If you have been using e-mail messaging services for quite some time now, you may have already heard of tell a friend forms. Also known as invite mail, viral mail is a marketing tool that uses an e-mail message to promote and encourage people to visit a particular website or to try out a certain product/service.

Viral emails are usually sent with a recommendation from an existing customer, so as not to be flagged as spam and to help identify with the recipient. The message often contains the name and e-mail address of the recommending person, his or her personal message to the recipient, and videos, links, and other media that is related to the site or business that is being promoted.|The viral mail got the word “viral” tagged to its named because it is designed to spread like a human or computer virus: from one person to another. The main premise of tell a friend forms is to facilitate the viral marketing of a target product/website and propagate awareness over a wide online demographic over a short period of time. The mail accomplishes this by using word-of-mouth communication: the mail is passed on to people, and if they liked the site/business they in turn will theoretically pass it on and so forth. This creates a self-sustaining promotional chain that doubles awareness of the site or business upon every recommendation. And because everything is done via e-mail, the site or business saves greatly on marketing and advertising expenses.

Sending viral mail to prospects used to be done by hand, but now this viral marketing process has been automated. tell a friend html script software such as tell-a-friend programs and viral friend generators are now being used to perform the once-tedious chore of sending viral emails to hundreds of people. These software applications are now especially popular amongst affiliate marketing websites, who get commissions every time they refer prospective customers to affiliated websites.