To tell a friend about a product or service you enjoy is to provide your exclusive endorsement. The fact your enthusiasm for any brand or company has germinated into a topic in a conversation between friends is enough to show the sincerity of your appreciation. Much the same way word of mouth can spread amongst your circle of family and friends your web site can be sent to thousands of people through an effective, well-implemented “tell a friend” feature
Most cases, a link to your “refer a friend” feature provides satisfactory results. Placing it in an area where the maximum number of web site visitors can see it will warrant the greatest results possible. Now once the link is clicked, a quick and easy to use method for e-mailing or instant messaging the visitor’s friend should be revealed. The information required to send the recommendation should be as minimized as possible in order to ensure your visitor is not intimidated by the process.
If you possess the expertise or can invest in the necessary web-design services, “AJAX” enabled features allow users to tell friends about products, services, and web sites without leaving your web site. Similar to the comments areas featured on the popular video sharing site, YouTube, AJAX enabled tell-a-friend features allow the user to enter their friend’s contact and personal information, send it and recieve a confirmation without leaving your own website. This can vastly improve the immersive experience and brand recognition generated by your web site.
Once your tell-a-friend feature is installed you should be patient as you wait for the flow of new web traffic. In addition ensure your existing marketing efforts are generating enough entry traffic to cause a residual effect through your new feature. If yoyu don’t have an existing base of website users, your tell-a-friend feature will more than likely not produce the additional traffic you seek.
As an expert webmaster you should know that it would be a huge thing if you could get all your visitors to ‘tell a friend’ about your web-site. I would tell you that for every ‘told friend’ you would be getting a visitor for FREE, better than that, one that had been ‘pre-sold’ because their friend had advertised or recommended your site to their friends.
I believe the tell-a-friend feature is one of the most effective means for marketing your website plus generating web traffic for your site. Taking advantage of every potential stream for new network traffic can result in additional exposure and revenue. Do not hesitate to build, institute, and take advantage of a tell a friend feature on your web site.