This episode provides e-commerce operators with actionable strategies to significantly improve the performance of their referral programs. Jay Gibb from CloudSponge explains how to overcome common pitfalls like poor visibility and friction in the referral process by implementing double-sided rewards and streamlining contact sharing, ultimately boosting customer acquisition and retention.
Key takeaways
Actively promote your referral program across all customer touchpoints, including website headers/footers, receipts, and email campaigns, to ensure maximum visibility.
Implement double-sided rewards (benefiting both referrer and referred friend) to appeal to a wider range of customer motivations and increase participation.
Reduce friction in the referral process by enabling direct contact import from email clients instead of requiring manual email entry, especially crucial for mobile users.
Ensure your core product or service is strong, as a good offering is the fundamental prerequisite for effective word-of-mouth and referral marketing.
Avoid requiring logins or burying your referral program deep within site menus, as these create unnecessary barriers to entry and participation.
In a follow-up to our previous podcast on how to set up referral programmes, Trevor talked to Jay Gibb from CloudSponge about how to improve the performance of referral programmes.
What is an eCommerce referral scheme?
If your service is good, word-of-mouth marketing will already be happening for your store. A referral scheme encourages this behaviour by incentivising your customer to sell your brand to their friends. An existing customer will click on a link, send a referral code to their friends, and receive something, e.g. discount on a future purchase, a gift or a payment.
What are the reasons why referral schemes perform badly
Referral programmes fail to take off for a number of reasons.
Not publicising the programme enough.
If you do not tell your customers about your referral programme, they won't sign up! Common mistakes include: Requiring a login to participate Hiding deep in your menu structure Not including it in receipts and invoices Not including info in footer and header Not using double-sided rewards
Whilst some people want to get a reward for making a referral, others value being the hero that sent an offer to their friends. Doubled-sided referral programmes cater for both customer types.
Making people type in email addresses
If you make users type in email addresses, they will get bored quickly. Users only have so much patience to enter a comma-separated list of emails, especially on a mobile device.
Using a solution like Jay's company Cloudsponge, customers can import contacts directly from their email solution, e.g. Gmail. They can sign in directly to their email account and easily ad
What does this episode say about customer retention?
Actively promote your referral program across all customer touchpoints, including website headers/footers, receipts, and email campaigns, to ensure maximum visibility.
What does this episode say about paid acquisition?
Implement double-sided rewards (benefiting both referrer and referred friend) to appeal to a wider range of customer motivations and increase participation.
What does this episode say about conversion & cro?
Reduce friction in the referral process by enabling direct contact import from email clients instead of requiring manual email entry, especially crucial for mobile users.
What does this episode say about brand & content?
Ensure your core product or service is strong, as a good offering is the fundamental prerequisite for effective word-of-mouth and referral marketing.
What does this episode say about customer retention?
Avoid requiring logins or burying your referral program deep within site menus, as these create unnecessary barriers to entry and participation.
