At CloudSponge, We are passionate about peer-to-peer sharing.
It’s the central focus behind all our products and we truly believe that proactive ‘sharing’ – be it knowledge, love or, goodwill – can not only make the world a better place but also help it grow to no bounds.
For us, 2021 was all about seeing our customers grow and succeed. So we decided to share the best of everything we can offer:
If you missed out on some of it – here are the highlights:
1. We Shared Our Knowledge:
Different sections of our team got together to combine, and compile nearly a decade’s worth of expertise and experience – helping and observing our best customers grow using the power of word-of-mouth – into a variety of content consumables that all of our followers (regardless of size or industry) can benefit from. Here’s what we did:
a) 3 Step DIY Workbook: For anyone that wishes to improve their sharing numbers but don’t know where to begin – this is the perfect place to start:
https://www.cloudsponge.com/better-sharing/e-commerce/workbook/
This DIY workbook helps you audit your current sharing interface – using a simple but key metric to evaluate and improve your site’s word-of-mouth performance. It’s the simplest and fastest way to identify aspects of your customer’s sharing experience that can benefit with a little more attention.
b) Podcasts: For our e-commerce followers that are happy with their current sharing numbers but would like to learn about everything we know about referral marketing – Our CEO, Jay Gibb, did a podcast tour for the better half of 2021 to take listeners through his 16 years of helping websites grow and improve their word-of-mouth outreach. See the full list here: https://www.cloudsponge.com/blog/category/podcasts/
Each podcast is packed with anecdotal evidence from our clients such as Morning Brew, JustFab, GoFundMe, and Reebok to name a few.
2. We Shared Improved Metrics:
One of the most requested features of our best-selling product – The Universal Contact Picker – was the visibility of post-process analytics. So we went ahead and got it done. (along with several other improvements)
The Better Sharing Analytics dashboard was introduced as a free upgrade for all of our users this year. It offers a one-stop overview of how a sharing interface is performing for marketing, and engineering teams to improve the customer’s sharing experience on your website.
The dashboard includes a a variety of reporting tools, filters, and charts so you can drill down or visualise the information you need. It’s equipped to tell you everything your team needs to double down on what’s working and single out what’s not. Providing insight into not just how much users shared about you – but more importantly, how much more they could!
3. We Shared Our Revenue:
A first this year for us has also been the introduction of our Partner’s Program:
https://www.cloudsponge.com/partner-program/
Powered by FirstPromoter – the program enables absolutely anyone who has access to people that could benefit from using our product – to share, drive signups, and earn an early (passive-income) retirement via our uncapped commission payouts of 20% per customer – per month!
We even offer free support to promote your partner link – either via collaborating on content, running a campaign or pushing the word out – one way or the other.
We want our customers to succeed. And we are willing to go the extra mile for absolutely anyone who makes that possible.
4. We Shared A New WordPress Plugin for FREE!:
Being laser-focused on our customer’s success – We went back to the drawing board on the contact picker and closely evaluated the start point of peer-to-peer sharing on a typical website.
Here’s what we learnt: Good Sharing Experience = More Sharing .
Users are motivated to share with others for a variety of reasons – rewards, recognition, beliefs – but how much they actually end up sharing is determined only by the simplicity and intuitiveness of the site’s sharing interface.
An intuitive interface and a simplified sharing process are the pillars of a good sharing experience. And a good sharing experience is the key element to grow your word-of-mouth outreach.
Equipped with this lesson – our engineering team went through several rounds of design iterations (and thousands of cups of caffeine) to create the Better Sharing Plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-sharing/
A centralized sharing system that hosts all of your favorite sharing channels in a single, clean, and easily accessible user interface.
Built from the ground up – it bakes preloaded sharing messages in your social media buttons, allows personalization in emails that are proven to improve open rates, and simplifies the sharing process to a central custom URL. It even integrates with our beloved Contact Picker with a few mouse clicks.
5. We Shared Our Expertise:
The best part about having our Contact Picker installed on your website is the evident spike in your outreach as your customers end up sending out at least 2x the number of referrals because it’s faster and more intuitive to select contacts from a preferred address book as opposed to having to type each one manually.
The not-so-fun part however – is the process to get your site’s credibility verified by Google – the one address book you definitely want to have in your list of address books, to choose from.
To be fair – it’s a straightforward process but one that could seem convoluted and challenging for first-timers. Thankfully, it’s the opposite for us.
Having done this repeatedly for a number of clients in the last decade, and basically keeping up to date with every major/minor change in the Google OAuth verification process – our customer success team has become somewhat of a reluctant expert at getting it right the very first time. Essentially cutting down weeks of trial and error into a couple of stress-free days.
Your personal ‘ Setup Concierge ‘ will take care of every aspect of the verification process (including the creation of a video that’s required to complete the process!), while also making sure it stays up and running for as long as you use it.
The service is definitely worth every penny of the $499 we charge for it – However, in the spirit of sharing – we have changed it to be free for all of our new customers in the year 2021- and up until the March of 2022.
So don’t keep sweating over it and pass on the torch to us:
https://www.cloudsponge.com/setup-concierge/
Looking Forward
As we wrap up an eventful year and take cognizance of what’s to come – we feel excited at the prospect of collaboration, creation, and sustenance of the world we wish to see, and are trying to create.
A world that shares – not just because it’s beneficial to do so, not just because social media and meme culture have habituated us to – but because sharing is beautiful.
It fulfils and enriches. And it’s the very essence of what makes us human.
