Customer referral programs | Top 7 best practices you won’t find elsewhere

Word-of-mouth marketing is not the same as it was five years ago. Many marketing professionals, especially in eCommerce, worry they’re just planning to start a reward program for their business; their competitors have already taken the best referral program ideas. 

If that sounds familiar, we’ve got good news for you! After reading this article, even your first referral campaign will be an all-star success! 

Here’s Talkable’s list of Top 7 ideas for referral programs that work better than your competitors.

1. Sweepstakes 

Sweepstakes campaigns are usually limited in time and give your brand advocates a chance to receive a regular customer bonus for sharing their referral link with friends and family and to enter a contest with a grand prize.  

These campaigns are great for engaging customers and adding excitement to your marketing activities planned for occasions like Christmas or Black Friday. 

Here’s an example of a sweepstakes campaign designed for National Lipstick Day:

What is this campaign’s result? A 643% increase in shares! 

2. Dedicated email campaign 

This is one of the best incentive ideas for all businesses launching new products and desperate for more leads and sales. 

The referral program idea here is simple: send a dedicated email promoting your referral offer and focusing on an attractive reward for advocates. Who would turn down such a bonus, right? 

3. Sample giveaways

Sample giveaways are the perfect referral program idea for businesses selling extraordinary products that cause addiction. As the old saying goes, give a man a sample, and he’ll keep coming for more. 

One of the leading Japanese skincare brands used the sample giveaway to reward its most loyal customers and encourage them to share their favorite secret formula skin powder with friends who had never purchased it before. 

Since advocates’ friends didn’t have to purchase or complete any other action in return, this referral campaign showed a 15% share rate among those who received the offer, with an average of 2.6 shares per advocate and an outstanding friend conversion rate of 56%.

4. Exit intent 

We all have had those moments while shopping. You like something at the store, but then you remember your promise to keep better track of your budget and a crazy idea to sell everything you own and start living a minimalist life with only 30 things, like that trendy YouTube blogger. 

Guess what, sometimes your customers have moments like that too. Or maybe they’re too busy to shop right now. Whatever it is, you can help them make that purchase they’re unsure about with the exit intent campaigns. Just remind them of the sweet deal they have just when they’re about to leave the store. 

According to our data, exit-intent campaigns can, on average, generate over 50% of your total referral revenue. If that doesn’t convince you to try this referral strategy, we don’t know what will. 

5. Product sharing 

In the world of referral marketing, you can’t surprise anyone by sharing your favorite brands and stores with friends anymore. What’s on the agenda today is product sharing. Instead of sending friends a link to an online store (they probably know already), your customers can now share that specific pair of running shoes that would help their best friend to nail the marathon they’re preparing for. 

For Talkable clients, product sharing campaigns, on average, show a 3 times higher share rate and an overall 6% increase in referral sales. 

6. Leaderboard campaign

A leaderboard campaign is a referral contest that typically lasts one or two weeks and helps businesses celebrate their most active and loyal brand advocates. Game ideas are not new to marketing. They’re popular for a reason: being competitive is at the core of human nature, as is the excitement we feel when we see a real chance of winning an awesome prize.  

If your referral software vendor doesn’t support leaderboard campaign features, maybe it’s time to switch to a more advanced option. Why? Well, maybe because of the 240% increase in referrals, you’ll see:

7. Tiered rewards 

Suppose you’ve already tried running refer-a-friend campaigns and haven’t succeeded. In that case, we want to share a strategy that will help you effectively promote referral programs and increase the advocacy rate and the number of shares per advocate. 

Three words: tiered reward campaigns. These referral programs allow your customers to earn bigger rewards for referring more new customers, keeping them interested and motivated to keep sharing about your business. 

Here’s an example of how your next awesome referral offer could look like if you decide to introduce tiered rewards: 

Conclusion

Whatever direction you choose to go with for your next referral program ideas, we encourage you to follow these 5 simple steps for every successful referral program: 

1. Plan 
2. Experiment 
3. Measure 
4. Analyze 
5. Repeat  

That way, you’ll always achieve the best results that will make your competitors jealous. 

Need help executing one of the ideas from our list? 

Jump on a call with one of our referral marketing experts and learn how you can start your new referral program today.