How A Box of Stories Reached New Customers With ReferralCandy
Referral program topline results
- Impact on sales: Referrals and referred customers contributed to 3.38% of all purchases
- Customer growth: Close to 5,000 customers joined the referral program in just 4 months
- Return on investment: The referral program generated 3000% ROI
About A Box of Stories
A Box of Stories is a subscription box service in the United Kingdom. For the price of a paperback (about £15), customers can receive a box with four hand-picked novels, all rated highly by book lovers. Aasha Chauhan founded A Box of Stories in September 2018, and has been working on it full time since.
As a relatively young brand, A Box of Stories was relying on Facebook advertising to acquire new customers. The cost of customer acquisition was relatively high.
On the other hand, the Aasha knew that customers loved the product. Customers had a high retention rate. They would also send appreciative notes to Aasha, as well as make social media posts recommending A Box of Stories to their friend.
A business contact suggested that ReferralCandy could help with reaching new audiences, and Aasha installed ReferralCandy in early 2020.
Growing the community with A Box of Stories
Aasha used ReferralCandy’s coupon code feature to offer store discounts. Customers could give their friends £4 off their first purchase (about 25% off), while receiving a £4 off their next purchase. This was well-received by customers.
"ReferralCandy did incredibly well on launch - in the first month, we had a referral rate of 7-8%."
Aasha Chauhan
Founder, A Box of Stories
The ReferralCandy effect: Organic customer acquisition (with lower CAC!)
In a little over four months, ReferralCandy generated these results:
- A referral rate of 3.38%: That means 3.38% of all purchases came from referrals or customers who had been referred
- 3000% ROI: ReferralCandy generated referral sales equal to 30 times the value charged
- High customer growth: Close to 5,000 customers have joined the referral program. 6% were new customers who joined through the referral program
In addition, Aasha shared that referred customers had a lower acquisition cost compared to other platforms like ads or affiliate marketing programs.
The introduction of a referral program also reduced their reliance on paid channels for new customer acquisition. Before, 90% of their customers were coming from paid acquisition channels, with 10% coming from organic channels like social media or content. Using ReferralCandy, they were able to reduce the Paid : Organic split to 40:60, increasing the proportion of organic acquisitions.
Part of this came about through word-of-mouth, through user-generated content on social media from customers.
Greater visibility on social media
Since the start of the referral campaign, A Box of Stores has been shared close to 2,000 times, including on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Messenger. This has helped to generate buzz and build the brand further.
Customers have also created YouTube videos featuring A Box of Stories. A great example is Planning with Crystal: her unboxing videos have made her the top referrer for A Box of Stories:
"It’s great to see our community creating Instagram posts and blogs, and sharing their referral links. Our customers love us - and that’s why the referrals work."
Aasha Chauhan
Founder, A Box of Stories
A Box of Stories is delighted to work with ReferralCandy to continue growing the brand and adding to the community.
