Referral Campaign

When formulating ideas for your referral campaign, it's important to realize that many have waded in similar waters before you. Referral campaigns have come and gone. The successful referral campaigns, though, have become successful because they've been apart of something bigger than just a campaign. Successful referral campaigns are apart of referral programs, one's that are always on, easily accessible at all times across all channels, and are promoted everywhere your customers are. The referral campaign is just the start. To truly win at referral, marketers need to realize that a referral program that is evergreen and constantly being optimized, is one that will scale and drive meaningful revenue in the long run.

Here are a few tips to plan out your referral program:

1) What's your offer?
Referral programs work because your customers love your brand. But incentives play a role. It shows that your brand appreciates customers vouching for you within their personal network. What will you use to incentivize them? In kind product rewards, a percentage discount off, or a gift card? You have a lot of options, what will resonate best with your customer base?

2) Where will you promote?
The best referral campaigns and programs are heavily promoted across the entire customer journey. On your homepage, on product pages, offline, in packaging, mobile, in-app, you name it! Where will you promote yours? How will you keep it consistent?

3) Optimize and Scale
Referral programs, in order for them to hit benchmarks and grow, need attention.  Customer sharing and friend conversions need to be tracked, tested, and optimized across all of your channels. Consistency is key, fraud needs to be mitigated, and reward fulfillment needs to be seamless.

The good news is that Extole's referral marketing platform can help scale your referral program into an acquisition and reactivation machine. Check out Extole's 2022 Referral Guide to see examples of great referral programs in action.