Referrals can help you grow your business — if you know how to use them.
How Low-Cost Referral Incentive Program Can Skyrocket B2B Sales
Feeling uninspired as you notice yet another failed campaign. Clueless on ideas & looking for ways to get quality leads. Imagine you are in the midst of zillion other things that must get done.
You see, it can be daunting with no clear strategy to increase sales revenue. Moreover, you are nowhere near your big goals.
Short on time, low social media engagement & your content doesn’t deliver. The overwhelm freezes you!
But you can opt for a simple & cost-effective way to drive conversions for your brand.
Do you find it puzzling as a jigsaw puzzle?
Cash in on your existing customers. And better yet, reach out to social media influencers. Opt for referral campaigns with exciting incentives and a give-and-take approach.
In a recent survey, influencer marketing has grown to approximately $13.8 Billion in 2021. In the same vein, influencer marketing has also risen by leaps & bounds over the years and offers the best ROI.
You can’t deny the striking popularity of social media in our day-to-day lives. We reach out to our favorite Instagram stars. Twitter personalities, and YouTubers. Either for advice & product recommendations.
Successful referral campaigns create trust & endorse brand ambassadors. You’d want to share your stories with the audience on their networks.
As a marketer, discern ways to profit from customer referral incentive programs. Also, leverage influencer marketing that suits your B2B audience. Explore key options to expand your network. Bring in, new customers.
In this article, you’ll know how to structure the referral incentive program. That can help you pinpoint your target audience. You’ll find best practices & examples. Discover ways to give referral rewards that boost sales.
Now you can relate to why referral incentive strategy is vital to growing your business. Refine it to bolster your brand’s referral incentive program.
5 Influencer Marketing Benefits To Boost Referral Sales
Influencers have a large following online & enjoy high trust levels from their audience. Note five reasons why you could consider influencer marketing for your referral program.
Raise Brand Awareness
Focus on areas of new possibilities leads to brand promotion. That way, you can usher in growth for your business & increase brand value.
Boost Conversion Rates
User-generated content is the best way to drive traffic from an influencer’s network. Raise your conversion rates to 70%.
According to Bazaarvoice, for 84% of millennials, UGC plays an important role. Without a doubt in their purchasing decisions.
Increase Customer Lifetime Value
It is the topmost revenue earned from your customer. Observe that customer engagement levels rise on many platforms, products, or brands. An attractive method to gain customers among startups.
Lower Customer Acquisition Costs
It is the cost of gaining new customers. Referral leads & sign-ups usually gravitate towards sales. A cost-effective way to gain B2B prospects & grow your business.
Lower Churn Rate
You’ll notice a 37% higher retention rate for customers who refer than others. So you can lower the percentage of people leaving your company (churn rate). Instead, gain high-quality B2B referral leads.
HOW TO CREATE A B2B REFERRAL INCENTIVE PROGRAM
Irrespective of your approach to incentivize your B2B referral program. You’ll realize whether you opt for experts in your industry or existing customers. The end result remains the same.
Influencer Marketing
A few helpful tips for building a successful B2B influencer marketing strategy. Leads to increased website traffic & referral sales.
- Spell out the goal of your B2B referral incentive program. Set clear goals to promote a new product range, target, or a new user group. Likewise, to share brand values with an influencer’s audience.
- You’ve got to keep aside a fixed budget. For brand promotion & advertising costs. Apart from research & analysis. Tools also include software for content creation.
- Choose the channel where you already have some presence & an active audience. Find influencers or brand advocates on social networks. Use your employee reach for better results.
- Identify influencers that your audience trust, value, or follow.
- Look for B2B influencers in your niche. Aside from popular social media sites. Note they have influenced your clients with their groundbreaking ideas.
- Analyze influencer’s social profile content type. Ensure it resonates with your brand. Nurture influencer relationships so you can work together. So they get to know your products or services well enough.
- Create great content to tempt potential influencers. Even collaborate with you.
- Hand over creative freedom to influencers. That lends to broadcasting your brand in a unique way to their audience. Don’t be afraid to experiment to ensure original & insightful content. Discover creative ways to market that content.
- Use an automated referral program to track & follow up influencer marketing campaigns.
For Customers
- You can create meaningful relationships with your loyal users. Weave in methods to motivate your customer. Rack up new referral prospects. So they broadcast it amongst their peers & acquaintances. Most often, it is a tried & tested strategy to bring in new customers.
- Be sure to create a simple & easy to share refer-a-friend referral program. Try to use a few clicks or steps. Ensures your customer takes part. Referral incentives have proven to upsurge customer engagement.
- Use different marketing channels to promote your referral incentive program. Prospects can detect it without a hassle. Ensure it is shareable on social media, email, blog posts, or from your homepage.
- Get your referral program automated. Now that helps in tracking unique referral codes of the customers who get referred.
5 BEST PRACTICES FOR B2B REFERRAL INCENTIVE PROGRAM
Why will anyone talk & market your brand for free? Again rarely, so if you can give away something valuable for their efforts. That way, it is without any extra strain on your marketing budget.
Research shows 71% of marketers raised their influencer marketing budgets during this year.
There are some practical ideas to incentivize influencers. Try to apply them for your next referral incentive program.
- Sponsor influencers to attend an event can be a cost-effective referral incentive program. Giveaway free or discounted virtual event passes can be an option. But in exchange for spreading the word about your brand. Either on social media or other marketing channels.
- Gift them pre-launch product features. So they can refer to their network & bring in new sign-ups.
- Give discounts on products & services to influencers. You’d want to partner with from your industry. You have an edge over your competitors. Influencers recommend your brand to their followers a set couple of times.
- Giveaways or Freebies of your products or services are exciting. Motivates audiences to gain more referrals. Also, their family & friends would sign up for the freebies. Here is an example of Dropbox increasing its user count from 100000 to 400000. That adds up to offering free storage space of up to 16 GB.
Use influencers in your brand video. Apart from this, you can opt for a video marketing campaign. Best for promoting your products or services.
B2B REFERRAL EXAMPLES
Usually, you’d consider a referral program successful when there are sales. But you can have a multi-objective referral program with several checkpoints. Optimized for smaller goals during the buyer’s journey. That’ll keep the advocate & referred customer engaged & rewarded.
You don’t skip to set milestones to reward referral prospects early on in the campaign. That increases the chance of the referred customers to start & end the sales process.
How DigitalOcean Uses Multi-Objective Referral Program
DigitalOcean offers cloud computing services to startups & SMBs that help with IT solutions. With the help of a scalable management tool. DigitalOcean refer and earn program is about earning free credits. When it customers share it with friends & colleagues.
Note that when the referred prospect adds a valid payment method. Then new customer receives $ 100 & a 60-day credit. But if the referred customer spends 25$. The customer also gets 25$ credited to their DigitalOcean account.
How does it work
Most B2B businesses have a long sales cycle, a multi-objective referral program. The key is to keep your advocates & referral customers committed.
DigitalOcean won’t ask the customers to refer their friends to increase conversions. Instead, they ask customers for referral sign-ups followed by adding a valid payment. Then reward referred customers to tempt them to engage with the product long enough. So they understand the value of the product or service subscribed to. Soon that drives them to earn extra rewards.
When you set small attainable objectives at the start of the buyer’s journey:
Your existing customers would hasten to refer. The task is simple & doable (referral sign-ups). That entices them to earn their reward.
Referral leads enter the sales funnel. Discern that the ask (free trial) is not buying the service first hand.
The goal here is to create a valuable long-term relationship with the prospect. Moreover, the customers gravitate to kick off the sales process to get a hold of the reward.
A referral campaign works when the new customer uses your service. Customers can use it without any difficulty in everyday business routines or processes. Note this is applicable for subscription-based or on-demand-based businesses.
DigitalOcean offers customers 12 months for the usage of promotional credits. After which, it is no longer valid. That encourages customers to use their sign-up credits. Also, focus on their developmental goals. Guided customers to share details on how they’re using DigitalOcean in their business.
Hence ensures continued business. Yet, acquiring new customers at a low cost.
DigitalOcean uses the credits to: :
- Fund open source projects
- Incentivize first-time customers to use the product
- Reward customers who refer friends
A win-win situation for both!
Result:
Since launching the DigitalOcean referral program in 2012. They have granted over $30 million in credit to their customers & community.
Since DigitalOcean rewards their customers who refer. So they are more likely to share positive reviews & their business soared. Note that this happens when customers have a direct advantage from the brand in the form of a reward.
This results in a low churn rate and more upsell opportunities for their business.
How To Use B2B Referrals To Support Small Business Owners
Bench Accounting provides automated booking services to small business owners. As well as they have real bookkeepers to keep a tab on your finances.
How does this work
You opt for Bench Accounting’s Refer-a-friend referral program. Then you’ll get your unique referral link. Later you can share it within your network via email, social media, or text message to earn referrals.
If someone you refer sign-up then they get a free month of bookkeeping. When the prospect turns into a customer, they’ll get an extra month of bookkeeping. But your referral becomes a client. Not only do you receive a $150 Visa gift card but also a free month of bookkeeping.
It’s exciting to note that every customer can send unlimited referrals. For every customer, that translates to enjoying free booking services. Meanwhile, they keep the referrals or sign-ups coming!
Bench’s referral incentive program is purpose-driven. They understand the client’s concerns of being cash strapped. Especially true during these difficult times.
Are your clients sold out on your “why”? When sending out referrals to champion other small businesses. They can identify with your bigger cause for the community. Also, they’re bound to do so. The referral program has customers hooked as they get rewards for every referral.
Bench does make a convincing case with testimonials of past & existing clients.
Gift cards are a better alternative to cash as an incentive. Customers gain from convenience, flexibility, and instant gratification. Further, they tend to stand out as rewards & are memorable.
A free month of booking service can be an opportunity to show the value of their service. It buys them time to prove their ability. Hence build long-term relationships with new clients.
Yet, you’ve got to check if the referral revenue exceeds customer acquisition costs. That results in positive ROI for your business.
Results
Bench Accounting was able to secure over $136.5M in funding. With the exclusive referral program for its clients. Bench’s refer-a-friend program is successful.
Because they persuaded clients to spread the word & that is for a larger community purpose for them to do so. Made it easy for them by giving their clients tools. So they can use many channels to get the message across to prospects in their network.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
B2B Referral campaign is a cost-effective way to spread the word about your business. It is a powerful strategy as you tap into the potential of people. Customers have already invested in your business. Both influencer marketing and client advocacy are successful ways to boost B2B sales.
Buy into the best option based on business goals for your next referral campaign. Not only is a B2B referral incentive program helpful to grow your business. You can use it to get new customers & as a retention tactic.
Note without worrying about huge marketing expenses. You can build referral programs that can keep your customers engaged. So either you’d use it as a retention tactic or partner with the right influencers.
You can decide the right referral incentive program that is a perfect fit for your brand. Based on finding ways to increase brand exposure, referral sales, or customer retention.
Don’t hesitate to try different growth strategies. At the same time, use referral campaigns that suit your budget. If you play it right, you could cut down on customer churn & promote upsell opportunities. As well as reward customer loyalty for continued business
Check out Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles’ this week’s roundup post at Coffee Times!
