First up, you'll need a referral program. Setting one up is easy, just follow any of our guides on how to set it up in record time (or for any platforms you're using!):
One of the fastest ways to understand the best practices of referral marketing is to examine already-successful referral programs to see what they're doing.
On that front, we’ve got you covered.
Head over to our Epic List of 74 Referral Programs to learn from some of the best examples in the business:
The list is now split up by industry vertical, so you can more quickly find an example that’s relevant to you.
Beyond that, you’ll also want…
Should you use one-sided or two-sided incentives?
What are the best practices when it comes to setting up your payments? Who should you reward? Should you use cash or discounts?
Learn More: How To Set Up Your Referral Program’s Incentives (With 20+ Examples!)
What are the best ways of increasing your referral rate?
We go into more detail in our guide here:
Learn More: How To Promote Your Referral Program - 8 Strategies To Getting More Advocates
There are 6 things you need to do correctly to get the most out of your referral emails:
Learn More: How To Write Great Emails Asking For Referrals
Your referral messaging should represent your brand's value proposition. How then do you craft a good value proposition? There are no surefire methods, but here's what you potentially need:
Learn More: How To Get Your Referral Messaging Right
The design, layout and copy of your referral email is a key component of driving more advocates to join your referral program. Here are some examples you can look at, model from and get inspired to create your own.
Learn More: 13 Examples of Beautiful Referral Email Design
The Friend Landing Page is the page that your Advocates’ friends are taken to once they click on a referral link.
It’s important to get this page right – you want it to entice the friends of your Advocates to click through and then shop at your store.
In particular, you want to…
Here are some examples to get you fired up on creating your own.
Learn More: 34 Examples Of Stylish Friend Landing Pages In Referral Programs
One of the main ways that people share referral links is on social media. And lots of people are typically too busy to take the trouble of modifying the default messages.
What does this tell you?
You can actually improve your referral rates by choosing a great default sharing message.
Here are some examples you can consider using, or modifying for your own.
Learn More: 121 Examples of Social Sharing Messages Used By Real Advocates
At the most basic level, you should think in terms of cost vs revenue.
How much are you spending on your referral program (cost of incentives + cost of running the program), and how much revenue are you getting in sales?
If your referral revenue exceeds your customer acquisition cost, then you’re definitely getting a positive ROI on your referral program. This should be the rule-of-thumb heuristic to use to decide whether to keep running your referral program or not.
Learn More: How To Calculate, Measure and Improve The Return-on-Investment (ROI) On Your Referral Program
Visa is ReferralCandy's former Blog Editor [2013–2018]. He also co-founded Statement.sg, a fashion ecommerce label selling witty t-shirts. He's mildly Internet-famous for his elaborate Twitter threads. He hopes to enjoy a glass of scotch onboard a commercial space flight someday.
Grow your sales at a ridiculously
lower CAC.