my client's sites. There are several programs around, but after testing a few, the one I recommend is Tell-a-Friend

The way it works? You signup for the service (14 day no cost trial) ... and work through a series of options for your Tell-a-Friend page. You can keep on making changes until you are happy with how your page looks, with what it says ... and with the email message it sends out. Then you insert a line of simple HTML code onto your webpage, whereever you want the Tell-a-Friend link to show up. It took me less than 30 minutes the first time I did it.

What's great about this service? They don't add any of their own advertising into YOUR messages. They don't label the pages with their logo or information in an attempt to hijack YOUR visitors. Once the message is sent your visitors stay on your site. AND the best of all is that they have hacker protection in place, so that no one can send out hundreds of messages using your website address. AND they send the emails from their own website to further protect you.

So ... given that there are scripts ranging from $0 to $100 out there, what do you suppose the cost of this service is? I was expecting at least $75.

There are actually three levels of service starting at $20 a YEAR. Unless you are going to use the Tell-a-Friend for something like contests or sending other information you want to track, the $20 service is all you will ever need!

This is a really good deal. Be sure to try it out for 14 days and see what YOU think. It's cheap and easy ... your site is protected from unscrupulous users and you could get some extra traffic and sales for your 30 minutes of effort!

Tell-a-Friend

Melanie Rockett