Email marketing has proved its worth when it comes to attracting and acquiring new customers in a more cost-effective way as compared to other marketing channels. It is not only easy to send but also generates impressive results, and thus, email marketing is widely used for referral programs as well. It is vital to boost referral programs for your marketing campaigns for a steady flow of lead generation. Therefore, we have listed four different types of email marketing campaigns to increase referrals for your business.
1. Create more “Refer a Friend” emails
Using an existing list of customers to attract new customers is the digital version of word of mouth, which can never go wrong. With the ‘Refer a Friend’ option, your customers can share your marketing messages with like-minded people, and you can make sure that your message reaches the right target audience. ‘Refer a Friend’ referral strategy with the existing email list can be a great way to generate new leads and boost your marketing campaign. But to make such referral marketing programs successful, you need to make an incentive offer to the existing subscribers as well as the new contacts. Also, make sure that your referral emails are easy to use because your customers will not spend much time referring to their friends.
2. Spot and encourage important subscribers to make referrals
Not all the contacts in your email list have the potential to bring business to your organization. It is your responsibility to figure out and mark those prospects and customers who are more active and influential. It would also help if you generated an engaging conversation with those contacts to make them aware of your solutions, services, and current, new, and upcoming products so that they can make referrals. Actively engaged customers can bring more responses from referral emails.
3. Create a contest to encourage referrals
Contests make marketing more exciting, and you can use this interesting promotional method to encourage referrals. Creating contests for your email list with the gateway to enter the competition will boost your email marketing campaigns. Make the contest relevant and straightforward so that your contacts can connect and relate to it and will want to fill out the referral form to refer to their friends, family members, or acquaintances.
You also need to ensure that the prize of the contest is relevant not only to the contacts’ needs and preferences, but also to the brand. Once you get the contact of the new referrals, send them welcome emails to inform them that they are receiving your emails because their friend referred them to your business since they may be interested in your services and products. Enlighten them about your company and the products and the benefits of subscribing to your brand. Don’t forget to declare the result at the end!
4. Create and offer useful content for download to referrals
Content plays an enormous role in marketing, and it can even work wonders in crafting referral programs. You can create informative downloadable content such as whitepapers, eBooks, case studies, infographics, and more that your subscribers or customers will want to download. By adding a form to be filled in before downloading, you will get the contact details of those who download your content. You can use that contact information to send them an email asking them to refer to the content they have downloaded to their friends, who may also find the guide useful.
You can also encourage them to share the content by offering exclusive coupon codes, vouchers, additional loyalty points, or a free download.
These email marketing campaigns will help you boost your referral programs, but don’t forget to send follow-up emails reminding your customers about the referral programs and their benefits.
