Hugh,

I haven't forgot about #3 yet, but moving on to #4, the magic word is "F*R*E*E.

Give an incentive along the entire chain to both the forwarder and forwardee.

Because they are senior level, how about a copy of your book? Autographed no less.

Or a white paper, or series of white papers based on your book which would then hopefully lead to book sales.

Or a combination of both, book to forwarders, white paper to forwardees.

White papers are big, and Leaky Funnel is a great value prop so I would think this would be high demand.

Lastly, it is good to always give a time-frame limitation with these calls to action such as "book/white paper offer only good until March 21st."

Of course, come March 21st, you extend the offer due to "popular demand", but only until April 7th etc.

Hope that helps.

Well, although I agree with Gerardo about improving the content ( see Pepper Blue's latest response to question #3), I hardly think what I suggested is a "bribe".

Why are they subscribed to you in the first place? Maybe because they value your opinion and content? Therefore, isn't it reasonable to assume they just might view a free book or a "free consultation" from you to exist in some form of value?

I wasn't suggesting a cash prize, or a trip to the Bahamas. Altough giving away your book was my initial thought, I followed through with ways to strengthen your value. Either way, whether you give away a copy of your book or your services...you are still promoting your brand.

So how do you attract C-Level execs....especially without an incentive? Kick-ass content. If you fear a promotion would spoil value or view it a "bribing", then you are gonna have to give them a reason to like you by providing content they want to read. Again, see Tim Pepper's suggestion in #3.

Good Luck Hugh!

- Jett Enterprises

Well, although I agree with Gerardo about improving the content ( see Pepper Blue's latest response to question #3), I hardly think what I suggested is a "bribe".

Why are they subscribed to you in the first place? Maybe because they value your opinion and content? Therefore, isn't it reasonable to assume they just might view a free book or a "free consultation" from you to exist in some form of value?

I wasn't suggesting a cash prize, or a trip to the Bahamas. Altough giving away your book was my initial thought, I followed through with ways to strengthen your value. Either way, whether you give away a copy of your book or your services...you are still promoting your brand.

So how do you attract C-Level execs....especially without an incentive? Kick-ass content. If you fear a promotion would spoil value or view it a "bribing", then you are gonna have to give them a reason to like you by providing content they want to read.

This could be a cultural difference. I am an "Capitalist", you are a "Colonialist". My views are based from a lifelong experience of how people respond on my side of the pond.


Again, see Tim Pepper's suggestion in #3.

Good Luck Hugh!

- Jett Enterprises

I don't know what happened, but my pre-edited version appeared as well, so read the one right beneath it...they are NOT identcal.

Sorry Hugh!

First, what Hugh said he was looking for was a way to make his “Forward to Friend" feature more effective. It’s there, they work, he wants to make it work better – simple.

All the naysayer ideas are good, but they don't directly answer his question, they are going off on a complete different tangent, giving possible solutions for a different area of strategy.

Second, what's with the word bribe? How can you that posted this confuse "reward" with bribe?

I’ll save you the dictionary definitions; you can all look them up on your own time.

Are airline miles a reward or a bribe?

Hotel points? Same question.

The list is of course endless. Next time you are offered a good deal on something, will you consider it a bribe?

If people like you and respect you/your business they will be more than happy to refer you to their friends. Giving them an easy way to do this ("Click here") and giving them an incentive (or reward, whatever) is just a nice way of saying thanks in advance, and in Hugh's case to keep delivering the value and get some viral marketing going.

His target customers/subscribers and prospects are as he has said senior level decision-makers. Same targets that he wants his book or any other Leaky Funnel publications to fall into the hands of. So then what happens next?

They read it and the refer it (read: make mandatory read) to their downline lieutenants and other staff. Then what happens? They order cartons of books from Hugh.

Then they ask him to speak in front of their companies, and it grows and grows. Pretty much what I think he wants to accomplish in his current business life.

Seth Godin has down this for years and he sells about a bazillion books a year doing this. BTW, he also gives away boatloads for free, or next to, or in the case of "The Ideavirus", free for PDF download. (now there's an idea!)

Lastly, if you are just cutting, pasting, forwarding through your own email - which by the way, I myself do this more often than not, this is O.K.

However, from a business owner/manager perspective if you encourage this and don't encourage using an enabled FTF feature on your pages you are foregoing the ability to track one of your main calls to action.

As Michele said this means plugging in the "Forward" link or icon on multiple pages. No harm done.

Just because you might not like a "Forward" feature and choose not to use them because of distrust or whatever doesn't mean that your friends don't want to make their own decision to subscribe and possible get "Full Value" of a newsletter, not just one article.

Should you be making their decisions?

You can't improve what you can't measure and in e-business you can't measure what you don't define.

Defining specific metrics for measuring the success of online communications is a formidable task.

The inability to identify proper criteria and meaningful statistics is a roadblock to the e-business world's capacity to determine the value of online communications and to further measure and improve these.

Those companies that are successful in the near future will be those that embrace and enable methods to track and measure data in ways that allows them to deliver exactly what each and every customer and/or prospect wants.

Hugh - the urgency of the call to action - putting a time limitation on it means that it will reduce the chance of sitting in their "To Do" folder, the idea is to spur them to "use it or lose it". Especially with "C" level, odds are slim they will go back and act.

Hugh,

Good article here from ClickZ:

https://www.clickz.com/experts/em_mkt/em_mkt/article.php/3302991

Tim

DITTO