Whether you’re looking to gain more newsletter subscribers, grow a referral program, or generate donations, you can leverage your audience’s existing contacts to help spread the word.
When you’ve built trust with your customers, have a valuable product or service, and make sharing a no-brainer, there’s no limit to how many new customers you can bring in.
Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to grow your business. Keep reading to learn four specific ways you can get the word out about your marketing initiatives at scale.
1. Identify influential users with mobile analytics and encourage app shares
Use mobile analytics to discover key insights about user behavior, preferences, and social interactions. Highlight your most engaged and influential users and label them as “SuperFans.”
(Hint: These are users who use your app a lot, spend money on your app, and have shared your solution with others in the past.)
Target your SuperFans with personalized marketing campaigns and incentives.
Encourage them to share your app with their friends and followers by email and social media in exchange for a gift. For example, Stitch Fix offers its customers a $25 credit for referrals. When a referral buys something, Stitch Fix adds the credit to the referrer’s account.
You can also track the effectiveness of your referral programs and social sharing features by uncovering which activities contribute to user acquisition and engagement.
For example, online banks offering financial services to young adults may discover that Instagram Reels and TikTok videos spark the most engagement and conversions when reviewing their mobile analytics.
When customers share their positive experiences on Instagram or Facebook, their friends and followers feel encouraged to try the banks out for themselves.
Reviewing mobile analytics can also help them discover what content topics their audience finds most valuable. By understanding their audience’s financial topic interests — such as private student loans or budgeting — they can create valuable content that further engages users and encourages sharing.
2. Ask new customers to document their experiences with your solution on social media
Give new customers a discount on their purchases in exchange for documenting their experiences with their social media audiences. This helps you generate user content at scale so you can attract your users’ networks and stock up on social proof.
Get inspired by Henry Meds. The brand’s first-time customers document their experiences using its semaglutide sublingual drops and injections on Facebook and Instagram.
Its new customers also share comprehensive information about how to use the product, its benefits, and pricing options. They also answer their audience’s specific questions in the comments.
This approach creates brand ambassadors, stimulates referrals, and takes some of the pressure off sales teams.
And speaking of brand ambassadors…
3. Partner with influencers
One of the best ways to leverage your users’ networks is by partnering with micro-influencers with a dedicated and engaged following. These influencers often have more authentic interactions with their audiences, making their recommendations highly effective.
For example, StudioSuits, a men’s clothing brand, partnered with fashion micro-influencer Mauro Littera to promote its latest collection of comfortable seersucker suits. By leveraging Mauro’s genuine connection with his followers, StudioSuits showcases its products to a highly targeted audience, increasing brand awareness and encouraging higher conversion rates.
This collaboration highlights the brand’s stylish and comfortable seersucker suits as a valuable product and reinforces its reputation for quality and style.
Most importantly, it helps the brand build trust with a wider audience base.
4. Use a contact picker to encourage bulk sharing
Give your customers simple tools they can use to share your brand with people they know.
For example, you can make bulk contact sharing easy for your customers by using a contact picker.
A contact picker gives your customers the option to share your offers, promos, and programs with all (or some) of the people in their address book. And since contact information is never saved on disk, your customers can share contacts securely.
Here are some examples of when you could integrate a contact picker to encourage your user base to share their contacts:
Newsletter sign up
When a customer signs up for your newsletter, they can use the contact picker to easily share the sign-up link with friends and family from their address book, increasing your subscriber base. You can also add a call to action (CTA) in each newsletter or during specific email campaigns to encourage existing subscribers to share it with their friends and colleagues.
Referral program
A customer can use the contact picker to invite their friends to do business with you and take advantage of your incentivized referral program. This can expand your user base quickly through trusted recommendations.
Get inspired by Wise’s smooth referral experience, which encourages more peer-to-peer money transfers.
Product sharing
If a customer buys a product they love, they can use the contact picker to share the product link with multiple contacts. This can help spread the word about your product and encourage more sales.
*Pro-Tip: Keep the CTA for item sharing noticeable so shoppers don’t miss it.
Membership/community sign up
When joining a membership or community, customers can use the contact picker to invite friends to join as well, helping to grow your community quickly and easily.
Consider providing incentives for recommending a member, such as a discount on membership or a free download to a helpful (and relevant) member resource.
Promo share
When you run a promotional campaign, customers can use the contact picker to share promo codes or special offers with their contacts, increasing your promo’s reach and effectiveness.
Consider encouraging virality by offering extra discounts for each customer who buys after they share your promo.
For example:
- Get 10% off your next order when one of your referrals uses the promo code
- Get 15% off your next order when two referrals use the promo code
- Get 20% off your next order when three referrals use the promo code
- Get 25% off your next order when four referrals use the promo code
- Get 30% off your next order when five referrals use the promo code
- Get 50% off your next order when six or more referrals use the promo code
Invitation share
When hosting an event, customers can use the contact picker to send event invitations to their contacts, encouraging a wider audience. More invitations sent out can encourage higher event attendance, creating greater buzz and potential for media coverage.
Get inspired by Greenvelope’s UX practices, which help make the email invitation process smooth and painless.
Survey distribution
After a customer completes a satisfaction survey, they can use the contact picker to send the survey link to friends. This broadens the range of feedback you receive, providing more comprehensive data for improving products or services.
Course or workshop invitations
After a participant takes your online course or attends one of your workshops, they can use the contact picker to invite friends and colleagues to enroll in the next session. This can boost attendees and help you launch a more profitable course.
Donation requests
For fundraising efforts, customers can use the contact picker to send donation requests to their entire address book, helping you reach more potential donors.
Consider offering an entry to win a prize to donors who share your fundraiser with their contacts. For instance, enter them in a drawing to win a luxury vacation. Take this tip up a notch by allowing unlimited entries (one entry for every donation referral).
Get inspired by GoFundMe’s CloudSponge widget, which helps fundraisers easily share their causes via email.
Wrap up
Working smarter is the motto for 2024 and beyond.
And one of the best ways to do so is by leveraging your customer base’s network for referrals and better marketing outcomes.
When you’ve built trust with a customer, there’s no limit to how many people they’ll share your brand experience with. They’ll happily share your newsletters, promo codes, and event invitations with people they know. They’ll tell people about your latest product line and encourage their friends to join your community.
That’s why it’s so important to incentivize and ASK existing customers to share your offers and brand with their networks.
The easiest way to do that is with CloudSponge’s Contact Picker. In fact, our customers usually see double the number of referrals by adding our contact picker to their referral forms.
Sign up today to see how it works.
That’s it for now.
Here’s to your success!
