Tell a friend scripts are incredibly popular viral marketing tools - and for good reason - they flat out work. However they also have their limitations, making selecting the correct script difficult. Here then is a list of the problems I myself have experienced together with the solutions and hence the features you should be looking for when shopping for the perfect tell a friend script. 1) Spam Arguably the biggest problem of all is the risk of spam being sent by one of your site visitors, or worse, a hardcore spammer abusing your script around the clock. Innocent individuals can get frustrated, spam complaints can be placed, your domain and/or IP can be blocked and your hosting account can be closed without warning. The best you can expect is to be told to take down the script you spent all that money on buying and time on setting up. The worst doesn't bare thinking about. So look for a script that actively controls spam. Perhaps those receiving emails can complain to you directly so you can take action. Perhaps you can ban entire IP addresses or email addresses from accessing your script in the future. Whatever happens, look for spam control as a major element in your search for your ideal script. 2) Duplicate Content Most tell a friend scripts have a general lack of customization features which means your form is likely to look like everyone else's who is using the same script. This means your page is unlikely to show up in the search engines as it looks to them like hundreds of pages all over the web are identical (or close to). So either learn some HTML so you can customize the form yourself (effective, but slow and slightly old-fashioned) or find a script that gives you a large degree of control over how your form will look on your site. 3) Popups With the fight on popups gaining pace every day it's a wonder to me that some tell a friend scripts work by popping up on your site when a visitor clicks the link. Clearly these popups are going to be blocked by 90% of all the browsers out there so nobody is going to actually see your form even if they want to use it. And yes, whilst there *are* unblockable popups out there, they require adding considerable code to every page of your site where you want the popup to appear, the installation of which rapidly becomes a long and boring process. 4) Motivation Of Your Visitors You need to make it *easy* to give your visitors a *reason* to use your form. By doing this you will greatly increase the use of your form and hence it's effectiveness. But you also need to make it foolproof so people don't just email themselves to get to your thankyou page and download whatever freebie you're offering. The script should easily track referrals and allow you flexibility in what you offer to your visitors and how they get it. 5) Statistics As any seasoned online marketer knows the key to success is to track everything possible on your site. Knowledge really *is* power, and the more statistics you have on how visitors interact with your form the better you can make it, and hence the more new visitors you'll generate. So look for a script that offers a reasonable level of statistics to really make the most of your investment. That's it for your list - happy shopping - and I hope you enjoy all the new visitors you're going to generate!
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