A referral program is nothing more than a strategy to retain a customer: customers will in fact recommend your company to other acquaintances so that they also purchase the products and services you offer. This is particularly useful within the world of marketing as customers place a greater trust in recommendations from their acquaintances or even influencers than information they could obtain on their own.
However, always keep in mind that this does not mean having to deal with other marketing strategies that respond to different characteristics. Having recommendations certainly has a high conversion rate, so we recommend encouraging this process.
Finding ways to incentivize both customers and referrals is the issue that worries you most when you decide to pursue this goal. As mentioned previously, recommendations are a natural part of the act of socializing, but these actions must also be motivated: the customer should continue to buy and the new one should start doing so. What are the three essential conditions to achieve this?
First of all, you need to offer interesting incentives for both new and existing customers. Without these the program will not go as planned. Incentives include free shipping, discounts, exclusive products, etc. Everything that can be advantageous for the customer without ever sacrificing the company in financial terms since the latter must never have losses, especially when the main objective is to increase its scope.
The second question is to give benefits always related to the services and products offered by the company, by generating loyalty and correlating a specific feature to the brand.
The third and final question that we must always consider concerns the advantages that both customers will be able to obtain, especially after the new customer has made his first purchase.
This type of condition does nothing but encourage the contact person to make recommendations in a completely natural way, by creating real “allies” of the company.
And the advantages for the company?
The benefits of a referral program for both new and loyal customers are extremely clear. However, what about companies? There are several advantages and benefits that are obtained when implementing new strategies for this type of marketing:
a) You get more conversions from potential customers.
b) The company’s image receives even more credibility if recommended by trusted people.
c) Everyone involved in this strategy receives benefits.
d) The relationship between costs and benefits is very profitable for the company since the customers themselves develop their own strategies to increase leads.
All the benefits you get from this program are considerable; this is why we advise all companies to always have effective resources that create benefits for customers.
As a powerful communication tool, WhatsApp has a reach that should not be wasted. All your customers surely have a mobile device in their pocket or use the app on their PC. This makes messages instant and easily accessible to all potential customers.
What are the steps to follow?
There are tools like Callbell capable of using the WhatsApp API, by increasing its functions and providing greater functionality. Among these we can find message tracking, CRM, automations and personalized transmissions and metrics. All this allows for many solutions aimed at simplifying the referral program on a unified platform.
Create a custom referral link
This tool is used to distinguish when a referral accesses a specific website, thus assigning a reward automatically, providing information on possible new customers to attract. In order to all this there is extremely effective software without too much effort.
Promote the reach of the referral program
Platforms similar to Callbell allow you to save and manage the entire customer database in an elementary way, also facilitating the sending of broadcast messages. The basic idea is to write a pleasant, short message capable of encouraging participation in the relevant program, including extremely clear and transparent illustrations.
Automate the sending of messages
Setting up an automatic message is possible when the customer goes to perform an action, for example, making a purchase, registering, sending a message to the company, etc. Thanks to the help of the Callbell Chatbot, you will be able to send highly personalized messages; for example, calling each user by name.
Follow up with those interested in referral programs
Sending messages as reminders is essential because people forget. In fact, sometimes you need a little push to complete pending actions. This should be seen as an opportunity to write messages about calls to action, without necessarily using an advertising or boring tone.
Another possible option is to create a sense of urgency by offering an expiring offer. This type of offer can give exclusive advantages so as to obtain a new referral, or retain customers already present in our database. The use of message personalization can also be helpful.
Analyse message performance on WhatsApp
Callbell automatically generates all the statistics of a company’s messages: those sent, those received, those read, those to which we responded or not, how long it took for the response to take place, etc. It is up to you to analyse them so as to evaluate whether the strategy you are following is effective or not.
These are all variables that must be considered so that the long-awaited results can arrive. The important thing is to never completely change a strategy since you do not know which elements can improve or damage performance.
Furthermore, Callbell offers all kinds of features like broadcast, multi-number and multi-channel, which allows you to combine multiple channels into a single Callbell account, chatbot, capable of combining different actions and much more.
If you would like to try this tool, click here.
About the author: Hello! I am Alan and I am the marketing manager at Callbell, the first communication platform designed to help sales and support teams to collaborate and communicate with customers through direct messaging applications such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram and Instagram Direct
