A program that motivates established clients to recommend a business, a referral program, how does it work? Let’s imagine: a certain Sveta wants to buy herself a slow cooker. Sveta googles every day: “Which slow cooker to choose?”. Finds websites, reads reviews, watches videos. In parallel, Sveta consults with her friends and one of them, who has already bought herself a slow cooker, recommends just going to a specific store and buying a specific model. Because, in this case, Sveta will definitely be satisfied with the purchase. Who will Sveta believe more: a friend or sites from the Internet?
The figures say that the probability that Sveta will believe her friend is above 50%. (The girlfriend in this case is called a “referral”.) That was the reason for the appearance of programs “on the recommendation” of many, many businesses. This even led to the emergence of businesses built on recommendation programs, but we will not talk about them.
Different types of recommendations
Word of mouth
You’re just great, you have nice prices, you have a cool service, your customers advertise you for free.
Affiliate program
You offer absolutely everyone to take advertising materials and advertise you. In case of sale, the “advertiser” will receive a part of the order amount.
Referral program
Your client uses your products and services, you offer him to get bonuses if he
recommends you and according to these recommendations you will get new customers. The client is given a referral link, which he distributes. We will talk about this type of recommendations today.
Tips for launching a referral program
- Each of your referrals should know the following: they will receive bonuses from you if they convince their friends to become your customers.
- Give your customers the opportunity to talk about your business on social media. networks. Come up with a small reward for this action.
- It should be convenient for your client to recommend you. Think about how to do it. Take into account your audience. Programmers can be given a code, and housekeepers should be given the opportunity to press one button and everything happens by itself.
- Reward the referee and his new referral (Sveta’s girlfriend and Sveta herself) — this will immediately double the success of your program. Today, not every referral system provides such rewards, there is an opportunity to build up from competitors.
- Do not give the referral a package of milk, give him a cow for rent for a week. Do everything to get “attached” to you as much as possible. A one—time bonus is nice, but it does not guarantee that all customers will “work” for it every day.
- The most important part is the coolness of your products. Roughly speaking, if word of mouth doesn’t work for you, then the referral program won’t come in either.
- Referral program is a good way to get new customers if you give a clear bonus. Give the referee not just “delicious” buns, but make him understand that sharing your products is really beneficial for him.
This has been working for years
UBER (taxi service)
We invite a friend who is making a trip. Both you and your friend can get up to $30 to an account in the UBER service.
Dropbox (cloud)
We invite a friend and you and your friend get 500mb of extra space for free.
Mailbird (mail client)
It’s generally difficult to resist here, because first you will be powerfully presented with the premium version, and then they will ask you to bring 5 friends and then you will get a premium for free.
Word of mouth is one of the most effective forms of marketing, but one of the most difficult to manage. You can’t force someone to tell you about your company, much less give you a good review. But the voices of your customers have power–more power than the voice of your brand.