Proven ideas to actually benefit from a referral program

Proven ideas to actually benefit from a referral program

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Referral programs are a systematic way of encouraging people to give you the contact information of possible customers for you.

Big enterprises like Uber and Airbnb realize the importance of referrals and have included this strategy in their core business.

Creating a referral program for your company will bring you many benefits. Not only will you increase your brand awareness and more people will get to know about you, but also, it increases customer loyalty of your existing customers, since they will be investing their reputation and time in recommending your business to their family and friends.

There are many ways of offering a referral program: discounts, free products, exclusive offers, gift cards and even cash.

According to Referral Candy, these are some of the best referral programs:

1. PayPal. They literally gave away free money, and it worked out great for them. And this was before social media!
2. Dropbox. Modelled after PayPal, Dropbox’s referral program got 4 million users in 15 months
3. Airbnb. A single user in China led to thousands of signups and hundreds of bookings in a single month.
4. Uber. They’ve been in a unique position to run multiple referral programs at once – for users and for drivers.
5. Tesla. – $1,000 for both advocate and friend, with quite a start-studded list of advocates!
6. Amazon Prime. –Likely one of the most heavily-used referral programs in recent times.
7. Google. – When the front page of the Internet decides to run a referral program, it’s worth looking into.
8. Evernote. Their referral program relies on a point system.

Here are some of ideas  to create a successful referral program:

• Offer a points program. This is a great way of rewarding your customers’ loyalty. Create an account for them and everytime they buy something from you or recommend a customer to you, they will get points that can be exchangeable for some of your products or services. You can also give a special discount to the referral to incentivize their first purchase. One thing to really pay attention to, is that the “exchange rate” between the points and the real money is the correct one, this is to make sure this is a profitable strategy for you and you won’t end up losing money.
• Offer your existing customers access to exclusive content or products. For example: refer one person and gain access to this special webinar, or access our new product before anyone else with a special discount. This will make your customers feel special.
• Most likely your customers buy from you because they like your products. So the best strategy is to reward their loyalty and referrals with your products. Trust me, they will love it.

Some final tips, be clear about what you are offering so that your customers know what to expect and finally, make sure the rewards fit with your customers’ interests.

Do you have any more ideas? Leave us a message! We want to hear from you!