3 CRUCIAL TIPS TO WIN REFER-A-FRIEND IN 2016An Industry Perspective Report brought to you by Extole

This report is based on recommendations made by the industry experts who participated in Extole’s webinar, Win Refer-A-Friend in 2016.

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CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION ON REFERRAL MARKETING

MEET OUR EXPERTS

Referral marketing is the most important acquisition channel of the next decade, letting marketers drive measurable and reliable customer acquisition at scale by leveraging a unique resource; their current customers. In Spring of 2016, Extole’s referral experts started a conversation on how brands can supercharge their referral strategies and inspire their advocates. This report takes a look at what they discovered, and keeps the conversation going around the high potential channel of referrals.

Jen GrayDirector of Marketing Extole

Chris DuskinVP of MarketingExtole

Continuing the conversation on referral marketing ............................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Meet our experts

Who are my advocates? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3 Facts on referred customers What does a marketer need to win referrals?

Tip #1: Make your referral program readily available ...........................................................................................................................................................................6

Tip #2: Refer and convert, everywhere .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 7

Tip #3: Keep it personal and stay in touch .....................................................................................................................................................................................................9

About Extole ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 11

WBR Digital ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11

contents

Do you want even more case studies and winning referral strategies? CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FULL WEBINAR

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SO WHO ARE MY ADVOCATES?Referral marketing, or refer-a-friend programs, reward advocates for referring their friends, who then get rewarded for purchasing. So what’s an advocate?It’s someone who isn’t a paid affiliate, partner, or even a spokesperson. An advocate is someone who recommends and supports your brand, products, or services, not because you’re paying them to do so but because they think what you do makes sense for the person they’re referring.

Anyone can be an advocate. While your customers are your best pool of potential advocates, anyone who visits your site, walks into your store, or even sees your branding can become an advocate when given the chance to do so.

Incidentally, the best referral programs are the ones that drive the most revenue and reward both the friend and the advocate when the friend purchases or converts. This double-sided reward will help convince an advocate who likes you to follow through with the referral and build customer loyalty while improving retention and boosting new acquisition. A win-win for your customers is a win-win for you.

The Referral Funnel

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some facts on referred customers“After running hundreds of referral programs at Extole for all sorts of different customers, we’ve uncovered some metrics around the benefits of referred customers. They are some of the best customers to bring into your user journey and make part of the family. They spend more and they stick around way longer. They’re just overall more profitable, supporting characteristics such as 20% higher average order values and 25% higher lifetime values. Simply put, customers that come to brands through referrals are of much higher quality. And then to top it off, referred customers are more likely to become advocates, increasing the scale and effectiveness of your referral program overall. Once these programs begin to scale, they can be optimized along the way so that marketers can get the most value from each and every advocate share and conversion.”

Jen Gray Director of Marketing Extole

Referred Customers are Better Customers

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what does a marketer need to do to win referrals?

“The best referral programs are really woven into the customer journey. At Extole, we built a referral API to power our own web, mobile, and app experiences that enable our customers to drive referrals, but they also allow for interaction with the customer across their entire journey.

A strong platform has a few characteristics - it needs to know who is sharing, what is being shared, and how/where they are sharing. Referral is a channel that needs to be managed and optimized so that you can improve its quality on an ongoing basis. You can drive and extend participation, as well as instantly provide rewards.”

Chris Duskin VP of Marketing Extole

Do you have a referral marketing program in place?

Live audience response numbers from Extole’s webinar, Win Refer-A-Friend in 2016.

50%NO

50%YES

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TIP #1: MAKE YOUR REFERRAL PROGRAM READILY AVAILABLEThis may seem obvious, but a key to referrals is making your program easy to find, and making sure it’s clear and consistent to anyone who approaches it.Your marketing email list is a fantastic place to start promoting your program and it easily expands to the reach of your email marketing channel. It can also be a reactivation tool to bring past customers right back into the pool - reengaging with them and offering them an incentive to share, earn a reward, and purchase again.

Making your audience aware of the offer and reward you’re giving them can be a very tricky process with all of the marketing speak that we’ve come to know and use habitually. A few words in your website header can really make all the difference in the number of clicks you will drive.

Sharing for everyone who comes across the program is not only necessary, but also a great way to track even more advocates. Whether or not you’re a customer - referral programs that sit behind a login severely limit your revenue potential. Your program should have no logins, no fine print, just an easy way to share the brands or products your consumers, visitors, and those passing through your site love.

Marketers also have the opportunity to target specific products and content with their referral programs. Sharing unique and specific content is really powerful. It can entice more friends to convert when they’re referred to an item or product rather than to an entire brand.

Open Sharing, for everyone key takeaways“Let everyone share! Your referral program should be always on and available everywhere at any time so that whenever someone wants to share or convert, they can.”

Jen Gray Director of Marketing Extole

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TIP #2: REFER AND CONVERT, EVERYWHEREOne of the best ways to streamline referral funnels is by enabling your referral program across every single channel.

Mobile Sharing

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When we look at the top referral campaigns, we always see multiple devices in play for a program, as advocates share on their computers or phones, and their referral messaging crosses the device divide when it moves from one half to the other.

Remember, customer journeys aren’t just about your online experiences. Every customer journey includes social, word of mouth, telephone, in-store, and many other touch points. With offline referral messaging, some companies saw their overall referrals grow and now half of their referrals are actually happening through offline word of mouth.

Is your referral program optimized for mobile web?

Live audience response numbers from Extole’s webinar, Win Refer-A-Friend in 2016.

24%YES

76%NO

The Offline Effect key takeaways“Referrals need to be cross-device. Make sure you can go from the desktop and convert on a mobile device or a tablet. You need to be able to easily update your program across all different channels and then the referral opportunity needs to be available offline as well.”

Jen Gray Director of Marketing Extole

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TIP #3: KEEP IT PERSONAL AND STAY IN TOUCHThe reason email is one of the best performing channels is they come directly from the advocate to the friend. Personal email addresses have resulted in much higher open rates, higher click-through rates, and higher conversions. The ability to customize a message makes it even more personal. Friends love interacting with their friends much more than they love interacting with marketing messaging, so let them customize it.When a referral link is clicked, the referred friend is taken to a “friend landing page”. The names and pictures of the advocate provide a personal welcome to the friend, allowing coupons and referral codes to be presented for copy and/or auto apply.

Personalize the friend Landing

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Next you want to nurture your advocates. Airbnb does a really good job of clearly showing users their referral rewards earned by crediting to their account. Many programs miss an opportunity here, not only to draw more attention and sharing but also as a reactivation opportunity. People are more likely to buy when they see their available credit sitting right in their account. By auto applying it to the account, you’re getting those friends to shop now while it’s top of mind as opposed to leaving the site and maybe coming back later to shop.

On the reward side, showing referred friends that the referral reward is waiting for them ahead of time, drives conversions much faster.

key takeaways“The more communication with your advocates and friends the better. Welcome referred friends into the program. It’s a great way to personalize that friend landing experience. Let the share message come directly from the advocate to the friend and let them share in their own words. Make sure they can customize those messages as much as possible.”

- Jen Gray, Director of Marketing, Extole

Visible Referral Account Balance

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ABOUT EXTOLE

ABOUT WBR DIGITAL

At Extole we believe referral marketing is the most important acquisition channel of the next decade. We exist to help marketers drive measurable, reliable customer acquisition at scale. Our industry-leading referral platform helps brands take advantage of a unique resource they already have in front of them: their current customers. More than 500 retail, financial services, consumer subscription, and B2B companies use Extole to acquire new customers using our platform.

share.extole.com/jen share.extole.com/chris

WBR Digital’s team of content specialists, marketers, and advisors believe in the power of demand generation with a creative twist. With senior executives from medium-sized businesses and Fortune 1,000 companies attending more than 100 WBR events each year, we are uniquely positioned to energize your organization’s marketing campaigns with a full array of marketing and bespoke content services.

This report was prepared by Andrew Greissman, Digital Report Author and Researcher.

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