What is Email Forward Rate?
Email forward rate is a key metric in
email marketing that measures the percentage of recipients who forward your email to others. This rate provides insights into the virality and shareability of your email content. A high forward rate indicates that your content is compelling enough for recipients to share it with their networks.
Why is Email Forward Rate Important?
The email forward rate is crucial for expanding your reach organically. When recipients forward your email, it can lead to increased
brand awareness, new subscribers, and potentially higher conversions. It is a strong indicator of content quality and relevance, showing that your audience finds your emails valuable enough to share.
How to Calculate Email Forward Rate?
The formula to calculate email forward rate is straightforward:
Email Forward Rate (%) = (Number of Forwards / Number of Delivered Emails) * 100For example, if you sent 1,000 emails and 50 were forwarded, your email forward rate would be (50 / 1,000) * 100 = 5%.
Best Practices to Improve Email Forward Rate
Create Valuable Content: Ensure your emails offer valuable and relevant content that your audience would want to share. This could include
exclusive offers, insightful articles, or useful resources.
Encourage Sharing: Directly ask your audience to forward the email. Include a call-to-action (CTA) like "Share this with your friends" or "Forward to a colleague."
Incorporate Social Sharing Buttons: Adding social sharing buttons makes it easier for recipients to share your email content on various
social media platforms.
Segment Your Audience: Tailor your emails to specific segments of your audience to ensure the content is highly relevant to each group, increasing the likelihood they will share it.
Use Engaging Subject Lines: A compelling subject line can encourage recipients to open and share your email. Make sure it’s interesting and relevant to the email content.
Tracking Email Forward Rate
Most
email marketing platforms offer analytics tools to track your email forward rate. Look for metrics like "forwarded emails" or "email sharing" in your campaign reports. Monitoring these metrics over time can help you understand what types of content are most likely to be shared and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Challenges in Measuring Email Forward Rate
One challenge in measuring email forward rate is that not all forwards are trackable. Some recipients may manually forward an email using their email client, which may not be captured by your tracking tools. Despite this limitation, tracking the forward rate can still provide valuable insights into your email campaign’s performance.Conclusion
Understanding and optimizing your email forward rate can significantly enhance your
email marketing strategy. By focusing on creating valuable content, encouraging sharing, and leveraging analytics tools, you can improve your forward rate and expand your reach organically.