How to Re-engage customers in referral program?

It’s great to set up a customer referral program for promotion of online business. Though referrals are a one time activity, the real challenge comes in re-engaging the customers to refer again and again. Imagine an online store that has a 75% loyal and repeat customer base. The customer referral program will eventually loose effectiveness after a one time engagement. The business may change the incentive, but nobody would want to share the same content with their friends again and again isn’t it. Then how do we engage customers repeatedly through a referral program?

Launch a new referral program campaign every month

The answer is very simple. Referral program should not be looked only as a means to increase sales. They are also very effective to build branding, promotion of new product launches, event promotions etc. Consider an example of an apparel e-commerce site with a wide range of  dresses. It can create a fresh referral program to promote a new category of apparels every month. Incentive could be a discount applicable only on that category. This would motivate customers to refer their friends to check out this new collection of clothes in return for a cool discount. Slowly, the customer would start coming to your site every month to check out the new promotion. This way Referral program can be made an important part of brand building and communication to the customer.

This would not only re-engage your customers but increase the social reach of a new category on your site. Like wise referral program can be effectively used to increase social virality of new product launches.

Announce the top referrers on facebook, twitter every week

Nothing motivates us more than a little appreciation. The same is true with your customers. You can announce the top 3 referrers every week on facebook and twitter and give them a special gift. This will encourage your customers to refer friends in even larger numbers and compete to be on that list. Invitereferrals tool allows you to identify your most influential referrers.

You can also send an email to all the participants every week informing them about the top referrers and their referral statistics. This would keep the referral program on top of their minds.

Announce the launch of new referral program to entire customer base

As suggested, a new referral program campaign should be designed every month to promote new product and new content. The new referral program should be announce to entire customer base through a news letter. The news letter should also contain the top referrers of the previous campaign.

By following the simple 3 step rule above, customer referral program can be made very effective in increasing customer engagement. You can use Invitereferrals.com to design and launch customer referral program in minutes and follow all the rules described above to run an effective promotion.