• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Dyspatch

  • Products
      • Overview
      • No-code email builder
      • Email collaboration
      • Interactive email
      • Template localization
      • Expert services
      • Overview

      By use case

      • Product reviews
      • Surveys
      • Add to cart
      • Calendar booking
      • Product carousel
      • Interactive polls
      • View all

      By vertical

      • SaaS
      • Ecommerce
      • Fintech
      • Travel
      • Healthcare
      • On-demand services
      Sendwithus Logo
      • Overview
      • Analytics
      • A/B testing
      • Triggered emails
  • Pricing
  • Case studies
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Product shorts
    • Webinars
    • White papers
    • Ebooks, guides, & reports
  • Company
    • About us
    • Careers
    • Contact us
  • Login
    • Dyspatch
    • Sendwithus
Get a demo

Let’s Talk About Your Referral Program

By Dyspatch | May 29, 2015 | Categories: Email Marketing
⏱ 3 minute read

Referral programs don’t seem to suffer the same overcrowding effects as most other messaging. Giving a user multiple opportunities (within reason) to like, share, review, or refer others can only ever increase engagement.

Of course, user engagement can drop-off over time, but this effect holds out longer than you expect and probably a lot longer than it should. That’s why we should always be experimenting.

Referral Prompts are Additive

This was the first of the three cardinal lessons of a referral program I picked up in conversation with Ivan Kirigin – who you may know from his work on the Dropbox referral program – while we were working on the latest chapter of our “How to Send Email Like a Startup” guide.

What does that mean? Mostly, it means that you can drop in little plugs for your referral program – or just nudges to share – in lots of different places. Sometimes they need some convincing that you’re worth sharing, sometimes you just need to catch them at the right time.

Look For Easy Wins

With all the articles out there on all the advanced methods you can employ to make your emails and referral programs work at optimal efficiency, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. This is especially true for early-stage businesses without a lot of people-hours available.

I recently received a great example from Instacart. They pop this banner at the bottom of all of their marketing emails. What’s that you say? Why yes, you’re absolutely right – they should put it in their transactional emails, too.

referral_instacart

This goes back to lesson 1: these simple little shoutouts add up over time. They don’t have to be fancy – if you have a graphic, just slap it on and move on with your life. You can revisit it later to dig in on testing and optimizing; for the moment, though, this is a great start.

Get the Timing Right

As a customer spends more and more time with your product, they are more likely to be able to give more in-depth feedback to you and more appropriate referrals to their network. That doesn’t mean your referral program should ignore new users, but as a customer’s buy-in grows, so can the demands of your referral program.

A great example of this is sending review prompts. Grubhub does an excellent job of timing their order review emails.

review_grubhub

GrubHub sends some fantastic emails. For the example above, I ordered some Thai food for dinner and received this prompt to review it the following afternoon. One thing this screen-cap doesn’t show is the totally straight-forward subject line: “How Was Your Order From Thai Lagoon?” They don’t try and trick you into opening the email.

The cool thing about that flow is that it’s gently funneling you into a share by leading with something that improves your own experience and the experience of other users of the app, then closes with a quick “share this review.” Once you’ve completed writing a thoughtful review, sharing is actually a much simpler request, by comparison.

Dyspatch

      Related Posts

    • WEBINAR Mailgun and Dyspatch Help Developers and Marketers Find Middle Ground
    • 12 Proven Ways to Use Email for Customer Retention and Loyalty
    • WEBINAR Pulling the Trigger on Transactional Email
    Share this post:
    • Facebook
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • Linkedin
    LET’S CHAT!

    Why wait? Take your email marketing to the next level today.

    Get a demo

    737 Fort Street,
    Victoria, BC
    V8W 1G9
    Canada

    • Phone 1-877-458-9231
    • Email us@dyspatch.io
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • YouTube

    Get the latest email strategies, tips, and trends right to your inbox.

    About Dyspatch

    • About us
    • Careers
    • Contact us
    • Pricing
    • Press & Media

    Features

    • Dyspatch overview
    • No-code email builder
    • Email collaboration
    • Email template localization
    • Apps in Email overview
    • Expert Services
    • Sendwithus Overview

    Email resources

    • Blog
    • Dyspatch product shorts
    • Webinars
    • White papers
    • Ebooks Guides & Reports
    • HTML email templates
    • Knowledge base
    • Email production glossary

    Integrations

    • Integrations overview
    • Email builder for Braze
    • Email builder for Iterable
    • Email builder for Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    • Email builder for Pardot
    • Email builder for SendGrid
    • Email builder for Marketo
    • Email builder for HubSpot
    • Email builder for Oracle Eloqua

    Dyspatch respectfully acknowledges the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ People, whose unceded territories we live and work on. We would also like to express our gratitude to all of the Coast Salish people as we continue to work and live as guests on their lands.

    We recognize that acts of colonization created many inequities for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people. As a company, we acknowledge that we have a responsibility to work towards reconciliation and to remain open to suggestions and consultations, especially with Indigenous communities.

    Privacy policy    |    Terms of service    |    Web accessibility    |    Cookie policy    |    Usage    |    Sitemap

    Copyright © 2022 Techdrop Labs Inc. All Rights Reserved.

    Get a quote

    Get a demo

    Features & Functionality
     StarterTeamsTeams+
    Universal styling
    Drag and drop email builder
    Custom code editor
    Custom fonts
    Device specific elements
    Version history
    Social media link settings
    Commenting
    Live previews
    Dark mode previews
    Litmus testing
    Custom merge fields
    Image hosting
    Brand & legal compliance guardrails
    User role permissions
    ESP logic
    Code Export
    AMP Email Support
    Approval Workflows
    API Access
    User Management
    Translation (via Smartling)