Referral marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies: using your current customers to spread the word about your brand to new customers.
We compiled a truly epic list of the best referral program ideas currently on the market, along with recommendations on what kinds of referral program software to use, incentives to offer, and current customers to target for your very own referral program.
But hang on—there's a catch.
It's not always easy for your customers to do. Between their hectic work schedules and a never-ending list of social and family obligations, your marketing strategy is the last thing on their minds.
To turn your loyal customers into your biggest brand advocates, you have to make the referral process as easy as possible for them, and you have to stay top-of-mind with killer referral incentives, like free products and major discounts.
Instead of reinventing the wheel to come up with your own referral marketing ideas, you may want to take inspiration from top brands who are absolutely killing it with referral programs.
By the end of our list, you will have enough referral program ideas to launch your very own program and open the floodgates of another customer acquisition channel for your business.
Before we begin, let's break down some basic referral marketing definitions so that we know that we're all on the same page.
A referral program or a “refer-a-friend” program is a marketing strategy used by many top ecommerce brands to incentivize existing customers to recommend the brand and its products to their family and friends.
A referral program is a deliberate, systematic way of getting people to make referrals to your business. Referral programs are often called word-of-mouth marketing, because they reward existing customers for sharing and incentivize new customers to try out your brand.
Customers are rewarded with referral incentives, such as free cash, major discounts, or a free month of subscription. While there is an upfront cost to the business, referral programs significantly increase long-term revenue by making loyal customers out of your existing customer base.
If you are wondering why you should have a referral program and how to run one, let’s take a look at how the top ecommerce brands are running their referral programs and the results they have achieved.
Before we begin, let's quickly go through the basics of referral programs.
One of the biggest stresses of any business is finding a solid customer acquisition channel, or basically, bringing in new customers. When you have a solid referral marketing program, however, you let your existing customers bring new buyers to your brand. This not only significantly reduces spending on bringing new customers to your shop, but also increases customer retention, which is a very good thing.
Why?
Because loyal customers have a higher conversion rate than new customers and spend more per transaction, making customer referral programs the most cost-effective and lucrative marketing strategy that your business can possibly employ.
People don't make as many referrals as they intend to for a variety of reasons. A referral program helps make their mind up with a tangible reward for referrals.
Modern referral programs, or refer-a-friend programs, use software to track referrals made by happy customers through either a referral code, a rewards card, or a referral link. Depending on the referral campaign, customers will usually receive some kind of referral bonus or benefit when they refer a friend. Referral marketing software automates the payout of these referral rewards.
This referral process creates a natural word-of-mouth marketing experience for your brand, which ultimately increases both your customer retention rate and your revenue.
To find out more, check out how ReferralCandy works.
The best way to bring in potential customers is to first focus on your existing satisfied customers. Rather than just offering cash rewards or free gifts in hopes that your customers will refer a friend to your shop, it takes a little bit of planning to set up a referral program that works.
Before creating a complex ambassador program or launching tons of marketing campaigns (of any kind), it's important to be clear about what your goals are for the program. This will help guide you as you brainstorm referral marketing ideas. Some questions to consider are:
You can certainly achieve each of these goals, but it might require a different referral campaign for each goal. So it's important to be clear about your goals before beginning.
Canopy makes the world's cleanest and easiest humidifier for optimal skin health and wellness.
It’s not unusual for brands to choose product incentives rather than cash or credit incentives, but they definitely belong to the minority. Canopy does a great job in closing the loop for existing customers and keeping them loyal. If I’m an advocate, it makes absolute sense for me to be incentivized by free filters since I already own the device. They’ve also made it enticing to click on the “Free Filter” button rather than to put “Refer-a-Friend Program” on their homepage.
Your referral sources are your happy customers, friends, and family. They are your biggest advocates and will be the lifeblood of your referral marketing program. Make a list of all of these groups and how you can easily contact them.
Now that you have a list of referral sources, carefully make an outreach plan. It's not quite as simple as sending a blast email with a generic referral incentive. Instead, research the best practices for reaching out to each type of referral.
Newer customers, for example, shouldn't receive emails about your reward program right after their first purchase. And close friends and family may not need an incentive at all! The types of referral programs that you use will largely depend on your list, so plan accordingly.
While cash incentives likely seem like they’ll get the biggest draw out of your existing customer base, that’s not necessarily the case. One study found that non-cash incentives were 24% more effective with referral marketing than cash incentives. It’s best to offer something of tremendous value to your customers that will keep them coming back to your shop in the future.
Braxley Bands’ referral program reward structure:
Beyond the conventional 20% for you, and 20% for me, Braxley Bands also introduced an additional perk of standing a chance to win a $100 gift card (that’s essentially 3 more bands for the advocate). That alone is an extra incentive at zero cost to the advocate, all he or she needs to do is to share via word of mouth.
Once you’ve settled on your referral lists and your incentives, it’s time to get people to spread the word both about your brand and your rewards! There are many different ways to do this, each of which brings in a different segment of potential customers.
You could add details about your referral program in your newsletters, have opt-ins on your website, capture customers through a pop-up widget right on your homepage, or even send out specific referral emails to your most loyal audience. Do a little research about the most effective way to grow your lists and then test it out for yourself.
Like most ecommerce brands, Chāmpo puts a link to their referral program in their site footer. It’s accessible and easy to spot.
In order to run a successful rewards program, you need to keep track of all of the referrals being made. You need to be able to keep track of who referred whom, the date they were referred, whether or not a conversion was made, and the best way to follow up with both the referrer and the referee.
One of the easiest ways to do this is with referral program software, like ReferralCandy. A system that not only facilitates the reward within your shop but also provides accurate data on the referrals is going to help you know exactly how successful (or unsuccessful) your program is. Some referral systems go one step further in making sure that your referrals are legit and not frauds. Here’s an example of what your referral report might look like on ReferralCandy!
Now that you have a clearer idea of referral programs, let's take a look at the referral programs of top brands and what we can learn from them.
Dropbox's referral program is probably one of the most well-known examples of referral marketing around. Dropbox grew by 3900% with this very famous referral program. Even today, almost ten years later, it is often used in case studies to demonstrate how referral programs may either assist or even act as the growth engine of a business.
Dropbox's referral program guiding principles are quite clear. Since the product provides cloud storage, it decided to give users more free space in addition to referral bonuses for both accepting invitations and referring friends. Dropbox users can get up to 16 GB for their referrals. So you basically get 500 MB for every friend who installs the Dropbox desktop app and the friend gets 500 MB too. They can sign up for any plan and you get your bonus storage the minute they download the app.
How Referrals Built The $10 Billion Dropbox Empire.
When discussing referral-based viral growth, almost every blog post mentions PayPal’s referral program. PayPal was one of the first companies to use a referral campaign to achieve viral growth at such a massive scale, from “A 10% daily growth rate” to “A $1.5 billion buyout”.
All users need to do is send an invitation to a friend who doesn’t have PayPal and have them sign up and link their bank account or card. When they spend or send at least $5, PayPal sends both the advocate and the referred, $10. Users can invite up to ten friends and earn up to $100, and just need to make sure they spend/send at least $5.
Uber's referral program was the basis of its success. It was offered ever since the business began, and its quick expansion was largely due to it. The program has changed, but it still offers rewards to its users. To earn referral rewards, users have to follow their conditions. The program is eligible only for a customer who received a program email. Users need to share a referral code in your email with their friend. To earn referral rewards, a referee must complete the first trip with the referral code.
We've written more about Uber's many referral programs here:
How Uber Covered More Than 50 Countries In 3 Years
Airtable is an online tool that combines elements from databases and spreadsheets. It's very adaptable and has a wonderful user interface. For each person users refer to Airtable, they'll receive $10 in credit. Only when the person invited registers and confirms their email will the users be given credit. Users can invite people to use Airtable, and access an Airtable-referral link, from the Referrals and credits section of the Account page.
DocSend is a wonderful solution for safely sending important files while getting immediate feedback on how your recipients are interacting with your content. Their referral program is a way to show their customers’ appreciation for the tool to others while getting a $15 credit for each new user they invite.
A famous global internet marketplace for independent contractors, Fiverr also offers a referral program to its customers. The Fiverr platform links freelancers with individuals or companies looking to hire. They allow their users to earn up to $100 for every friend who signs up and makes their first order. You can share it by email or with a link via social sharing. When your friends sign up to Fiverr, they get 10% off their first purchase, and you get 10% off their first order amount, up to $100.
Every marketer’s favorite social media example Duolingo offers its referral program too. With their program, for every person you refer and signs up for a Duolingo account, you receive a free week of Super Duolingo! This is a simple and easy way to attract your friends to learn a new language and get rewarded.
The Clymb is an adventure gear brand that has many customers from around the world. They offer a referral reward structure to their loyal customers where you invite a friend to join The Clymb and you each get $10 in Clymb credit when they make their first order of $50 or more. They send your credit to your account when the first order ships.
They now even allow you to mass invite your friends and send them a personalized message.
Erin Condren is known for creating fun organization essentials for your home, office, and everything in between. They have an awesome referral program, where you can earn EC credits to spend in their online store. All you need to do is to send your friends a referral link. After they sign up they get a 10$ coupon, and after their first purchase, you will get rewarded with 1000 EC points (a $10 equivalent). You can stack up these points and shop later.
Fashion Referral Programs – Erin Condren
3. Greats
GREATS is the first sneaker company to be founded in Brooklyn. They claim to produce high-quality, long-lasting sneakers with an excellent fit and feel using quality material. Their referral program GIVE $30, GET $30 is a win-win for existing and new customers, offering a great discount and rewards.
Footwear Referral Program Examples – GREATS
4. Rothy's
Rothy’s creates essentials from classic shoes to carry-everywhere bags. They get their inspiration from the strides that the community is making. Their Refer-a-Friend promises to give $20, get a $20 reward, as your friends get their first order.
5. Girlfriend Collective
Here’s a great example from the ethical brand Girlfriend Collective. They believe in sustainable manufacturing and recycled materials. They use old water bottles and fishing nets to produce their clothing, so they won’t be clogging landfills and polluting oceans. With their referral program, you can earn free leggings. Give your friends 30% off their first purchase of $95 or more and earn a Free Pair of Compressive Leggings when they buy.
6. J. Crew Factory
J.Crew believes that shopping should be fun and provides high-quality clothing that helps you look and feel your best, whether you enjoy specific details, unique fabrics, or traditional colors. They offer their customers a classic GIVE $20, GET $20 referral program. Refer a friend and they’ll get $20 off their order, plus you’ll get $20 when they sign up for J.Crew Passport.
7. Outdoor Voices
Outdoor Voices brand designs its products through the lens of longevity and circularity to reduce our environmental impact. If you refer a friend to join the brand’s community, you’ll both get $20 off your next purchase of $100 or more.
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Hanna Andersson was established by a Swedish woman living in America. By embracing essentially Scandinavian ideas, such as iconic design that successfully combines form and function, a sincere commitment to sustainability, and a way of life that promotes contented happy lives, she aimed to furnish childhood adventures. If you refer a friend, then you'll both get a 20% off reward with Hanna’s generous referral program.
Boden is all about sustainability. Also, they offer a great referral program to their customers. All they need to do is to fill in the details on their form, next their friend receives 20% off their FIRST purchase, and after they've ordered, customers get a $15 VOUCHER.
Fabletics is a popular activewear, fitness, and workout clothing brand. Their goal is to design the finest stylish, high-performing, active-lifestyle goods in the world for every person and everybody at an affordable price. With their referral program, you can get $40 in store credit if you refer a friend and they sign up and become VIPs.
Thinx is a unique women's underwear brand. They make comfortable, absorbent products, and women around the world love their brand. Thinx offers a give $10, get $10 referral program. When you refer a friend and they make a purchase, you get $10 and they get $10 off their first order of Thinx.
Birdies brand was created by a woman who believes there should be a comfortable pair of shoes in all of your life’s journey. Designed to take you everywhere, Birdies shoes combine elevated style, ultimate comfort, and everyday versatility. Their Give $20, Get $20 referral program pays to refer friends and family and enjoy shopping even more. Your friends will get $20 off their first order, and you’ll get $20 off your next order when they make a purchase.
Hunter is a forward-thinking British heritage company established in 1856 and known for its famous Original boot. The company has a long history of invention and continues to create products that are weatherproof and functional in a variety of environments. With Hunter’s referral program you can give your friends 20% off, and if they go on to purchase, they will also send you a 20% off discount.
American Giant was born when founders were dissatisfied with the way clothes were created. So new technologies emerged that allowed for reduced supply chains and direct online sales to customers like you. The brand already has a lot of loyal customers and can use their Give 20%, Get $20 refer a friend program to get rewarded.
Dermstore is a skincare and beauty online shop in the United States. Their customers get rewarded $15 for each friend they refer, also providing friends and family with discounts on their first order.
Adore Beauty is the top pure-play online beauty retailer in Australia and an authorized supplier of more than 260 top-tier beauty brands. You can get up to a $30 reward, depending on your level, if you refer a friend and they will complete their first order.
Karissa Bodnar founded Thrive Causemetics, a beauty company, and philosophy that goes beyond skin deep by uplifting various communities. Their beautiful online store offers a Give $10, Get $10 referral program, where you can give your friend $10 off their first purchase of $50 and more, plus free shipping, and get $10 in points for each successful referral.
Quip is an oral hygiene subscription-based service that provides customers with toothbrushes and other dental essentials. They have a $5 for you, $5 for a friend referral program for their users, and also offer free brush heads, floss, & paste in addition to that.
Haircare brand Madison Reed allows their customers to earn up to $45 from their referral program. It’s a give $15 get $15 deal, and you get beautiful hair as a bonus.
BoxyCharm is a monthly subscription beauty box that comes with 5 full-sized skincare and cosmetics items. Existing customers can use the company's referral program to send a special link to friends. You will receive 500 charms (also known as points) for each new member who signs up. You can exchange the charms for cosmetics.
Kari Gran Skincare has been successful in the clean skincare market for ten years. The business is founded on a small number of essential, oil-based products. The referral program on their website allows you to give your friends $10 off. When your friends buy from your invite link, you get $10 off!
Murad is the first brand of clinical skincare products, setting a new standard for high-performance skincare. Give a friend $10 off their first $50 purchase to get $10 off when they redeem.
Ohana provides beauty and skincare products and on their website they allow all of their clients to use the referral program. For every completed purchase you will receive 20% off.
Mellow sells a really cool smart kitchen robot that can cook sous vide for you while you're not even at home.
We wrote a blogpost about Mellow's success here:
How Mellow Made $200,000 In Preorder Sales In Less Than A Month
Bluesmart sells smart luggage that you can control from your smartphone. It famously raised $2.2 million dollars on Indiegogo when it first launched.
(Pro-Tip: BlueSmart uses ReferralCandy to power its tremendously successful referral program!)
Pavlok is a wearable device that helps you change your habits. (Pavlok is one of Shopify's Build-a-Business winners in 2015.) Why does it work so well?
Pavlok has a long blog post that teaches advocates effective sharing techniques, so they can get the most out of the referral program.
Trunkster makes intelligent, sleek and unique suitcases that uses a revolutionary sliding door mechanism instead of traditional zippers. Trunkster, like Pavlok, is one of Shopify Build-a-Business winners in 2015.
This is what Trunkster founder Bryan says about his referral program:
“Cash speaks well to people – we want people to be rewarded for sharing and to be able to get 30 dollars is the biggest incentive we can give to someone for sharing.”
Are you a clumsy person with a history of dropping and damaging your precious tech devices? Do you know somebody who is? Then EvolutiveLabs' Rhino Shield is just for you. Klutzes know klutzes, so Rhino Shield is served well by a referral program.
Peel is the iPhone case that’s so thin, you’d probably not notice it.
Giving out discounts work well for products that customers will likely purchase again. Since Peel also makes cases for the iPad Air and iPad Mini, customers who fall in love with their first purchases might decide to outfit their other Apple products with Peel cases too.
Apart from discounts, giving out credits is also a good solution for ensuring future purchases.
Ztylus sells incredibly versatile smartphone cases. While there are all sorts of phone cases available in the market today, Ztylus differentiates itself by selling cases that perform several different functions all at once.
We especially love the imagery of the envelope– it makes hitting the Submit button just a little bit more exciting.
Skyroam developed and patented the virtual SIM technology in 2008 and enabled mobile data on-demand worldwide through local connectivity.
(Pro-Tip: SkyRoam uses ReferralCandy to power its tremendously successful referral program!)
LIFX pioneered the smart light in 2012 with the first Wi Fi-enabled, multi-coloured LED that’s controllable via a smart device. Designed to last over 22 years, LIFX offers the brightest, most flexible smart light for your home or office.
Sol Republic is a global consumer electronics company dedicated to enhancing people’s lives through better-sounding headphones and accessories.
Founded by fitness expert and trainer-to-the-stars Marco Borges, 22 Days Nutrition promotes healthy living through plant-based lifestyles.
22 Days Nutrition has built a large, active presence on social networks. At time of writing, they’ve built a following of 171,000 on Facebook, 51,400 on Instagram and nearly 10,000 on Twitter.
22 Days Nutrition notes that word-of-mouth is a key part of their business, so adding a refer-a-friend program to their customer acquisition plans was a natural fit. People were already talking about their brand and referring their friends to 22 Days Nutrition.
Kitchensurfing has been described as a sort of Airbnb for kitchens and chefs.
(NOTE: Kitchensurfing has since shut down.)
Munchery is the food delivery app that makes it easy to eat without compromise, delivering delicious, all-natural, chef-crafted dishes right to your door. By giving away $20 for every referral, it covers 1 meal for the advocate's friend -- who can then be converted into a paying customer based on the deliciousness of the food.
Teaglad is a tea company that sells both tea and detox tea. Its main mission is to make finding high-quality tea easy.
Powder City is an ecommerce store for health supplements. They sell all sorts of supplements, with categories including “Nootropics”, “Energy”, “Relaxation”, “Pre-workout” and more.
By using customer referrals, it allows Powder City to build credibility with potential customers– we’re far likelier to try something if a trusted friend says they’re satisfied with the experience.
(NOTE: Powder City has since closed.)
Youfoodz is an Australia fresh meal delivery service. Great copy on their referral program, emphasizing the world free - and a free meal is relatively cheap compared to the cost of acquiring a new customer.
Our friend Kevin Indig covered how YouFoodz thrived against competition in a fresh study here:
YouFoodz Growth Study: How To Grow +3,846% Over 14 months In a Competitive Market
(Pro-Tip: YouFoodz uses ReferralCandy to power its tremendously successful referral program!)
Craft Coffee is a coffee subscription box that makes it easy to find good coffee at fair prices.
Jaswant's Kitchen is an online store that makes authentic Indian cooking easy.
Fatty Sundays is an online store that sells gourmet chocolate covered pretzels.
Barefoot Provisions is the online store for paleo and primal foodstuffs, curated for the conscious foodie.
VaporDNA is the absolute premier online vape store offering an industry-leading selection of electronic cigarettes, e-liquids, and accessories. They are the only vape company to earn the circle of excellence award from BizRate in 2016, a distinction earned by retailers who go above and beyond the norm to provide exceptional service to their online customers.
eJuices.com is the world's largest eLiquid retailer offering over 1400+ brands and 50,000 product. Its parent company, eCig Distributors, also offers wholesale, distribution, advertising and website solutions for the eLiquid industry.
Read what founder Billy Wilson has to say about telling stories and referral marketing here:
How eJuices Grew From 0 to Several Million Dollars in Sales
(Pro-Tip: eJuices uses ReferralCandy to power its tremendously successful referral program!)
Grenco Science is the first vape company to market a tank system specifically designed for essential fluids and personal aromatherapy regimens. To continually give back to the community, Grenco Science established the Charity Series, a collection of products tied to nonprofit organizations wherein a portion of net proceeds are donated with each purchase; and the Artist Series, an installment of collaborations with industry leading artists and brand ambassadors.
(Pro-Tip: Grenco Science uses ReferralCandy to power its tremendously successful referral program!)
Leesa is a mattress company whose mission is to help people sleep better. Leesa also has a "giving back" program where they donate 1 mattress for every ten sold.
Made.com is an online furniture retailer based in the UK.
They’re focused on selling original furniture designs at affordable prices, which they accomplish by cutting out the middlemen from the process and connecting consumers directly to designers. The most interesting part about Made.com's referral program is that they gamified it with incentives.
We've written more about Made.com's referral program here:
Furniture referral program examples – Made.com
Pet Mountain is the online leader in discount pet supplies, aquariums, wholesale dog supplies and so on.
Canningvale is an online store that provides premium bathroom textiles, luxury bedding and beach towels at affordable prices.
Flexispot offers height adjustable desks and desktop workstations, providing easy transition between sitting and standing.
GoldieBlox sells toys designed to teach girls engineering skills, and to get them engaged in building and learning. Very strong branding.
CriticalPass sells bar exam flashcards that will help law students pass the bar exam, written with key MBE concepts & elements to help them memorize for the MBE.
(Pro-Tip: CriticalPass uses ReferralCandy to power its tremendously successful referral program!)
Flintobox is an India-based company that produces educational activity boxes for children. Based on a theme, the company makes resources for Early Child Development on a monthly basis.
There's some nice copywriting and visual communication on this one.
Investors refer other investors all the time already– so a referral program makes perfect sense for Seedrs.
We analyzed Seedrs' referral program in greater detail here:
Investor Referral Program Examples: Seedrs, the Equity Crowdfunding Platform
Very suave, with very polished design.
99designs is the world’s largest online graphic design marketplace. They connect freelance designers with creative people, genius entrepreneurs and savvy businesses.
Trello is a web-based project management app that makes project collaboration simple and enjoyable.
VideoBlocks is a subscription site that provides studio quality, affordable stock footage, motion backgrounds, and even After Effects templates. Unlike other stock footage or stock video sites that charge per download, VideoBlocks members enjoy unlimited downloads for a monthly/yearly subscription fee.
The interesting thing about their referral program is that they only allow members to refer.. Most of paying customers are professionals in the media design field. By only allowing members to refer, it reduces the total amount of referrals, but ensures that they are mostly high quality referrals made by professionals.
It's a new, emerging industry, so they went all out in their efforts to educate their potential customers. Previously, they rewarded advocates for throwing parties, and even give away chances to win free a free Tesla Model S!
They have since changed their referral program to a simpler one - offering a $1000 bonus.
We've written about Sunworks' Referral Program more extensively here:
Solar Energy Referral Program Examples: Sunworks
You never know when you're going to need to charter a private jet!
We wrote more about AirPartner's referral program here:
Air Travel Referral Program: AirPartner
Go-today is a travel provider offering vacation packages and customized itineraries.
ZEN Rooms is the leading budget hotel chain in Southeast Asia with over 5000+ rooms across 35+ destinations. They provide value-for-money accommodation by guaranteeing all the key essentials at the lowest rates.
Lunatik's referral program is a little more "involved" than most. It's more accurately described as an "ambassador" program, looking for greater commitment from its participants, with a greater payoff.
This sort of system works better with more "intense" brands that would-be ambassadors enjoy being associated with.
Interesting use of language. You RECRUIT a friend. Great way to match the "clan" and "team" language within the product. You'll get free game time when a friend signs up, which is pretty lucrative. The reward is saving money.
FantasyDraft has a rather unique setup– they actually reward advocates for the referrals that their referred friends make, and the referrals that THOSE people make... up to 6 tiers! This would be overkill in many industries, but it makes perfect sense in a Fantasy Game setting, where friends-of-friends greatly enrich the experience.
We've written more extensively about FantasyDraft's referral program here:
Referral Programs in Gaming: FantasyDraft's Multi-Tiered Referral Program
Cashkaro is a coupons and cashback site, riding on the wave of eCommerce shoppers looking for a bargain. Cashback websites refers shoppers to sites like Flipkart, Amazon and Expedia, and offer them a percentage of their purchase as cash after the purchase.
Unlike other referral programs, however, Cashkaro doesn’t offer a flat cash reward or a one-off discount; if you refer a friend to sign up, you receive 10% of their lifetime referral value.
This is excellent encouragement to sign up new Cashkaro users and encourage them to spend more, making it a referral program that pays off over time as well.
EVE Online is a spaced-based MMORPG with complex social systems and a fervent fan community. One of the longest-running and most complex MMO games, much of the gameplay emerges from the interactions between the players and the investment of time (and subscription fees) by the players.
Therefore, they've offered an interesting twist on their referral rewards. New players receive a skill bonus (equivalent to 1-2 weeks of in-game time), which helps them get into the game.
The referrers, however, receive scaling rewards when the Recruitee reaches milestones:
Rather than offering direct cash or cash-equivalent for referrals, EVE Online offers in-game items and the equivalent of time, which is more valued for players.
Billing itself as an all-in-one marketing platform, GetResponse offers software solutions for email marketing, landing pages, webinars and marketing automation.
With their target market of digital marketers, they've done something very interesting -- offered a free digital marketing course (and certification) as part of their rewards structure:
A digital marketing certificate can burnish the career-minded marketer's resume, which might be worth more than simple cash value. Plus, it doesn't cost GetResponse more to grant access to their courses - and means the marketer is more likely to make use of GetResponse products.
Like many other brands on this list, Riff Raff & Co were looking for a way to increase sales of their popular sleeping toys for babies, and decided to employ a referral program for Word of Mum - err, word of mouth marketing.
What was unique about how they chose referral program incentives was the way they offered rewards to advocates, that is, existing customers. New customers received free shipping, but advocates wouldn't receive anything - not until they hit five successful referrals. Then they got a whole brand-new sleep toy, entirely free. Even non-customers could win a free toy if they completed the five referrals.
Note the five different designs showcased - gotta snuggle them all.
Riff Raff demonstrated a great understanding of their customers as parents of young children. Toddlers can always use more toys, especially if they help the babies (and parents) sleep better. Plus, laundry day, child care and so on, all in their excellent offer email. A deep understanding of their customers and effective catering to them - no wonder they reached six figure sales easily.
Read Also: How Riff Raff & Co grew into a million dollar company by leveraging Word-of-Mouth
Designhill is a platform for businesses and brands to source for design work via graphic design contests. From brand identity kits to business cards and logos to full websites and packaging designs, Designhill aims to be the platform bringing graphic designers and brands together.
For such marketplace platforms, demand is a key driver of scale - which may be why Designhill offer a commission-reward of 30% for every sale referred.
Turning satisfied customers to advocates to salespeople
The combination affiliate-referral program helps find new business and rewards customer loyalty for existing clients - a win for all.
Useful Resource: How to Create a Customer Loyalty Program to Boost Sales and Increase Retention
Snov.io is an email marketing and sales automation platform that supplies its users with a set of tools for cold email outreach. With both web app and Chrome extensions, you can generate leads, build a list of their valid email addresses, and send triggered email campaigns.
Snov.io offers a referral/affiliate program for its set of tools. Since its target audience are email marketing professionals, it’s very likely they’ll know someone else in the business and be able to share. And they have intentionally created a very generous offer:
Compared to referral rewards for other enterprise marketing tools, the rewards are relatively high and Snov.io offers a direct cash payout. In our guide to choosing referral incentives, we also recommend cash as the most effective means of incentivizing referrals.
What are your favorite ecommerce referral programs? If this list is missing your favorites, let us know!
P.S. If you enjoyed reading this article and want to grow your ecommerce store, subscribe to our newsletter to get our latest articles and roundups.
The previous versions of this article were written by Visakan Veerasamy, Si Quan Ong, Darren Foong, and Marquis Matson, Alfred Lua, marketers at ReferralCandy. We update this article regularly to keep it relevant and useful to ecommerce merchants.
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These are the best Shopify apps to grow your ecommerce store revenues in 2022.
We focused on apps that would help you grow your brand, your business, or your revenues. There are many lists of ‘Best Shopify apps’ out there, but we didn’t want to focus on apps dealing with dropshipping, inventory, or fulfillment.
Instead, we identified 40 Shopify apps that fell into one of two categories:
Without further ado, let’s take a look:
Shopify’s Google Channel makes it easy for you to list products for free on Google and run Smart Shopping campaigns.
Reach more customers across YouTube, Gmail, Google Search, and Google Display Network.
Free trial: Free to install
Price: Free; the ad spend is billed directly to Google Ads
Best used for:
CedCommerce’s Suite for Google Shopping Fed surfaces your products on various Google properties, like Buy On Google, Shopping Ads, Local Inventory Ads, and more.
Free trial: Free plan available, 7-day free trial.
Price: From $14/month
Best used for:
AdRoll powers advertising and remarketing campaigns for thousands of merchants, and boasts the ability to run a campaign that integrates email and ads.
AdRoll boasts AI-optimized ads on Google, Facebook, Instagram, and over 500 networks.
Free trial: 30-day free trial, Free plan available
Price: From $25/month, plus advertising costs
Best used for:
Automizely Traffic lets you target and retarget customers with the right ads at the right time.
The ads exchange allows you to display your products in other stores, in exchange for promoting partner ads on your website - a win-win for both your stores.
Free trial: Free!
Price: Free!
Best used for:
VideoWise allows you to embed shoppable videos from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube on your store in a page-speed friendly way.
You can also add buy buttons to the video player to boost engagement and conversion rates.
Free trial: 14-day free trial
Price: From $49/month plus 2% of direct video orders
Best used for:
Outfy makes it easy to create product collages, videos, gifs, and ads, and publish them to top social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and more.
The autopilot feature allows you to curate and publish posts automatically to promote and sell more.
Free trial: 7-day free trial.
Price: From $15/month
Best used for:
Instagram Feed + Stories allows you to publish Instagram Stories and highlights to your website.
If you’re working with Instagram influencers, this app will be a perfect complement to your campaign.
Free trial: Free to install
Price: $4.95/month after 1,000 page visits
Best used for:
Instafeed allows you to embed shoppable Instagram feeds on your Shopify store.
You can use Instagram to drive new traffic and content to your store, expand the reach to your followers, and convert store visitors into customers.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $4.99/month
Best used for:
ReferralCandy helps you grow your sales through word-of-mouth marketing, by rewarding customers for referring their friends. We also allow brands to run an affiliate program with cash payouts for successful purchases.
ReferralCandy powers referral programs for over 3,000 brands, and is one of the best Shopify and Shopify Plus referral apps out there.
Free trial: 30-day free trial
Price: $49/month plus commissions
Best used for:
The Dovetale Community platform offers key features to manage an influencer marketing platform.
Dovetale’s key features include custom recruitment pages, easy gifting templates to send gifts at scales, as well as easy tracking of commissions and payouts through PayPal.
Free trial: Free plan available; 7-day free trial
Price: From $19/month
Best used for:
Smile.io is a loyalty platform best known for customer retention and VIP programs, but they also offer rewards for referral programs. Smile.io allows you to quickly set up and run your rewards program.
Boost new and repeat sales with Smile.io, the trusted loyalty provider for over 50,000 stores.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $49/month
Best used for:
Goaffpro’s professional affiliate marketing app aims to turn your customers into marketing partners and affiliates.
Goaffpro also allows your affiliates to bring in other affiliates, to grow your network and revenues exponentially.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $24 per month
Best used for:
Refersion is a complete marketing platform for influence, affiliate, and brand ambassadors. You can even find new affiliates and influencers in the Refersion Marketplace for free.
Refersion offers a customizable affiliate registration page, dashboards to track performance, as well as automatic coupon code creation for rewards.
Free trial: 14-day free trial
Price: $89/month with performance-based pricing
Best used for:
Junip makes it easy to request customer reviews and display them on your product pages to help you convert customers. It also features review replies, Google Reviews snippets, and incentives for reviews.
Junip powers over 2,000 Shopify brands including top DTC brands like Doe Lashes, Huron, Baboon to the Moon, and more.
Free trial: 14-day free trial
Price: From $19/month
Best used for:
Stamped.io is a social proof marketing platform, based on generating high-impact reviews, ratings, community Q&As as well as user-generated content like customer photos and videos.
Stamped.io aims to boost your sales and traffic by generating high-quality, informative reviews and sharing them to Facebook, Google. Instagram and more.
Free trial: 7-day free trial, Free tier available
Price: From $23/month
Best used for:
Loox collects photo and video reviews, prompts customers for referrals, and displays the social proof with beautiful-looking widgets.
By collecting social proof and driving word-of-mouth, Loox aims to drive customer retention and build brand awareness to drive revenue.
Free trial: 14-day free trial
Price: From $9.99/month, +$5 for Loox referrals
Best used for:
Reviewbit’s WhatsApp Customer Reviews prompts customers to create photo and product reviews through WhatsApp, which has a 100% open rate and higher response rate.
Best of all, the app integrates with Loox, Yotpo, and Judge.Me, so you can publish reviews collected through WhatsApp
Free trial: No free trial
Price: Free to install, but review requests start at $0.01 per message.
Best used for:
Judge.me prompts your customers to create star ratings and reviews about your products and Shopify store, then displays it beautifully on your website with theme templates.
Judge.me offers free photo and video reviews, and allows you to publish reviews on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr to boost sales and social proof.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $15/month
Best used for:
Growave is an all-in-one Shopify marketing app with powerful tools for photo reviews, wishlists, loyalty programs, gift cards, referrals, and UGC. Strengthen the customer-brand relationships, increase repeat purchases, and boost engagement using convertible loyalty points, gifts & VIP-tiers membership on your site along with many other things.
Free trial: 30-day free trial
Price: Starts from $9/month
Best used for:
The average attention span of a shopper is five to eight seconds. Product Badges aims to capture customer attention with badges like “20% Off” or “Best Seller!”
Mode Magic received an award for ease of use from Shopify, and also offers 3,000+ product badges and stickers ready to go.
Free trial: Free plan available; 7-day free trial
Price: From $9/month
Best used for:
PushOwl allows you to send web push notifications to your customers – to remind them of abandoned carts, discounts, or items back-in-stock.
You can reach out to anonymous shoppers and browsers, get opt-in for email, push or text notifications, and turn them into subscribers.
Free trial: Free tier available
Price: From $19/month
Best used for:
Zipify’s One Click Upsell app maximizes the average order value for your customers by offering one-click upsells, both when customers are viewing their cart and during post-purchase checkout.
Zipify also boasts split testing and upsells on the Thank You page, to maximize revenue.
Free trial: 30-day free trial
Price: From $24.99/month
Best used for:
ReConvert offers you the ability to customize your order confirmation/thank you page, allowing you to create a post-purchase funnel for more upsell opportunities.
Since customers visit the order status page to review shipping updates, it’s a perfect opportunity to retarget customers for an upselling opportunity.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $7.99/month
Best used for:
Shop-pop helps you reach customers with opt-in alerts on WhatsApp and Messenger. Customers can opt-in to receive alerts for new products, price drops, back-in-stock, and more.
ShopPop boasts 95% open rates for their alerts and easy data sync with Klaviyo.
Free trial: Free for up to 50 customers;
Price: Starting from $8/month
Best used for:
Klaviyo, a unified customer platform for email, SMS, and more, gives your online brand direct ownership of your consumer data and interactions—so you can talk to every customer like you know them, and grow your business on your own terms.
Klaviyo integrates with other ecommerce platforms as well as plenty of apps (including ReferralCandy),
Free trial: Free tier
Price: Emails—Starting from $20/month (based on number of contacts); Email and SMS—Starting from $35/month (based on number of contacts)
Best used for:
Thousands of Shopify and Shopify Plus stores use Postscript as a turnkey solution for their SMS marketing.
Postscript also boasts a Safe Send feature to avoid sending too many text messages to a single customer.
Free trial: 30-day free trial
Price: From $25/month, with additional credits for SMS or MMS.
Best used for:
Omnisend is an email and SMS marketing platform powering over 70,000 ecommerce merchants and a 9.3 ease-of-use rating on G2.
Omnisend allows you to send stunning newsletters, create automated ecommerce flows, and collect email and SMS opt-ins.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $16/month
Best used for:
Privy offers a suite of marketing tools for SMS and email marketing and conversion-focused tools like pop-ups and wheels.
Privy also offers campaign triggers to show discounts and offers to customers at the right time.
Privy also has the most reviews on our list—over 24,000 reviews at the time of writing!
Free trial: 15-day free trial, Free plan is also available
Price: From $15/month
Best used for:
Grow sales, offer real-time support, and deliver personalized experiences via SMS. Cartloop helps Shopify brands build a compliant SMS marketing list and grow like never before. Their 24/7 Live Shopping Agents connect with your customers in real-time with an emotive approach, helping them navigate shipping questions, find the right products, and close sales with personal attention that builds confidence and trust in your brand.
Free trial: No free trial. but there is a freemium plan that starts at $0 and has 250 credits included
Price: From $100/month
Best used for:
PageFly helps create beautiful, high-quality pages for Shopify stores—everything from landing pages to FAQs and blog pages.
They also boast an Element Library with templates, custom animations, and trust badges like Reviews, Ratings, and Seals.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $19 per month
Best used for:
Builder.io offers a powerful drag-and-drop visual editor that allows you to manage and publish content on any site or app -- headless CMS at its finest.
Nik Sharma has spoken highly of Builder.io, which also powers Alo Yoga, Harry’s, Everlane, and more.
Free trial: 14-day free trial
Price: From $20/month, plus additional charges per user and by monthly views
Best used for:
This app does exactly what it says on the tin - allow you to add a Free Shipping announcement bar to your store. It also auto-detects the customer’s local currency and adjusts the free shipping amount instantly (e.g. Free shipping over $50 in the US and C$70 in Canada).
Research suggests that 88% of consumers would be more likely to shop if they were offered free shipping - so it’s a simple app to increase customers.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $9.99 per month
Best used for:
EComposer Page Builder is a codeless app that allows merchants to create their stunning website with any page type: Landing page, Homepage, Product, Collection, About us, etc.
EComposer is beginner-friendly, conversion-driving, and mobile-first optimized. Newbies can easily build their store with tons of pre-made layouts and sections, just drag & drop everything.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: Paid plan from $14.99/month
Best used for:
Run a high-converting, engaging store with ModeMagic by Mason—an all-in-one, no-code, store conversion app made for Shopify stores.
With ModeMagic’s plug-n-play conversion playbooks, easily personalize your store for customers, without a coder or designer.
Use the app’s merchandising tools to promote products & keep your ecommerce shop dynamic 24/7—countdown timers, product highlight cards, sales, discounts, bestsellers & new arrival automation; make it happen with zero manual work!
Free trial: Free forever!
Price:
Best used for:
Gorgias offers a platform for Shopify brands to manage their customer support, all in one place. The centralized CRM offers support on every channel, from email and live chat to phone and social media.
Gorgias boasts a strong integration with Shopify, allowing your customer support team to see order details and refund, cancel or duplicate without leaving the app.
Free trial: 7-day free trial
Price: From $60 per month, plus additional charges per 100 tickets
Best used for:
Tidio offers a live chat app bolstered by marketing automation and chatbots to address your customers’ needs and increase sales instantly.
Tidio boasts chatbots that can automatically reply to 43% of the most common queries, including questions about tracking and an Abandoned Cart Bot that offers discounts to help convert customers.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $15 per seat per month
Best used for:
Did you know that consumers check the status of their order at least four times before it’s delivered? These WISMO (Where Is My Order?) tickets are especially frustrating for customers if packages get lost or are delayed, and create a poor impression of your brand.
Wonderment turns order tracking into a growth channel with proactive shipping tracking. You can direct customers to on-brand tracking pages to deliver upsells and a better customer experience.
Free trial: Free plan available for up to 500 orders/month
Price: From $49/month for up to 4000 shipments per month
Best used for:
Vajro enables Shopify store owners to convert their online stores into native android and iOS apps within 60 minutes, without writing a single line of code.
With more than 1300 five-star reviews on Shopify, Vajro has helped 3000+ Shopify merchants to sell more and engage better with their customers.
Free trial: 30 days
Price: Starts at $99/month
Best used for:
Shopney is known for its unique feature set and famous ease of use in the Shopify mobile app builder market.
Shopney offers 8 different theme options for your Shopify store as a unique Shopify mobile app builder feature to make sure you display your products most impressively in the product listing (PLP) and product display (PDP), and increase your sales!
Besides, to increase your customer retention and engagement, Shopney provides in-app chat with you as another unique mobile app builder feature. So, you can convert your customers with a 1-to-1 dialogue, offering customers a personalized shopping experience.
Free trial: 30 days
Price: $99/month
Best used for:
Octane AI offers quizzes and pop-ups to create a better shopping experience for customers. From a simple email-capture pop-up to more complicated quizzes about product preferences, Octane AI helps you generate customer insights while staying GDPR compliant.
With the rise of iOS 14 and the age of data privacy, insights from Octane AI will become more valuable to create product recommendations and advanced segmentation. But don’t take our word for it - the official Shopify Hardware store uses Octane AI too!
Free trial: 14-day free trial
Price: Starting at $29 per month
Best used for:
Retention Rocket helps Shopify stores build a list of phone numbers, engage customers through 1:1 conversations, and automate SMS campaigns.
Retention Rocket prides itself on automated flows like abandoned cart and win-back series, as well as creating granular segments using Shopify data.
Free trial: Free plan available
Price: From $10/month, plus charges per SMS
Best used for:
Govalo aims to reinvent the gift card for Shopify stores, with gift card purchases, welcome gifts for new customers, and premium analytics and data.
Customers hesitate to make the first purchase because of high price points - a problem Govalo aims to eliminate with their digital gift cards. With the gift card market growing at 14% annually, this could be an interesting app.
Free trial: 7-day free trial
Price: From $0 per month (but 2.9% commission on gift card value) to $500 and 2.4%
Best used for:
Skio Subscriptions aims to make subscriptions easier - and capture all of Recharge’s customers. They offer merchants an easier way to modify subscriptions, a headless subscription portal, and native Shopify Checkout.
Merchants who are struggling with Bold and Recharge subscription apps can consider Skio as an alternative.
Free trial: 60-day free trial
Price: $299/month plus commissions
Best used for:
BEST Currency Converter allows you to display prices in different international currencies. The Elite plan even updates the currency automatically, based on your customer’s browsing location.
This makes the shopping experience easier for your international customers.
Free trial: Free tier available
Price: $9.95/month for >5 currencies and auto-switch by customer location
Best used for:
Triple Whale offers a unified dashboard for all your important ecommerce metrics, pulling from your tech stack like Shopify, Klaviyo, Facebook, Gorgias, and more.
We’ve included Triple Whale here because of glowing endorsements from DTC brands like Doe Lashes, Muddy Bites, and Obvi, but we haven’t tried it out yet. It’s one to watch, and maybe sign up for, but stay tuned.
Free trial: None
Price: Starting from $100/month
Best used for:
Relo is the easiest way for DTC brands to get customers to order again, try a subscription and stay on subscription. We predict when customers are going to buy again, sync that data to your Klaviyo & send personalized email comms to your customers.
Free trial: 30 days
Price: Starting from $200/month
Best used for:
Looking for more resources? Check out these other resources:
P.S. If you enjoyed reading this article and want to grow your ecommerce store, subscribe to our newsletter to get our latest articles and roundups.
We all know how important word-of-mouth marketing is for a brand’s growth. In fact, it’s the most influential psychological driver for anyone making a purchase.
20% of North Americans who became aware of a product through word-of-mouth made the purchase instantaneously. Additionally, word-of-mouth affects the purchase decision of 54% of consumers.
Unfortunately, though, word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing is difficult to scale—data is hard to track, and because of this marketers tend to focus on other tasks.
Thankfully, there are ways you can drive WOM without taking time away from your other tasks. It’s through something called automation.
You’ve probably heard of it before, but aren’t quite sure how it applies to your brand, right? As an automation expert, I’ve heard this time and time again from marketers, founders, and operators of many ecommerce brands.
If you fall in that category, then this article is for you.
Here’s the truth… You can’t control how people talk about your brand, but you can control the experience you give each person. WOM marketing and your customer experience (CX) go hand-in-hand. That’s why this article is going to show you how to level up your CX with automation to drive more WOM.
Even as a lean team, you can build up your CX and run memorable campaigns—without adding extra effort or time to your busy schedule.
Have I piqued your interest? Great. Keep reading.
We all know the benefits of word-of-mouth marketing: it improves brand discovery, helps you beat competitors, and influences purchase decisions. Not to mention, it’s an organic channel with a high return on investment if you scale it successfully.
But why should you implement automation on the channels that drive WOM? Here are a few reasons:
We all know what it feels like to discover a metric in your reports that doesn’t add up… You’re stuck spending the next few hours (or days) trying to understand why the numbers are wrong. And, usually, the culprit is due to a data silo.
Data silos are created when you use tools that aren’t integrated together. Because of this, your team is manually pulling information from a variety of sources and compiling it together. Without realizing it, they make a manual error, and then they’re stuck trying to discover where the discrepancy came from.
With automation, you can build workflows to pull metrics from various tools in your tech and automatically send it to a Google Sheet, your Shopify account, or another data software—all in real time.
Your team can easily access this data to make smarter business decisions about the WOM channels they should double down on and why. Additionally, they can earn time back from not having to track down why their reports are wrong.
Imagine if your word-of-mouth marketing engine could run on autopilot: your campaigns send at the right times, and you get to spend your time focusing on other initiatives.
Automation is exactly how marketers like you are able to accomplish so much in their day.
For example, you can trigger responses based on actions shoppers take on your site, automatically respond to important questions and inquiries, collect and organize reviews, and even segment customers based on buyer profile data.
These tasks usually require someone on your team to operate manually, but automation takes them off your plate for good. You can do more with less.
As you automate more parts of your marketing and operations, you’ll be able to take on more tasks without relying on more resources or budget.
Think about all of the ways you’ve been wanting to personalize your email flows… Or how you’ve wanted to improve your customer support. These experiences have a direct impact on how satisfied customers are with your brand.
So if you can take on more—without needing more—you can improve your CX channels with minimal effort, deliver a quicker time to value for each shopper and scale your word-of-mouth engine organically.
As an expert in ecommerce automation, there are a few must-have marketing channels I recommend if you want to increase your brand’s word-of-mouth, including
I’ll explain why these channels are critical and show you a few ways you can automate them using Alloy (an ecommerce automation platform that I’m familiar with).
Marketers use automation for their email and SMS channels to remove tedious tasks, like organizing data, so they can offer personalized experiences without needing more resources.
These personalized shopping experiences drive loyalty—and loyalty is how you drive word-of-mouth. According to Segment, 60% of consumers are more likely to become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience with a retailer. And brands that offer positive experiences receive 3X more word-of-mouth.
But here’s the catch: personalization requires a lot of manual work.
However, automation allows brands to create these experiences without investing too much time. I’ll give you some examples…
Sample workflows brands have built:
Here’s what a workflow that segments customers into Klaviyo lists by specific tags looks like in Alloy:
Customers who are a part of your loyalty program are 70% more likely to refer your brand to others. And you can automate many parts of your loyalty and referral program so your customer retention takes care of itself.
That means you don’t have to worry about CRM updates, customer tagging, API integrations, or even certain communication (for new sign-ups, milestones, and rewards).
Sample workflows brands have built:
Here’s an example of a workflow in Alloy that adds a free gift to certain orders:
According to G2, 95% of customers read reviews before making a purchase. That means positive reviews and user-generated content is often the difference between a new customer and an abandoned cart.
Automation tools help you scale reviews and UGC collection—without scaling your team. How? You can trigger requests based on customer actions, incentivize a customer for the content (if you want), and sync that information with any other marketing tool you use.
Additionally, you can automate internal communication around your reviews. For example, set up a Slack channel to get notified when a new review is created. You can also send reviews to a Google Sheet to keep track of which customers are leaving reviews and on what products. This can help you make smarter decisions about your best-selling products and high AOV customers.
Sample workflows brands have built:
To see a workflow that automatically follows up on reviews, check out this example made in Alloy below.
The automation triggers when a new review is made, syncs the review data with Omnisend, splits the review between positive or negative using an if-else condition block, then emails the customer based on their response.
Bonus channels to improve your CX and drive word-of-mouth
The truth is, you can automate every part of your business—not just your marketing channels.
In my opinion, there are other channels that are just as important for driving word-of-mouth because they directly contribute to whether or not your customers have a positive experience with your brand.
Customer support reps are under a lot of pressure: if a customer feels satisfied with their interaction with your business, 96% will return and will be more likely to tell the people around them about their experience.
The best way to help your reps is by making sure your support platform has all important customer data readily available to them. Most customer support platforms have basic integrations and standard automation functionality for simple tasks like collecting NPS scores, but you don’t have to be limited by that.
Sample workflows brands have built:
This is what it would look like to pull order and tracking information from Shipbob into Gorgias, for example:
Subscription platforms typically integrate directly with ecommerce platforms and CRMs to transfer data like payment processing, churn or downgrades, and checkout information. Yet even with these basic integrations, managing multiple pricing models can become complex.
With automation, your subscription program can operate a lot smoother while improving your customer experience. For example, with minimal effort, you can upsell them into more expensive tiers, and retain them on your program longer—all through hands-off automated workflows.
Sample workflows brands have built:
Here’s a quick video walkthrough on creating an SKU-swapping workflow:
Anyone who works in ecommerce knows how much of a headache the operations side of the business can be. From shipping delays, out-of-stock products, and orders not being fulfilled properly, customers can be in for a frustrating experience.
Thankfully, there are many ways to automate the shipping and fulfillment process to improve how quickly orders are fulfilled and delivered to customers.
Sample workflows brands have built:
Here’s what a monthly inventory report workflow would look like:
Now that you’ve seen the ways you can automate your ecommerce brand to improve your WOM, let’s look at how one skincare brand has implemented this for their business.
L’AMARUE sells effective, easy-to-use products for the full spectrum of skincare. Each product is formulated around their patent-pending all-natural Heart to Heart Complex® to help customers create a healthier relationship with their skin.
Even though this brand is doing a lot with its marketing and operations, there are only two people behind-the-scenes: a mother and a daughter who co-founded the business together.
As a company being run only by two people, automation was necessary to create a personalized customer experience: “Automation can be hugely helpful for brands trying to build their word-of-mouth because of the endless different CX journeys that you can create with it,” said Co-Founder Ande Sozzi.
At the beginning of their automation journey, Ande and her mom, Nicole Manke, started with just three workflows. In their opinion, these three workflows alone are saving them over 12 hours every week.
Now, with additional automations set up, you can only imagine how much these two are accomplishing with extra time…
So what are Ande and Nicole automating? Here’s a quick list:
And how do these workflows directly impact L’AMARUE’s word-of-mouth? It all comes down to CX.
“At the end of the day, anything you can do to become friendly with your customers and delight them goes a long way towards word-of-mouth. The more positive things they experience with you, the more they will talk about you to other people. Everyone wants to share good things with people they care about.” - Ande Sozzi
Feeling a bit of information overload? I understand. There’s just so much to learn about automation!
Thankfully, you can keep learning. I’m going to share some tools that were mentioned in this article that can help you get started:
And if you feel like you need to learn more about word-of-mouth marketing first, no problem.
Check out these articles:
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A referral program is a deliberate, systematic way of getting people to make referrals to your business. Referral programs are often called word-of-mouth marketing, because they reward existing customers for sharing and incentivize new customers to try out your brand.
The best Shopify apps to grow your brand and your business in 2022, featuring apps from top DTC brands like FIGS, Obvi and Muddy Bites.
Here are ways you can drive WOM without taking time away from your other tasks, through automation.
Ecommerce brands don’t need gimmicks or fanciful but complicated web design. The six steps above are great ways to help you make your products visible, and your solutions to customers’ pain point known.
Social commerce can bring your community, customer loyalty, sales, revenue, and brand awareness to the next level. Here's how to utilize social media platforms to maximize your growth.
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Referral programs are like snowballs - they need a bit of help to get started. Here are 7 simple steps to promote your referral program.
Setting up a referral program should not be hard. Here's how you can do it in six steps and start getting referrals!
Just set up your refer-a-friend program? Here's how to launch it to your customers to get them started making referrals.
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