Word of mouth has always been a high-value marketing channel for brands; however, there has not been an easy way to automate and measure this traditionally offline process.
With the increasing volume of consumer online sharing and conversations, brands have a new opportunity to identify their highly engaged, loyal customer advocates and turn them into “social marketers” who will refer the brand’s product or service to their friends.
Over the last few years, brands took advantage of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to build their social presence. Social Referral program is just one of them.
How to create your social referral program?
Your social referral program structure begins with the offer. Successful social referral programs provide customer advocates or “referrers” with a compelling reason to share with their friends. The “friends” of each advocate are usually offered a special “friends-only” deal.
Driving awareness of your social referral program is critical to its success. The more customers see your social referral program, the more likely they will become advocates and share the program with their friends. By leveraging the corporate website and email lists, as well as social networks like Facebook, Twitter to promote referral programs, you can generate significantly higher participation from advocates.
Once a customer advocate has clicked on a promotion for the referral program, the first step is the opt-in for the referral program. Rather than “sign-up,” a message like “Where do we send your reward?” works more effectively to pull potential advocates through the opt-in process. Once registered, advocates arrive on the “Share Page,” where they choose how (email, social networks, personal URL), where, and with whom to share.
Depending on your type of business and offer, you should make different sharing channels available for your advocates to share with their friends. Email should always be included. B2C companies should also include Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for optimal results, and B2B companies should include LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and/or Facebook.
Afterwards, you need to convert the referred friends. This can be done by creating CTA for conversion on the friend’s landing page. A conversion can be an opt-in, signup, redemption, or purchase. Just make sure that it is short , to the point and most importantly personal.
With the increasing volume of consumer online sharing and conversations, brands have a new opportunity to identify their highly engaged, loyal customer advocates and turn them into “social marketers” who will refer the brand’s product or service to their friends.
Over the last few years, brands took advantage of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to build their social presence. Social Referral program is just one of them.
How to create your social referral program?
Your social referral program structure begins with the offer. Successful social referral programs provide customer advocates or “referrers” with a compelling reason to share with their friends. The “friends” of each advocate are usually offered a special “friends-only” deal.
Driving awareness of your social referral program is critical to its success. The more customers see your social referral program, the more likely they will become advocates and share the program with their friends. By leveraging the corporate website and email lists, as well as social networks like Facebook, Twitter to promote referral programs, you can generate significantly higher participation from advocates.
Once a customer advocate has clicked on a promotion for the referral program, the first step is the opt-in for the referral program. Rather than “sign-up,” a message like “Where do we send your reward?” works more effectively to pull potential advocates through the opt-in process. Once registered, advocates arrive on the “Share Page,” where they choose how (email, social networks, personal URL), where, and with whom to share.
Depending on your type of business and offer, you should make different sharing channels available for your advocates to share with their friends. Email should always be included. B2C companies should also include Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for optimal results, and B2B companies should include LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and/or Facebook.
Afterwards, you need to convert the referred friends. This can be done by creating CTA for conversion on the friend’s landing page. A conversion can be an opt-in, signup, redemption, or purchase. Just make sure that it is short , to the point and most importantly personal.
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