Your Tell a Friend vs Viral Optin Generator
Notice I didn’t say 5% more, or even 25% more… Some of them, like FaceBook, for example, gets well more than 60% more of their new customers from on-site referrals. ICQ spread to over 10 MILLION users in 18 months flat using NOTHING but a powerful tell-a-friend script, like the two mentioned here today! |
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I bet your business could use a little of that magic too. The problem though, is that the scripts that really work well are very complicated.
Just in case you are wondering what’s so complicated about a tell-a-friend form, I’ll start out by telling you what an industry-leading TAF script or service should offer, just so you get an idea why that silly little tell a friend box on your blog never sends you any traffic. 
First of all, it will most definitely need the power to connect to your reader’s existing contact list in other services so you can import their friends easily. Having it tell just a name or two just won’t generate any traffic for your site anymore, you HAVE to make it easy for them to report dozens or even hundreds of their friends at the push of a button.
I’m not saying that I’m against this concept of course, but we all know it feels a little uncomfortable to send your entire email contact database an email at the same time introducing a new product or service.
Let’s face it, if Myspace, YouTube, and Facebook are all leading the way then there’s no reason you shouldn’t follow. More and more people are simply being training by these titan companies that it’s OK to “rat out all your friends.”
So since it’s becoming commonplace, and using this strategy truly is the most viral and powerful way to build a subscriber base, you simply have to grab onto this trend and ride it or live with being the only one in your niche who doesn’t. 
Today I’m reviewing BOTH of the options you have available to you at the same time, Viral Opt-in Generator by Ken Reno, and Your Tell a Friend Beta, by Matthew Glanfeild. -Both are well-known marketers whom I already knew for a long time and respect.
When both marketers approached me within the same week to take a look at their product I thought this would be an awesome time to do a comparison.
Other Features that such a service should have are:
- As many import sources as possible. (gMail, Hotmail, AOL mail, etc.)
- The ability to let readers personalize their Out-going Message.
- The ability for you to use it on many different kinds of applications. (Such as on your website, or blog, or when you give out eBooks anywhere, or just to get people who read your Squidoo Lens, etc.)
- The ability to be placed at different places in your ’salesflow.’ (At purchase, while just browsing, after purchase, in affiliate resource areas, etc.)
- Low cost, of course!
I can gladly say that both of these products easily meet each of these criterions. Both have done their homework well, and I see no major flaws in either one of them.
However, surprisingly enough, these two services are very different from each other! When you consider investing into one system I highly advise you to be careful and think about what these differences mean to your business…
Difference #1 - Hosting & Bandwidth
Viral Optin Generator is SOFTWARE that resides on your own server. When you purchase it you may install it on as many domains as you’d like but keep in mind that it will be counted as YOUR bandwidth, all user interaction on your domain and all emails sent from your email server.
If you have known email deliverability issues, VOG may not be for you because the emails sent out will be from your account. VOG also requires that your server be a Linux server with PHP and use a MySQL database as well as an email account. These are all technical considerations that you must consider very carefully, but most hosting providers do in fact supply you with all of this.
Your Tell A Friend, on the other hand, is all run on the YTAF site. It uses their Bandwidth, their resources, and even their email service. One might think it has VOG beat completely on this issue, but there are many people out there uncomfortable with letting a 3rd-party service be in full control of the user Database.
For instance, what if the YTAF site were to go down often? Or worse, develop email deliverability issues of it’s own? The simple fact is that with and 3rd party service you don’t have full control over your data.
So if you’re a control junkie (like I am) VOG clearly wins the issue. But if you’re new and worried about the Technical aspects of these services, then VOG will be more difficult to get started with and perhaps YTAF is a good enough service for you.
Difference #2 - Import Sources
Since VOG is just being released today, this is a very close call. A week ago it would have been a no-brainer in favor of VOG simply because YTAF just added this feature. (I can’t imagine what Matthew was selling before that point… But it’s still in Beta so I’ll try not to judge.)
Since it’s all-important to let your visitor import their entire address book from other services, the name of the game is to be able to access the most, biggest services.
Viral Optin Generator is slightly in the lead on this issue for importing from:
- gMail
- Hotmail
- Yahoo! Mail
- Lycos Mail
- Mail.com
These five services make up a huge amount of the contact address databases on the web.
However, YTAF is not too shabby either. They offer import for:
- gMail
- Hotmail
- Yahoo! Mail
- AOL Mail
The AOL mail option may make all the difference for you. So the bottom line on this issue is that if you want sheer numbers, perhaps VOG is right for you… Meanwhile, if you have reason to suspect that a good percentage of your readers have AOL accounts, then YTAF is the way to go.
Difference #3 - Cost structure
Since VOG is a software product, it must be sold with a one-time fee. (Actually I believe there is an upgrade purchase item to it as well so for optional services not mentioned we’ll call this a 2-time fee.)
YTAF is an online service, still in beta, and is therefore Free for a limited amount of options. To upgrade to their “Premium” service you must pay a monthly fee, and that will make you forms much more customizable and remove their “Powered by YTAF” links from your TAF form. It also gives you a higher commission rate on referrals that you make to their service. All in all it’s not a bad deal but their Free Service is good enough for beginners.
So of the two, YTAF has the better price for most users. That changes for those of us who need more control and do promote it, because the extra commissions are really nice and will be seen by more people automatically.
That’s about it, all the rest of their differences won’t make you change your mind… You should choose one of these two fine services completely on the three criteria above. Clearly, the very most important issue should be the first issue, whether or not you want it hosted for you.
Again, this is a very important issue for all people who make money by getting traffic to their websites. I can’t stress enough how you will surely be using one of these two systems in the future and those who don’t use one will simply not be getting as much traffic as the others.
Even if they BUY a lot of traffic!
So Click Here to read more about Viral Opt-in Generator!
And…
Click Here to read more about Your Tell-A-Friend!
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