ChristianAside from the vital activity of sharing the word about your products or services, referral programs can be the source of many other benefits. Referral programs can help provide guidelines and structure that make it easier to refer you. They can provide a quicker path to your most ideal consumers. Referrals help to build business relationships that will help you to continue to retain your most ideal clientele. A series of ongoing introductions and referrals will grow your business network as well.
Ideal Referral Programs Examples
Understanding how to run referral programs and knowing which programs can have the most valuable impact are different elements of referral marketing. Sometimes, the best lessons can be taken from the successes of others. Here are two superior referral programs examples that may inspire you to create a fantastic program of your own.
Contests
One company offered three of the hottest new iPads as giveaways for their referral program. The guidelines were incredibly simple. Share the contest with your own friends and family, making sure at least three of them registered for the promotion and giveaway. A few simple scripts ran the contest tracking and calculated the winners. In less than two weeks, iPads were awaiting their new owners and brought in more than 7,000 new referrals. Even those referrals gained benefit by being given $1,000 off of a new iPad purchase.
Two-Sided Incentive Referral Programs Examples
A popular online storage website ran an incredibly well thought out referral marketing campaign and had great success. The referral program created offered dual incentives meaning anyone who invited a friend or acquaintance received extra storage space themselves and their friend. Not only did this increase their referrals, but it also permanently increased the company’s signups by over 60%. Currently, still up to 35% of their daily signups come from the same referral program. Impressively, this campaign landed them four-million new users in around 15 months with zero capital spent on ads.
Whenever you can create a referral program that offers a two-sided incentive, especially one that comes at low or no cost to your business, enact it. This type of referral program example increases not only a person’s willingness to share with their friends, but also supplies high click through rates on any available ads or messages.
What is Referral Marketing Not?
Referral marketing is not about posting a magic button on your website that will suddenly generate new, fast, free referrals with absolutely no effort or creativity involved. The hard fact is that many companies hire professionals that run their marketing campaigns and are pros when it comes to outdoing you at your own referral program game. Although it hardly requires a top-notch professional to get ahead and gain referrals, it does require patience, creativity, research and eloquent program execution. Always make your rules of referral clear from the start to avoid any technical loopholes individuals may try to pressure you into. If you are able to offer a more valuable reward, do so. Even the best referral programs examples may not be ideal for your business. Never hesitate to tailor your own.
Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture and Referral Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture and Referral relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.
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