July 22, 2015 Posted By: Tony MariottiCreative marketers tend to tweak stuff. You should see what some of them are doing (and you will in this post) with their referral campaigns.When you build marketing software, you tend to think your customers will use it “as intended.” However, some power users (not all, but some) get creative and bend your product toward their own will, doing all sorts of things you didn’t anticipate.
And that’s fun to watch.We’ve seen this happen with Friendbuy and I’m very happy to report there have been some really creative referral programs that veer a little outside the “traditional” way of running them.A beautiful thing happens when a marketer’s imagination collides with your platform capabilities — you see a slew of fresh and interesting twists. Below you will find some customer referral program ideas that have bubbled up and caught our attention. Referral Contestsfound a way to augment their ongoing, evergreen referral program by introducing periodic referral contests. Last April, they ran one that not only offered their standard $10 reward for each referred friend, but the person who referred the most friends during the campaign won $1,000 bucks. Second and third-place winners also got a nice little bonus.They started by promoting their contest with the following standalone to their entire list:Customers who clicked on the email were driven to the following referral widget that reiterated the rewards and rules. If you look closely, you’ll even notice some attention given to the bourbon prize. A nice touch.2. Seasonal Campaignsinvited their participants (sharers) to send out a “50% Off” offer prior to the Super Bowl.
It’s pretty smart to tap into the biggest media event in the United States.Before you dismiss the notion that there’s no connection between healthy snacks and football (the game itself and the viewers who you’d assume would bury their heads in booze and hot dogs all day), one must remember that this is the day when nearly half of American households tune in. Suffice it say, this is a pretty big day for snacks.
Even healthy ones.3. Hybrid: Seasonal + ContestHere’s a referral campaign idea that combines seasonality with a contest. It’s from Huckberry, whom I am leaning on pretty heavily in this post – these guys are prolific with their widget creation!Huckberry wanted to give referrers a shot at flying home for the holidays for free, with a bag full of Huckberry gear and a seat in first-class. Pretty sweet.4. Social GiftingWhat would you say if I told you that one of my favorite referral program ideas was one that offered end users no reward at all?
Enter social gifting.sent emails to their customers that included each recipient’s referral code that they could share with friends. What’s different here is that there was no incentive for the referrer. Just a really nice way to be generous and offer a friend a free trial. Each participant could send a code to anyone of their choice and up to 3 of those friends could cash in.Here’s how that gifting campaign email looked:5. Hybrid: Social Gifting + ContestHere’s another hybrid campaign that combined social gifting with a contest.
Encouraged customers to give their friends 7 free days of yoga. There was also a kicker: referrers earned extra contest entries for each and every friend who activated their free trial.6. Mystery Referral ProgramWell here’s a twist – on their checkout page, MeUndies offered their customers a free gift with their order if they shared with friends. Their friends would get 20% off for trying MeUndies.What’s odd (in a really good way) is that the sharing rate for this widget was on the very high end of, even though “free gift” is a pretty vague incentive, don’t you think? Yet it worked. Really, really well.(Bonus) Referral Program IdeasI’m partial to store credit as a referral “carrot” because it does double duty by preserving your margins and driving repeat purchase behavior.
But in the interest of full disclosure so that you see as many options as possible, here are some more incentives to consider:. Cash. Store credit. Free month (subscriptions). Premiums/merchandise (like a gift or tote bag). Upgrades. Gift cards.
No incentivesRELATED POSTS:. List of. Best practices: Everything you need to know about running a great.
Concierge Incentive Programs 2018
“Employers use incentives to promote a particular behavior or performance that they believe is necessary for the organization’s success,” explains Susan Heathfield, a management and organization development consultant. 1 Software companies, for example, will frequently provide weekly employee lunches to promote teamwork and celebrate progress toward key goals, Heathfield says.Besides bonuses and cash rewards, other common incentives include extra days off, VIP parking, uniquely designed T-shirts, and hard-to-get tickets to popular sporting and cultural events. But like free lunches, these and other perks are most effective when they’re offered as part of a structured incentive program designed to align employee actions with a business objective. Research has found that such employee incentive programs clearly raise employee performance. 2“An incentive program isn't just a matter of throwing money at people,” notes Chad Tisonik, a practice leader at risk advisory firm HNI.
“While employees might respond to this in the short-term, it won't have a long-term impact on changing employee behavior. Effective programs take careful design to be successful in rooting out the negative behaviors that hurt the company culture and morale.” 3Incentive Programs: More Than Just RewardsWhen companies offer incentives merely as rewards for completing tasks, they fail to truly alter employee behaviors, agrees Jurgen Appelo, author of the books Managing for Happiness and Management 3.0. Appelo offers this anecdote: “In a Soviet nail factory, leaders wanted to improve the performance of workers. When they paid workers for the total weight of nails produced, all nails became bigger. When they paid workers for the number of nails produced, all nails became smaller.” 4Many businesses have first-hand experience with incentive schemes that send employees off on a tangent, or even backfire.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, Appelo says, given that most managers use rewards incorrectly. To be truly effective, he observes, employee incentive programs need to follow these five rules:1. Don't promise rewards in advance. Instead, give them at unexpected times, so that employees remain focused on the task at hand and not on earning the reward.2. Keep incentives small. A manager can’t always prevent staffers from anticipating a reward, but that won’t significantly misdirect their behavior, as long as the reward is small relative to their overall compensation.3. Reward continuously, not just once.
Incentive Referral Program
Every day can be a day to celebrate something. Such acknowledgements make workers feel valued and boost morale.4. Reward publicly, not privately. All employees should know what work is appreciated and why.5. Reward behaviors as well as outcomes.
To bring about lasting changes, companies need to encourage new behaviors. They can achieve outcomes through shortcuts, but it takes hard work and persistent effort to alter employee behaviors.In line with those guidelines, Julie Feece, Vice President for North America at RPG Card Services, a provider of corporate gift card programs, recommends keeping incentive programs simple, so that they are easily understood by the employees they’re intended to motivate and kept well within their reach.Try Diversifying Rewards in Incentive ProgramsFeece also suggests offering a wide variety of incentives for employees to choose from.
“One of the most common mistakes with incentive programs is trying to use the same incentive for all people,” she says. “If the offered reward doesn’t appeal to a certain person, he might not be motivated to earn it.” 5There are three simple ways to diversify incentives, according to Skyler Rogers, a content marketing specialist with YouEarnedIt, a developer of an employee engagement and performance platform: 61.
Offer more than just monetary rewards. Adding perks such as spa days and restaurant meals makes an incentive program more effective, Rogers says.
Recent studies find that the combination of cash and non-cash rewards do more to motivate employees and encourage new behaviors than solely offering one or the other. Add variety by offering incentive options such as gift cards for local businesses, charitable donations, or the ability to pool individual rewards for a team experience—like an outing to a rock concert. Since many factors affect employee motivation, a company’s incentives should reflect that fact, Rogers says.3. Tie rewards to spontaneous recognition. Rogers calls recognition “a power tool” when it comes to boosting employee motivation and encouraging new behaviors. And unlike a trophy or pre-determined bonus, spontaneous recognition for great work isn’t something an employee can anticipate.