The data generated by brands using our referral platform makes it clear: 20% of customers drive 80% of the participation in your referral program.
Keeping these super-advocates engaged and sharing is a critical part of shifting your referral program into high gear…and keeping it there. It’s also why the Extole platform makes it easy to identify the people who influence conversions in your program, from those with the biggest reach to those who drive the most revenue all the way through to the recent customers you’ve acquired through referrals.
Creating a super-advocate campaign involves five steps:
- Identify top advocates and determine who qualifies for your campaign
- Create your unique campaign
- Generate personal share links
- Promote your campaign
- Create a cadence for ongoing promotion
Let’s break them down.
Step 1: Identify and qualify your advocates
Use the customer segments in your dashboard to identify the advocates you want to include in your top advocate campaign. You can stick with one segment, like the advocates with the biggest reach, most shares, or who drive the most conversions; or choose to combine segments. Download the appropriate list(s). If you want to narrow your campaign to focus on the very top set of your top performers, you can also filter out your top 5 – 10%.
Step 2: Create your unique campaign
Your first consideration: do you want your campaign to run for a limited time or to persist? After you decide, you must consider what reward you’ll offer. This depends on the audience you want to reach. Will they be motivated by a higher-value version of a reward you already offer other advocates (for example, $40 worth of product rewards instead of $20)? Or would they prefer a gift card for something like Amazon or iTunes? Your messaging and assets, will depend on your decision.
Step 3: Generate personal share links
This step isn’t required, but creating personalized share links for your top advocates is worthwhile. Not only do personalized links make your top advocates feel special, but they’re also memorable. They make it easier for advocates to share with friends anywhere, at any time. Associate these links with your top advocates’ records in your CRM so you can easily drive personalized sharing in your promotions to the group. Here’s an example of one execution that uses personal share links, from beauty-industry innovators Madison Reed:
Step 4: Promote your campaign
Create a unique promo link for each type of promotion you plan to send to your top advocates (email, printed mailers, etc.). This lets you measure the performance of each individual campaign promotion and optimize messaging, channels, and more. Simply drop the unique promo link into the correct outbound promotion, send your promotion to your selected advocates, and monitor performance.
Step 5: Create a cadence for ongoing promotion
Choose timing that works for your audience. On that schedule, capture your updated top advocate list(s), update your CRM, and send targeted promotions. Keep in mind high-traffic periods that you can roll into your promotion plan. For example, it’s not too late to grab your top advocates from the holiday shopping season and send special promotions to that group.
For more tips, tricks and best practices for building a great referral program, download a copy of our 2015 Referral Marketing Best Practices guide.