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This is a continuation of an article in advertising+marketing magazine in Malaysia and also completes a previous post, where I covered two guaranteed ways to increase the ROI of a digital marketing campaign.

Guarantee #3:  Implement an automated referral program

I really like this one because it can be implemented quickly, easily and cheaply. And once set up, it can run completely on auto-pilot.

The approach works like this:

Whenever someone completes the task we set out for them in our campaign or successfully completes a conversion action, we simply ask them to refer one or more friends who would also enjoy what we have to offer in exchange for an “ethical bribe”. We like requesting the names and email address of three friends in exchange for the ethical bribe, but feel free to test what works best for your offer.

The ethical bribe can take any number of forms. For example, it could be a free download such as a PDF file, evoucher or nifty software application. Or perhaps access to a useful audio or video. Although we don’t have to use digital means like these to deliver the ethical bribe, it sure makes it cheap, quick and easy to deploy. Plus it’s easy to track and measure results. Of course, we can even split test which ethical bribes perform the best.

The email that we send to referred friends is not about closing a sale. This is because we don’t yet have a relationship with these people. What we want to do is offer the referred friends some useful, free content that solves a problem, saves time or money, relieves pain, etc. In this way, we can begin developing a relationship with them that we can nurture over time.

Furthermore, by using an approach like this, we are sure to avoid the perception by referred friends that our messaging is SPAM. This is because we are adding value by providing something useful at no charge and with no further obligation required from them.

An automated referral program like this is sure to bring in more qualified leads and ultimately, more sales in the long run without significantly increasing our marketing cost. In many cases, a program like this can be run at virtually no additional cost because the brand may already have the ethical bribe for referrers and the incentive for referred friends available in-house.

Jeff Zweig
Chief Guru, Web Guru Asia
Performance-Based Digital Marketing

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