How to Promote Your Referral Program: 12 High-Growth Tips

Let me guess:

You chose the best incentive for your program, put together the most engaging email, and even created a comprehensive FAQ page for your customers. However, simply launching a referral program is not enough to ensure its success. Effective promotion across multiple channels is crucial to driving awareness and participation.

Many companies make the mistake of waiting for customers to join their referral program.

But the best thing you can do to ensure your program gets the popularity it deserves is to tell your customers about it.

The truth is that all things in life require effort, whether that is being good at your job or building a product, and referral programs are no exception.

From social media marketing and brand ambassadors to landing pages, email automation, and in-app promotion, the possibilities for promoting your referral program are extensive. A multi-channel approach is recommended to maximize visibility and engagement across various customer touchpoints.

In this blog post, we will share 12 different ways to promote your referral program without being too pushy or cringy.

Referral Program Promotion Strategies from Industry Leaders

Leading companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, and Fitbit have achieved remarkable growth through effective referral program promotion strategies. For instance, Dropbox managed to achieve a staggering 3900% growth in just 15 months by seamlessly integrating their referral program into the user onboarding process and leveraging a viral loop through 'thank you' emails.

As a result of their strategic promotion efforts, Dropbox saw their user base skyrocket from just 100,000 registered users to an impressive 4 million registered users within that short timeframe. Their success demonstrates the immense potential of an effectively promoted referral program.

You must be wondering:

How did these guys pull it off?

The Dropbox referral program was quite simple: reward people with more free space for referring to their friends but also for accepting an invitation.

But the company did more than just pick a suitable referral program incentive.

In addition to offering an attractive incentive, Dropbox implemented several strategic promotion tactics that influenced the success of their referral program, with a key focus on effective promotion across multiple customer touchpoints.

One key tactic was making the referral program a seamless part of the user onboarding process. By introducing the program to new users during this high-engagement phase, Dropbox increased awareness and participation right from the start. This strategic timing aligned with insights from industry experts who recommend promoting referral programs when customers are most engaged with your product or service.

The marketing people at Dropbox knew that the best time to mention your referral program to your customers is when they are most engaged with your brand, product, or service.

So, in addition to filling out some details and tips on getting started, Dropbox integrated its referral program in the onboarding process as the last step.

Not only that, they created a viral loop by sending out personalized 'thank you' emails to both the referrer and referee after each successful referral. This email not only expressed gratitude but also subtly encouraged further sharing by highlighting the storage space rewards. This simple yet effective tactic contributed to the viral success of Dropbox's referral program, ultimately driving millions of new user acquisitions.

Dropbox's multi-pronged promotion approach, combining strategic timing, user-friendly integration, and incentivized viral loops, serves as a powerful case study for businesses looking to maximize the impact of their referral programs.

Another prime example is Airbnb, who faced challenges with low awareness of their referral program among customers. To combat this, they implemented strategic A/B testing of their email promotions to existing users. By experimenting with different messaging and calls-to-action, Airbnb was able to identify the most compelling approach for motivating customers to share the referral program with their networks.

Fitbit provides another insightful example of leveraging strategic partnerships to promote their referral program and drive brand awareness. Despite facing stiff competition from industry giants like Apple and Xiaomi, Fitbit partnered with influencers and charitable organizations through campaigns like 'FitForFood' with Feeding America. By aligning with influential voices and meaningful causes, Fitbit was able to increase visibility for their brand and referral initiatives among a wider audience.

Joel McHale was the face of the campaign who shared the promotional video with his 3+ million Twitter followers.

By partnering with Joel and Feeding America, Fitbit managed to get users to engage in a meaningful activity that aligns with their beliefs. This is called purpose-driven marketing and it's a fantastic way to increase brand awareness and customer loyalty.

Comprehensive Strategies for Effective Referral Program Promotion

In this chapter, we're going to take a look at 12 super effective ways to promote your referral program and achieve the same success as Dropbox and Fitbit once did.

Let's dive in!

Tip #1: Take advantage of email marketing

Email marketing remains one of the most powerful channels for promoting your referral program to existing customers. With an average open rate of 21.33% across industries, strategically crafted emails have the potential to drive significant awareness and participation in your program. This means that 20% of your email subscribers will open the email where you'll be promoting your referral program.

To maximize the impact of your email promotions, it's crucial to craft compelling subject lines, personalized messaging, and clear calls-to-action that highlight the referral program's benefits. Additionally, segmenting your email lists based on customer behavior and preferences can further improve engagement and conversion rates.

It seems too enticing not to include in your promotion strategy.

To illustrate an effective referral email, consider the example from Treehouse, an online education platform. Their referral email features a clear subject line, concise messaging highlighting the reward, personalized elements, visually appealing design, and a prominent call-to-action button. By following best practices like these, businesses can significantly improve the impact of their referral program email promotions.

To craft an effective referral email, follow these best practices:

• Craft a clear and attention-grabbing subject line
• Highlight the referral reward prominently in the email copy
• Personalize the messaging for an enhanced customer experience
• Incorporate visually appealing design elements
• Include a strong, actionable call-to-action (CTA)
• Optimize for mobile devices to ensure a seamless experience across platforms

Take a look at the email from Treehouse as an example:

Tip #2: Leverage Email Automation for Efficient Referral Program Promotion

While manual email campaigns can be effective, automating your referral program promotions can significantly streamline the process and ensure consistent, timely delivery. Email automation allows you to set up triggered campaigns based on specific customer actions or milestones, such as making a purchase, reaching a certain level of engagement, or joining the referral program.

Not only does automation save time and effort, but it also ensures that your referral program promotions are delivered at the most opportune moments when customers are primed for engagement. For example, you can set up automated campaigns to trigger after a purchase, subscription renewal, or other key milestones, capitalizing on the customer's positive sentiment towards your brand.

Email automation is particularly valuable for businesses with limited marketing resources, as it allows for efficient and cost-effective promotion of referral programs without the need for extensive manual effort or advertising spend. By leveraging automation tools and integrations, even small businesses can implement sophisticated referral program promotion strategies that were previously only accessible to larger enterprises.

Moreover, email automation platforms often provide robust segmentation capabilities, allowing you to target your referral program promotions to specific customer segments based on their behavior, preferences, and likelihood to participate. This targeted approach not only improves the relevance and impact of your promotions but also helps to avoid bombarding disinterested customers, resulting in a more positive overall experience.

In short, you're delivering relevant content to subscribers based on their geographic location, interests, purchase history, and much more.

For example, you could segment your email list based on purchase frequency or engagement levels, targeting your most active and loyal customers with referral program promotions. These highly engaged customers are more likely to be interested in sharing your brand with their networks and benefiting from the referral rewards. Conversely, new or infrequent customers may be better served with introductory content or product education initially, before being exposed to referral program promotions.

To streamline the process of email segmentation and automation for referral program promotions, consider leveraging a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system or marketing automation platform. Many of these solutions offer native integration with email service providers and referral program software, allowing you to seamlessly import customer data, define segmentation criteria, and automate targeted campaigns based on those segments. This integrated approach can significantly simplify the management and execution of your referral program promotion strategy.

Tip #3: Invest in paid advertising 

Why?

Because it has a good ROI!

What's more: 

• Paid advertising is one of the best ways to increase your reach, especially internationally.
• Paid ads can suit any budget as most social media platforms offer a pay-per-click model that ensures you never exceed your spending limit.
• You can target your audience more precisely. For instance, you can select an audience based on device, location, age, interests, job, etc.

When deciding on which social media channels to advertise on, here are a few questions to ask:

• What platforms does my target audience frequent?
• What are my advertising goals?
• What is my budget?

Let's say you have a visual product. In this case, Instagram may be the ideal platform to promote your referral program. If you have a software product and are looking to establish yourself as a competitive company in the tech market, consider promoting your program on Twitter or Linkedin.

Tip #4: Promote it when customers are most engaged

Why?

Because that's when they're interacting with your brand, hence, there's a higher chance they'll sign up for your program.

For example, why not promote your program in your post-purchase messaging? Or why not make it part of the onboarding process, just like Dropbox did with their famous referral program?

Think about it:

Your customer has just bought your product or is in the middle of signing up for an account.

They must be in a great mood and super excited to try a new product/service.

Make the most out of their post-purchase or signing up euphoria by promoting your referral program. One way of doing so is by sending a thank you/confirmation email and including a link to your referral program. Or, you can integrate it in the onboarding process as the last step.

It's simple and it won't cost you anything!

In a way, you're nurturing the relationship you have with your customer. This is a great opportunity for the relationship to grow from a one-time purchase to a long-term commitment.

Tip #5: Activate your brand ambassadors 

Why?

Because it's the surest way to increase brand awareness!

Brand ambassadors can help promote your referral program through word of mouth or across social media.

There's no set list of specific tasks a brand ambassador must complete since this depends on your business and unique needs.

However, there are two things brand ambassadors are hired to do:

• Promote your brand to their followers . What's more, this promotion should be as organic as possible.

• Connect with people . And they do so through storytelling. Storytelling has been a marketing strategy that people appreciate because they feel connected to what the brand ambassador is saying.

With that being said, if you're thinking about working with brand ambassadors, a great strategy would be to ask them to promote your referral program in their social media posts or in any other marketing material they produce for you.

You must be wondering, do brand ambassadors get paid?

Well, this would depend on several factors, including:

• Your campaign's goal
• Terms you agree with the ambassador
• The size of their audience 
• Your budget

Here's another great thing:

Brand ambassadors don't have to be paid in cash. Sometimes they receive products from the brand they’re working with or gain premium access to their services. They can also earn commissions from the sales made by their promotion.

Tip #6: Make it visible on your site

Why?

To increase conversions!

You have to make your program easily discoverable to your customers if you want to increase conversions.

Because if customers have to jump from one page to another just to try to locate your program, they'll only get frustrated and opt-out of the process.

One great way to increase visibility is to add a link to your referral program in your website's navigation bar. By doing so, you'll ensure that it's always visible, no matter which pages your customers are visiting.

Another cool idea is to add an "Invite Your Friends" banner or image on the home page of your site.

After all, the home page is the most visited page on your site, and it's the first thing many customers see when they land on your site.  

Alternatively, you can add a link to your referral program on the footer of the home page.

That's what Todoist did with their referral program! 

Tip #7: Promote the program on the most visited pages on your site

Why?

To make sure it gets seen.

I'm not sure you've heard this before, but here it goes:

Your home page is not the only page on your site that gets visitors.

There's also the about us page, the blog page, the services page, the contact us page, and the list goes on.

This rambling brings me to my next tip:

Why not include a link to your referral program on other pages of your website that get plenty of traffic? 

By doing so, you're doubling, if not tripling, the chances customers will see your program and interact with it.

It doesn't have to take plenty of space on your page or even be above the fold. A small banner will do the trick and grab the visitor's attention.

Tip #8: Include it in user accounts

Why?

Because your customers may be spending a great deal of their time here.

For instance, you may be a tech platform or a SaaS company that has users logging into their accounts and accessing a dashboard.

These dashboards allow them to edit their profiles, manage their payments, upgrade to higher plans, add team members, and so much more without ever leaving the site.

Hence, this makes dashboards the ideal place to promote your referral program.

Just think about it: they'll see your referral program every time they log into their account. They may ignore it for a day or two, but if they like your brand, they'll definitely join.

If possible, consider letting customers track the status of their referrals right from their dashboard. Keeping track of how referrals perform can motivate people to follow up with their friends and send more referrals to get even more rewards.

Tip #9: Add social share buttons

Why?

To make it easier for customers to share your program.

Instead of copying the link from one page only to paste in another, customers can simply choose their preferred platform and share the link with a click of a button.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, you name it.

Add these social media sharing buttons in your email or on your referral program landing page if you want customers to enjoy a great customer experience.

Include the option to share the link on every platform that makes sense for your target audience. Believe me; it's a great way to reach a wider audience and encourage new people to become customers.

Tip #10: Craft a referral program landing page

Why?

Because it can nicely organize all the important details about your program in one central place.

In fact, every referral program should have its own referral program landing page.

This is the place where your customers will learn about the conditions of your referral program, the rewards you offer, tips for sharing, and other details.

The primary goal of any referral page is to help your business acquire more customers from the current ones.

I know what you must be thinking:

How the heck do I design a good referral program page?

Here are some tips:

• Catchy headline or title : keep it short and sweet, and don't forget to use some power words.

• Benefits : this is your opportunity to convince the customer to sign up for your program. Why should the customer enter your referral program? What do they stand to gain?

• Eye-catching photo : people are highly visual creatures. Use images to help engage your visitors and make your referral page more visually appealing. For example, you can have a fun illustration of your service or an image of people having fun in front of your product. The end goal of the photo would be to tell a story and evoke an emotion.

• A clear CTA : without a CTA, your customers won't know what they should do on your page. If they don't find the needed information in a few seconds, they're likely to quit and go to a different website.

• Add a FAQ section : FAQ sections are an easy way for customers to find answers without having to contact you directly.

MailChimp, for example, has an amazing referral landing page. It contains all the important elements we mentioned above, including a catchy headline, engaging content, impressive visuals, and step-by-step instructions on how the program works.

Tip #11: Promote your program in your email signature

Why?

Because it's fast and easy!

We're so far into the post that there's no need to discuss the convenience of email.

We've already established that!

So let me get to the point:

There's another great way to take advantage of your email, and that's by including the referral program into your email signature.

Adding a link to your referral program into your email signature will make it very visible and easy for customers to get all the details about the program.

On the plus side, it's incredibly easy to do – simply set it and forget it.

Even better, it's subtle and not as obvious as other tactics. So customers won’t think you’re asking them too much.

Tip #12: Mention the program in social media bios

Why?

To draw more attention!

You're trying to promote your referral program, so your goal should always be to include it in as many places as possible.

Social media bios are an easy and visible way for your customers to get the link to the program. For example, let's say you include your referral program in your Twitter bio.

So now, every time a visitor lands on your profile, they'll see the link to the program. Some visitors may even click on it!

It might not be the most effective strategy, but it won't cost you anything, and on the plus side, it requires zero effort.

Final Word

The bottom line is this:

Building a customer referral program without promoting it is like buying a lemon tree and hoping it will bear fruit without watering it regularly.

The same thing applies to your referral program. You have to nurture it so that it yields results.

To sum up, some of the best tactics for promoting your referral program are:

• Email marketing to share the good word quickly.
• Email automation because it's twice as fast.
• Paid advertising because it has good ROI.
• Post-purchase messaging because that's when customers are the most engaged.
• Brand ambassadors to increase brand awareness.
• Make it easily discoverable on your website to increase visibility.
• Include it on your most visited pages to make sure it gets seen.
• Include it in user accounts to remind customers of your program.
• Social share buttons to make it easier for customers to share.
• Referral program landing page to explain the benefit of joining the program.
• Add it in your email signature because it's subtle and effective.
• Mention the program in your social media bios because it requires zero effort.

And there you have it!

Our top 12 tips for how to promote your referral program without sounding or looking too aggressive. Reminder: these are not the only tactics that you can use. There must be hundreds more that we didn't get to mention in our post. But we believe these are the easiest tactics to implement and have proven to be the most effective.

The ball is now in your court!