4 Types of Email Marketing Campaigns to Boost Referrals for Your Business

Attracting and acquiring new customers is the cornerstone of any business, regardless of the size and type of business. But, maintaining a steady flow of lead generation can be challenging as well. That’s why many organizations use referral campaigns and the jumpstart referral programs, many brands turn to email marketing. After all, emails are not only easy to send, but they get results. As per survey findings by McKinsey, email is considered as 40x more effective in acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.

Email marketing channel allows marketers to acquire new customers more cost-effectively than using other marketing channels as well as to enhance referrals. We have used and now recommend you these four actionable and effective techniques to leverage email marketing to boost referrals:

1. Create more “Refer a Friend” emails

Use an existing list of customers to attract new customers comers. At that, a proven effective “Refer a Friend” referral strategy to generate new leads to the email list. To make a referral marketing program successful, marketers need to make an incentive offer to existing subscribers as well as new contacts. Also, when marketers are creating referral emails, they need to see that those referral emails are easy to use so that the referral process appears easy to perform. Make sure the incentive offered to existing customers must be memorable and enticing for them to encourage them to act on the offer. MarketingCharts researchers have proven that about 42% of customers respond positively to dollar-off coupons, sizeable percentage-off (such as 50% off) coupons, etc On the other hand, incentives coupon offer for new customers can be either the same or a bit lesser such as $5 off coupon.

A referral program can be a smart technique to generate new customers in large numbers, but marketers need to analyze which leads are more valuable.

2. Spot and encourage important subscribers to make referrals

An email list can be full of prospects and customers, but some of them can be more active and influential that they can entice other customers. However, every customer and prospect in your email list must be asked to interact with & engage  with the brand so customers will be more aware of the solutions, services, current, new and upcoming products and also build some form of commitment with the brand.

Marketers can mine their existing email list and simply ask those contacts to make referrals. Since the contacts are most actively engaged with the brand, marketers can get more responses from emails that ask contacts to make referrals and this email referral technique is proven to be more targeted and effective than the common refer-a-friend program. 

3. Create a contest to encourage referrals

Contests are a great way to add a new life to the email list and the gateway to enter the contest will be asking for referrals. One of the best platforms to hold such contests is social media company pages. The contest must be relevant and simply that your contacts will be able to connect and relate to that they will want to fill out the referral form and refer their friends, family members or acquaintances. To help you enhance the effectiveness of these contests, we have outlined a few tips below: 

• Marketers need to see that the prize of the contest is relevant to the contacts’ needs and preferences as well as the brand. Giving away gift cards to use during purchase or sample products can be highly valuable prizes.
• Marketers need to make sure that they send welcome emails to new referrals to welcome them heartily and tell them about the company and the products. Remind those new referrals they are receiving your emails after their friend has referred them to your business and because that friend has informed that new contacts might be interested in the products or the services you sell. Along with introducing their friend or the source, also talk about the benefits of subscribing with the brand to give them more to start engaging with your brand. 
• If running a contest seems time-consuming, then, it is best to resort to a third-party tool that can alleviate the workload. Tools such as Rafflecopter, Woobox can help you reduce manual by creating contests and managing those for a monthly fee.
• As soon as the contents will be over, you need to communicate with all the contest participants to inform them about the contest results and give every contest some value so that they will be back to participate in the contest, such as a limited coupon code, no matter whether they have won or lost. 

4. Create and offer useful content for download to referrals 

One of the best ways to multiply the number of referrals is to create a top-quality content for download that they want to use for addressing and resolving their problems, getting tips and ideas. The most popular types of content get downloaded are whitepaper, eBook, case studies, infographics, etc., that offer in-depth information and tips. When gated these pieces of content with a small form asking web visitors and subscribers to fill the form with their names and email addresses before gaining the link to download the content. After a day or two the content is downloaded, send those subscribers an email to refer the content they have downloaded to their friends who will find the guide useful too. You can also encourage them to share the content by offering exclusive coupon codes, vouchers, additional loyalty points or a free download.

Many organizations skip the step of sending subscribers reminder emails to refer to their friends and they end up losing the prospect of collecting referrals and losing on business as a whole. Also, you should never forget to remind existing subscribers of the special coupons or benefits they earn by referring their friends to your business. Because a small number of subscribers make referrals, so it is imperative to continue sending follow-up emails to subscribers to encourage them to refer to their contacts eventually.