Referral Marketing 101: Guide with Templates, Tips & More

When most people hear the word ‘referral’, their mind usually races to Ponzi or pyramid schemes they’ve fallen for in the past. 

As such, they want to avoid anything to do with ‘referring’ at all costs, given its image and their experiences. 

If that’s you, we feel you!

However, that’s way different from what referral marketing is.

“So, what is referral marketing?”

Well, that’s what we discuss in this guide.

More specifically, we’ll talk about what referral marketing is, how it works, and all related concepts needed to understand it and use it to grow your brand.

Let’s get right to it!

What is Referral Marketing?

Referral marketing is a marketing strategy that involves getting loyal customers or brand advocates to recommend your brand to their network in exchange for rewards. 

The rewards offered to customers can come in the form of:

  • Cash
  • Discounts
  • Free products
  • Vouchers/coupons
  • Early access to a product

…and more!

Let’s explain it a little bit further.

You know when someone close to you excitedly shares a product or service they’re using or have just discovered?

That right there is referral marketing. 

But in this case, the brand begins the process by asking customers to refer people. 

Simply put, referral marketing is an intentional action by brands to get customers to take on the role of advocates as opposed to a spur-of-the-moment act initiated by satisfied customers in word-of-mouth.

We’ll expand on this concept in the chapters that follow where you’ll learn about:

  • Referral links
  • Different referral programs
  • Referral program benefits
  • Referral tracking
  • Types of referrals

Let’s continue!

Why Referral Marketing is Important

Referral marketing is important because your products and services are recommended to others by people they know and trust.  

Thus, increasing the chances of boosting brand awareness and maintaining a loyal customer base. 

A 2015 study showed that 83% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know.  

We can also say that referral marketing is important because:

  • It leverages trust which is important in marketing
  • It has more reach as customers can reach more people in their network than ever before
  • Brands can leverage people’s interactive nature by incentivizing customers to share their brand experience  

We’ll share some more reasons why referral marketing is important with statistics later in this article.

“So, how can I get started?” 

We’ll look at that in the next section!

How Does Referral Marketing Work?

The concept behind referral marketing is quite simple.

It involves getting your happy customers to invite their friends, family, and colleagues to buy your products or services in exchange for a reward.

As stated earlier, this reward can be:

  • Free products 
  • Discounts
  • Exclusive products
  • Free courses, etc.

You can tell customers to either get people to join the referral marketing campaign or buy your products

We’ve added a video that explains how this marketing strategy works:

Now, here are a few things to keep in mind before launching a referral campaign: 

  • Ensure your product meets the customer’s needs
  • Provide outstanding customer experience 
  • Decide who will be rewarded and what their reward will be
  • Build the campaign (more on this later 😉)
  • Get people to participate in the campaign

Before we move on, how about we show you some statistics so you see more reasons why referral marketing is needed?

Chapter #1: Referral Marketing Statistics

Read the full chapter on referral marketing statistics.

Let’s face it, consumers are now avoiding traditional ads more than ever before. 

About 65% of people in an IPG survey hit the ‘Skip’ button on video ads the first chance they get. 

A Hootsuite report shows that over 40% of internet users use ad blockers with about 22% of them saying the ads are either annoying or irrelevant.

What does that tell you as a marketer or small business owner?

You need an alternative form of marketing that’s less invasive and more trustworthy.

That’s where referral marketing comes in and here’s why:

  1. Referred customers have a 16% higher lifetime value than non-referred customers at the same time of acquisition.
  2. 83% of consumers are open to referring others if they had an amazing customer experience.
  3. 84% of respondents from over 50 countries in a Nielsen report say they trust word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know.
  4. 1 in 3 people visit a brand based on recommendations.  
  5. 60% of consumers say they trust content created by their peers more than they trust brand-created content.
  6. Over 22% of customers say they would trust life experiences shared by friends and family when buying a product.
  7. Businesses with successful referral programs have experienced an 86% growth in revenue.

Based on the stats above, it’s safe to say that launching referral campaigns means: 

  • Your target audience won’t block your ad when they see it 
  • Marketers can look forward to a high return on ad spend (ROAS) 

Let’s continue!

Chapter #2: Referral Marketing Examples

Read the full chapter on referral marketing examples.

We’ve said so much already about referral marketing and its benefits. 

To make things more interesting, we decided to add some practical examples. 

Let’s get started!

Example #1: Airbnb

Everyone knows Airbnb—the Uber version of home rental services—and how successful they’ve become. 

But, how did they get there?

Here goes:

When Airbnb launched its business in 2008, they were met with one challenge from its target audience.

People felt it was a scam and they were right to feel that way considering it was a new business model.

So, what did Airbnb do?

They created a refer-a-friend program that turned current customers into brand advocates.

Airbnb’s referral incentive was a $25 travel credit when referred friends leased an apartment and a $75 travel credit when they listed their property for rent on Airbnb.

The result?

Over 2k new members joined from the closed beta test of this referral program.

When it went live, its customer base went from 20k visitors to 80 million in seven years. 

Example #2: Dropbox

Dropbox is a file-hosting storage service that helps you save files online. 

Their initial release date was in September 2008 and they had only 100k registered users then. 

The following year they had 4 million users and then in 2017,  33.9 million users alongside $1 billion in revenue.

What brought about such an increase?

They launched a referral campaign similar to PayPal’s refer-a-friend program. 

It was a two-sided referral program where people were rewarded with free storage for referring people in their network and also for accepting a referrer’s invitation. 

Here are some other things they did:

  • Made the referral program a part of their onboarding process (which is pretty interesting stuff)
  • Made invitations easy
  • Let users keep track of the number of invitees they had
  • Sent out appreciation emails

In just 15 months, Dropbox experienced a 3,900% increase in growth. 

Example #3: Mastic Spa

Mastic Spa, a cosmetic brand, wanted to:

  • Increase their brand awareness
  • Gather data to optimize their ad targeting
  • Increase sales

So, they decided that creating a viral giveaway was the way to go.

How did it go?

The campaign ran for 5 days and they gave products for hair, body, and face to winners.

People who participated were asked to invite their friends. 

What was the result?

  • They got over 1k followers on Instagram
  • Made thousands in sales
  • Got over 650 participants from referrals
  • Welcomed over 4k subscribers on Messenger
  • 48% of the participants brought in at least one invite

Let’s move on!

Chapter #3: Referral Marketing vs. Affiliate Marketing

Read the full chapter on referral marketing versus affiliate marketing.

The main difference between referral marketing and affiliate marketing is that in affiliate marketing, business owners pay third-party brand advocates or affiliates to bring in customers. In referral marketing, on the contrary, brands incentivize their existing customers to invite people to use their products.

They’re quite similar marketing strategies, which you can use to increase customer acquisitions.

Here’s how they differ:

As we mentioned, both strategies are similar in the sense that they: 

  • Are cost-effective
  • Involve people acting as brand advocates
  • Can bring in high-value customers

Now, let’s look at some other concepts associated with referral marketing. 

Chapter #4: Referral Programs

Read the full chapter on referral programs

A referral program is a systematic process of rewarding customers to share or promote your product with their friends and family

You’ll be leveraging customers who’ve enjoyed using your product and already started referring people so they can do more.

That’s why referral programs are also called word-of-mouth marketing. 

Because they involve regular people giving recommendations to other people

Let’s use this analogy to help you better understand referral programs:

You have a hair stylist that’s so good at their job that you have to refer your friends and family to them.

The hairstylist sees that your recommendations have increased their revenue as they’ve been able to get more than two customer referrals from you alone.

They decide to scale it, so they tell you that for every new customer you bring, you’ll be entitled to a reward.

That right there is a referral program.

Of course, you’ll need to set up systems (referral program software) to automate the entire process for your customers but you get the general idea. 

Let’s continue!

Chapter #5: Referral Code

Read the full chapter on referral codes.

A referral code is a unique identifier that can consist of numbers, alphabets, or alphanumeric characters assigned to participants in a referral program. It can even be the participant’s name.

Anyone who wants to join your referral program needs one so you can keep track of every activity they initiate and see who has:

  • Used their referral code
  • Made a purchase in their name

In addition, this unique code ensures program rewards are automatically distributed to the participants and the referred customer.

Here's an example of a referral code: 

 

How does it work?

 Well first, you need to create a referral program. Then, you can:

  • Generate a code and assign it to a customer
  • Motivate them to share the code
  • Keep track of and collect the referral code
  • Give the referred customer and the referrer their rewards

Chapter #6: Referral Link

A referral link which is also similar to referral codes is a unique link given to customers who want to participate in your referral program

It lets you keep track of the referred clients your customer has brought.

How’s it different from a referral code?

Well, a referral code is a part of the referral link. 

More specifically, the code is the unique identifier within the referral link.

Here’s what a referral link looks like:

It can also be shared via social media, email newsletters, or blogs. 

Chapter #7: Referral Program Benefits

Creating a referral program is an interesting way to grow your business as you’ll be leveraging the recommendation of people who’ve enjoyed using your product or service. 

Aside from the fact that it’s cheaper than most marketing methods and generates a high ROAS, what else do you stand to gain?

Well, referral programs can help you: 

  • Motivate clients to share: Sometimes, customers want to share your brand with their network after a positive experience, but that rarely happens. 

Statistics show that of 83% of people who are willing to refer, only 29% of them do so. 

So, creating a referral program can get them to take action as they’ll be getting a nudge from you asking them to share, alongside a reward to motivate them.  

  • Get more referrals: If your current customer base has been driving new customers to your business, then that’s an indication that you need a referral program. 

How does that get me more referrals?”

Well, you’ll be optimizing the entire referral process by providing:

  1. Referral codes or links
  2. Easy messaging options
  3. Rewards

Doing this will boost the number of referrals you’re getting as it will be much easier to refer people.

  • Improve sales revenue: When you set up a referral program, it becomes even easier for your customers to reach potential customers as they’ll have access to a referral link or code they can use. 

And it’s even better if they share on social media as 71% of consumers are more likely to purchase from you.

Also, considering the referrals are based on word of mouth, referred customers are more likely to purchase from you as the trust level is high.

There are still other benefits, but we’ll pause for now as we’ve got more interesting concepts to share with you. 

Let’s continue!

Chapter #8: Types of Referrals

Read the full chapter on types of referrals.

So far, we’ve been able to explain what a referral program is and how beneficial it can be to your business. 

But we get the feeling you probably think there’s only one type of referral—the ones that come through word-of-mouth. 

Well, word-of-mouth is definitely on the list but there are others too:

  • Word-of-mouth or direct referrals: This is one of the most popular types of referrals. 

You get word-of-mouth referrals when your customers speak to their network directly about your business and get a reward in return.  

It’s efficient and cost-effective as people trust recommendations from people they know more than they trust brands.

  • Social media referrals: You can also get referrals from social media as people are usually asking for recommendations on social sharing platforms. 

To get customers via social recommendation, you need to ensure you’ve got an amazing customer experience and constantly share valuable content so people can see how beneficial your product is.

  • Email referrals: Referrals generated through emails are similar to social media referrals. 

What’s different is that the recommendation will be coming from you and it will be a personalized email with their name on it.

  • Review referrals: Sometimes, people may not directly know someone who has used your product or services before. 

In that case, they’ll proceed to check for reviews about your business online. 

If they like what they see, they’ll buy from you. So, they’re review referrals.

  • Incentive-based referrals: Your business can secure more leads by giving your current customers incentives to bring in new customers. 

The incentives, however, need to be something they can use so they can be motivated to do more. 

That said, let’s show you how to set up a referral program.

Chapter #9: How to Set Up a Referral Program

Read the full chapter on how to set up a referral program.

Before we explain how to build a referral program, we’ve got a couple of things you need to keep in mind: 

  • You must offer a fantastic customer experience
  • Be willing to launch a beta version so the program functions well when it goes live

Now, let’s get practical!

  1. Define your program’s goals: The first thing you want to do is outline what you want the program to achieve. 

In other words, what exactly do you want?

More sales? Brand awareness? Or more signups, perhaps?

If your objectives are defined, it’ll be easy for you to know what needs to be done to make them happen. 

  1. Decide on your referral program’s reward: Before deciding what type of reward you want to give, you’ll need to know who receives it. 

Do you want one person to receive the incentive (referrer or referred customer) or two persons (referrer and referred customer)?

Once you’ve made that decision, you want to now decide what type of incentive it should be. Perhaps cash, discount, or free products? 

  1. Design your referral program: Now, it’s time to lay the groundwork and how users will see the referral program. 

What types of images should be used? How about the messaging? What’s the best way to reach them? 

If you don’t have the answer yet, you’ll need to carry out research to know what your audience responds to. 

  1. Leverage referral-marketing software: Using referral marketing software like Viral Loops will help you streamline your referral campaign so the entire process is easy for both you and your customers.

You’ll be able to:

  • Create landing pages
  • Keep track of your referrals
  • Automate the reward process
  • Prevent fraudulent actions
  • Send out emails automatically
  1. Promote your program: What’s a referral program if people don't know about it? That’s why you need to promote it. You can do that by:
  • Sharing it on social media
  • Partnering with creators or influencers
  • Featuring it on your website
  • Leveraging email marketing

Chapter #10: Referral Program Templates

Read the full chapter on referral program templates.

Templates are predesigned documents or formats that comprise some of the most important elements and layouts in the format

They’re usually filled with:

  • Compelling visuals such as graphics or images
  • Text
  • Dummy links 

All you have to do is quickly fill out and edit the template as you see fit. 

Why are we talking about this?

Well, using a template for your referral program can help you provide customers with a delightful experience on their journey to becoming brand ambassadors.

What’s more, you wouldn’t have to spend time and resources trying to build a program from scratch. 

Chapter #11: Referral Rewards & Incentives

Read the full chapter on referral rewards and incentives.

As mentioned before, rewards are an important part of referral programs. 

You could say that they’re the life force upon which referral programs are built. 

Let’s look at different types of referral rewards or incentives you can use. 

  • Free product or service: Self-explanatory and probably all of us have participated in such a program.
  • Internal currency: This is great for SaaS and service brands that reward their clients for expanding the user base (e.g., Dropbox). 

The prize will be a gift to your users as a little extra of your product or service in exchange for referring you to their friends.

  • Discounts: Another classic incentive that’s great for ecommerce marketplaces. 

If you want to nail this, offer 2-sided rewards so both the referrer and the referred have something to gain.

  • Company merch: People love to feel like they are part of a movement and what better way to reward them than to make them feel like they’re part of your crew with thoughtful branded products?
  • Exclusive content: A great option if you’re on a tight budget. Some of them include exclusive access to ebooks, videos, webinars, and PDF guides to encourage people to share the event with their friends. 

These kinds of rewards provide valuable info to your ambassadors.

  • Early access: Popular among pre-launch campaigns, this way you incentivize people by giving them an experience exclusive to them. 

This makes them feel special and a part of something big. Plus, they’ll have a good insight into what is coming.

  • Team spirit + Exclusive content = Access to private communities: Exclusive Facebook or Slack groups are more than valuable since like-minded people get together to discuss problems and frustrations.
  • Company stock: This might sound extreme but using bits of your company as rewards can drive incredible results. Who doesn’t like free money in the first place?

Let’s keep moving!

Chapter #12: Referral Tracking

Referral tracking is another crucial process in your referral campaign. It involves measuring and monitoring your campaign results. 

You’ll be collecting data from the entire process such as: 

  • How many referred customers you’ve got
  • When they registered
  • Their referrer

Referral tracking helps you manage the entire referral process. 

Why is it important?

Well, it lets you:

  • Measure customer satisfaction: You’ll know if customers find your product valuable by how many referrals you get.  
  • Measure conversion rates: This will let you know if the campaign is working
  • Detect fraud: You want to avoid this at all costs and tracking is the way to do it
  • Keep track of changes in sales: Referral tracking will let you know how many sales are coming from your referrals so you can decide whether to scale or not

What else do you need to keep in mind?

You’ll see, let’s keep going!

Chapter #13: Referral Program Metrics

How do you know if your referral campaign is effective? 

Is there any indicator that you keep track of so you know if your referral marketing is working for you or if you need to restructure? 

Well, that’s why you need to track metrics.

Here are some referral metrics to keep track of.

  1. The viral coefficient (K-factor): This refers to the number of referrals a customer brings
  2. Participant conversion rate: Number of visitors to your campaign page who become participants 
  3. Participant share rate: Number of shares or invitations per customer 
  4. Invitation click-through rate: What percentage of invitees click your customer’s invitation to get to your campaign?
  5. Invitation conversion rate: What percentage of invitees eventually become customers or participants in your campaign?

Chapter #14: Referral Program Best Practices

If you’re still reading this, it’s because you want to get results from your marketing efforts. 

Let’s take you through some best practices so you know what needs to be done to have a successful program:

  • Know your audience: You must have heard this several times but we promise you, it’s not a ruse. Knowing your customers will help you create a program they’ll like. A personalized program will make it easier for them to refer people. 
  • Choose the rewards wisely: Rewards are important to your referral program. We said that already and we’re repeating it. 

If your customers love the incentive, your campaign is as good as successful. It should be seen as an appreciation for their hard work.

  • Make sharing easy: Ensure your referral program is easy to share so your customers can easily share with their network. 

You can do this by providing different options for them to share and optimize the program for mobile users. 

  • Follow up: Sometimes people sign up and forget about it, sending reminders can be a way to get them to take action.
  • Engage with your customers: Keep the line of communication open at all times. It’ll be easier for them to share your product if they feel a sense of connection with you.
  • Promote your program: Let people know about your program when it goes live. Promote it constantly via emails, social media, pop-ups on your website, and more. 
  • Show gratitude: When a participant shares your product, make it a practice to appreciate them for it. Everyone loves to feel appreciated, even your participants.
  • Leverage referral software: Referral marketing software helps make creating and managing your program easy. It’ll help you keep track of referrals and reward referrers accordingly.  

Up next, let’s share some ideas for your referral program that we believe you’ll find useful. 

Chapter #15: Referral Program Ideas

→Read the full chapter on referral marketing ideas.

There is a wide range of options available if you want to run a referral program. 

However, we’ve put together five that we recommend based on experience and stats. 

They include: 

  • Contest or sweepstakes: This referral program idea is based on competition. 

You can run contests or sweepstakes so customers can participate and the winner is given a reward. 

  • Discount and store credit: If you run an ecommerce store, this is an idea you should consider. People love it when they can get a discount or money (store credit) to buy more stuff. 
  • Free gifts: Ever felt so glad when you saw the word “free” added to a phrase before? Well, your customers will feel that way when they receive free gifts too. 
  • Seasonal campaigns: Get people looking forward to engaging with your brand by creating seasonal campaigns. This is a great way to build hype to get your business going viral. 
  • Product or service upgrades: You can also make your referral program one that’s based on free premium product or service upgrades. Something your customers will find useful and at the same time, won’t cost you so much.

Let’s move on!

Chapter #16: How to Promote a Referral Program

Say I’m ready to get started, how do I get more people to participate in my referral program?” 

Great question!

We’ve added a video that answers this if you’d like to see it:

Anyway, here’s how you can get started in written text: 

For existing customers

Buying from you is, first of all, a sign that what you are selling has motivated them to stick around (this was the key).

So, you’ll need to:

Set up automated emails: This allows you to build automated flows that include dynamic content, according to your customer’s purchase history.

A good approach would be to offer in your email a product or service the client has visited in the past but never purchased, as an incentive to sign up for your referral marketing program.

Retarget: Apart from your existing customers, you can use retargeting as a method to capture the email addresses of people who visited your store but left without making a purchase (new customers ahead).

Paid Ads

If you treat your message and targeting with care, chances are that the right people will land on your landing page.

There are two options available for this: 

  1. Google Adwords: Try to keep your message as consistent as possible with the content of the landing page that you send visitors to. 

That way you increase your chances of greater conversion rates, as people get what they expected when they clicked the ad.

  1. Facebook Ads: We’ll get into details about how to nail them later, but some quick tips would be to:
  • Insert in Facebook the email addresses of your existing customers and create a lookalike audience. That way you ensure that your ad will be served to people who have the same interests (and buying habits) as your customers.
  • Create a mind-blowing creative (something that can catch the user’s eye while they scroll their feed endlessly). 
  • Keep your message as clear as possible and use some cool emojis (grab more eyeballs). 
  • A video ad is also cool, but since most people will probably watch it on “mute,” add some subtitles!

Other channels

Some other ways to promote your program are through:

  • Newsletter (as mentioned above)
  • Social Media
  • The key is not to be spammy
  • Get people to engage by brainstorming what kind of posts would be more engaging, also consider the data you already have.

Author’s Note: You can run a Facebook giveaway campaign, asking people to like and comment and then lead them to a landing page for the giveaway.

  • Content Marketing
  • If you are new to this: instead of trying to promote your referral through your content, approach other content creators who resemble your audience and ask them to promote your referral program or referral programs (yes, “ask” means you’ll have to pay them to do so).
  • If you already use content marketing: make use of widgets set to work when people engage with your content, along with a special message.
  • Advertising offline 
  • You can use flyers, banners, QR codes, you name it, so even people who are offline can learn about your campaign. 
  • In-site notifications
  • It's a shame not having a menu item or a dedicated section on your website. This can spark the curiosity of the visitor, increasing your chances of turning them into ambassadors.
  • On top of the above, you can also put a top bar on the site containing information about your program and change the copy every two weeks to A/B test what works better.

Read more about promoting your referral program here.

Now that people know about your campaign, how do you get more referrals?

That’s what we will discuss next!

Chapter #17: How to Increase Referrals

There’s no doubt that referrals can help you grow your brand.  Having one or a few of them trickle in doesn’t get the job done.

So, how do you get more of them? 

To begin with, you need to:

  • Ensure customers have a fantastic buying experience

People need to have this kind of experience whenever they interact with your business. 

And that’s even if you have a great product, as they complement each other.

Great experiences spark conversations with their network and that, in turn, brings referrals. 

  • Personalize engagements

We know you’re probably thinking about how this can increase the number of referrals you have. 

But remember, you’re dealing with people and if there’s one thing people like, it’s being treated with respect and value. 

What are we saying?

Have a great customer support system in place!

Listen to them when they’ve got suggestions and make them feel very comfortable. 

This sort of one-on-one relationship will get them to share your business with their friends. 

  • Ask for a referral

Sometimes, all you need to do is ask your customers for referrals.  While they can do that without being asked, they might forget.

The best time to ask them is just after they’ve made a purchase, especially if you’ve got an automated process. 

And when you ask them, ensure the payout or reward is attractive too. 

Chapter #18: B2B Referral Programs

Referral programs are mainly a business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing tool. 

You know, brands get customers to bring in new customers. 

However, you can also create a business-to-business (B2B) focused referral program. It follows the same principle except that your customers are other businesses.

If you give users a great product or customer experience, they’ll be more than happy to share it with other people in their network. 

Simply put, a B2B referral program is a referral marketing system designed to get other businesses who’ve used your product or service to refer you

Chapter #19: eCommerce Referral Programs

This type of referral program is based on elements that relate to ecommerce businesses.

How does it work?

You create a referral link or code and give it to your customers after they’ve:

  • Made a purchase
  • Signed up for your newsletter
  • Opened an account

They then share this link with their network for a reward. 

eCommerce referral programs can help more people know about your business and buy from you.

Chapter #20: SaaS Referral Programs

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies can also create referral programs for their brands. 

People who use your service will get rewarded every time they bring someone on board.

They’ll be given a link to share and when people sign up using that unique link, they get rewarded.

In most cases, SaaS startups or brands create a two-sided referral program where both the referrer and referred customers get rewarded.

We saw Dropbox do that when they started. 

SaaS referral programs can help raise awareness for your brand, increase customer loyalty, and more. 

Let’s continue!

Chapter #21: Referral Marketing Strategy

Here’s another concept you need to know and that’s because having a referral marketing strategy ensures that you have an effective referral program

So, what is a referral marketing strategy?

It’s a detailed marketing plan about your referral program that has full details about what you want to do regarding:

  • Reward selection
  • Marketing channels to be used for promotion
  • Customer retention strategy
  • The type of referral software you want
  • How the campaign should look 

You can think of it as a detailed guide describing how you want the program to run. 

Chapter #22: Referral Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Great referral programs like the ones we shared above have one thing in common—they pay attention to details. 

And you should too if you want your program to be successful. 

That said, here are some mistakes you want to avoid

Boring incentives: You need to lure clients with rewards that are enticing enough to make them take the time to sign in to their social media accounts and refer to their network.

Making it complicated: The longer your explanation, the less likely your clients will learn and participate in your campaign. Developing a complicated process can also make it look like you’ve got something to hide.

Setting the program on autopilot: Failure to review a campaign is one of the biggest mistakes we see. 

It may mean that you chuck money out of the window and continue to fund a referral program that does not do much to bring you customers.

If you want to avoid that, make sure to review your campaign’s performance in order to improve it. 

Giving up too soon: Stick with it! No matter what kind of referral marketing strategy you’re implementing. 

Whether you’re trying email marketing or starting a simple campaign to increase click-through rates, marketing programs need time. 

Be consistent, tweak your program, but most importantly, don’t give up.

Let’s move on, we’re almost there!

Chapter #23: Referral Marketing Software

Finally, let’s talk about referral marketing software.

Referral marketing software is a digital tool that helps you create and launch a referral program with ease. 

It simplifies things for both you and your referrers.

Aside from building referral programs, the software will help you keep track of how it’s going and measure the success of your marketing campaign.

The software you choose needs to be easy to use and user-friendly so customers don’t have a hard time navigating your program.  

It’s time, let’s tie this up!

Before You Go

And there it is—everything you need to know about referral marketing!

We know it was a long read so if you felt overwhelmed at any point, you can take a break and come back to this when you’re less ’whelmed.

If this has made you think it’s time to create a referral program for your business, feel free to book a demo with us so we can help you get started.

Sounds good, right?

Thanks for stopping by and good luck with your referral campaign!

Written by:

Nikitas Filosofof

Nik has launched products in many industries for himself and clients. He's responsible for growth at Viral Loops, and he has worked in marketing since he was 17. Passionate about applying psychology to marketing. Favorite number: 42. Let's connect on LinkedIn