Member Best Practices

Tips & Tricks for optimizing your member experience

Updated over a week ago

Solutions to Optimize Your Member Experience

Problem: Members are not Joining the Referral Program

You have an amazing referral program but people don't seem to be joining it. How come?! By making registration easy and reminding your audience about your great referral program, you'll start to see a trend of new Members joining.

1. Use One Click Access (OCA) to Make Registration Easier

  • How to Implement? Settings > Integrations or click here
    OCA allows Members to skip the Registration Page entirely. This is completed when the referral program has access to name and email information from an external email marketing software (like Mailchimp) or when Members access a link to your program behind a website login portal.

  • Why?
    Make it easy for your Members to participate in your referral program by skipping manual registration steps, such as filling out a form. This ensures the Member can get to their sharing dashboard as soon as possible.

3. Include a "Join Now" button on the Company Website

  • How to Implement? Click on your program to open the program view. Copy the Program URL and place it behind a button on your website.

  • Why?
    Your target Member audience is likely already visiting your company website. Adding your referral program to places where people are currently spending time makes the journey for Members easier and more straightforward.

4. Integrate your Referral Program into your existing Marketing Channels

  • How to Implement? Various
    Depending on which marketing channels you are currently using, it may be as simple as adding a link to your program's Registration Page

  • Why?
    The most successful referral programs are promoting to their target Member audience often. This doesn't mean flooding email inboxes. Think of the channels in which you are already communicating with your audience (examples in the image below), and get creative with both direct and indirect strategies for how to integrate the referral program into those channels.

Problem: Lack of Continuous Participation in Referral Program

Do you have a lot of Members who have joined the referral program but don't seem to be actively participating? This is a common problem and usually means that some additional promotion of your program is required. Before reading the tips below, make sure that you have incorporated your referral program into your existing marketing channels/touch points (see above).

1. Utilize Monthly Member Email

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Emails)
    Enable and update the Monthly Email in the Emails & Notifications section of the Program Editor.

  • Why?
    Members might have forgotten about the referral program. An automatic monthly reminder re-engages Members without any effort required.

2. Add a Tiered Reward System

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Reward Rules)
    Create tiered rewards by adding multiple reward rules, and using the Additional Options > Number of Referrals Tier section to set when the rewards will be issued.

  • Why?
    Adding rewards that are achievable only after a certain number of referrals pushes Members to share more for higher-value rewards.

3. Game-ify the Referral Program via Competition and Leaderboards

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Emails & Notifications), Email Campaigns
    Customize emails to create competitions or leaderboards and reward accordingly using the data from Referral Rock.

  • Why?
    Competitions and leaderboards will increase sharing for Members wanting the top spot and the grand prize.

Problem: Members are not using the Social and Email Sharing options

You can see that Members are joining and logging in, but they aren't using the share buttons on their dashboard to spread the word. Here are some suggestions to boost Member sharing from the dashboard.

1. Activate Social Media Sharing Buttons

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Share)
    Check out the “Share Buttons” option on the right side of the Member page on the Program Editor.

  • Why?
    Understanding which sharing methods your Members are most likely to use ensures that options are available for them to share with their networks.

2. Utilize Pre-Built Messages for Social and Email

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Share)
    Insert personal language from the Member's perspective in social posts and emails so they can quickly share without needing to think about what to say.

  • Why?
    Members dedicate time, effort, and energy to joining, participating, and sharing a referral program. Make one of these steps easier for Members and they will reciprocate by sharing more.

3. Re-engage with Members Using Email Campaigns

  • How to Implement? Referral Rock Dashboard > Members > Email Campaigns or click here.
    Write personalized emails and segment the audience to target Members who require re-engagement.

  • Why?
    Members may forget they joined a referral program, or just need a reminder to share with their friends. Email campaigns assist with targeting those Members who need an extra push to participate.

4. Ensure the Incentive is desirable to Members

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Reward Rules) & Settings > Payouts or click here
    Understand what your audience wants, and change the rewards accordingly in Referral Rock.

  • Why?
    Members deserve awesome rewards for their efforts. Incentives that motivate the audience will bring about more participation.

Problem: Spike in Questions Related to the Referral Program

If you are getting a lot of questions from your Members related to your referral program, it might mean that it's time to update your Registration and Member pages so that clear instructions are being provided.

1. Clarify Directions for Sharing on the Dashboard

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Member)
    Add directions and clarification to the Member page of the Program Editor. Members will spend the majority of their time on this page sharing.

  • Why?
    The Member Dashboard is meant to be used as the central hub for Members to get information about the referral program. If there is no instruction, Members could be confused by the lack of direction, which will result in asking questions!

2. Make Incentive Direct and Clear

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Member)
    Include the reward details clearly on the Member Page of the Program Editor.

  • Why?
    Questions could be coming from Members surrounding their incentive. If it's not immediately clear the What?, How? and When? of the referral incentive, bring it to the forefront of the Registration and Member pages. Members join referral programs to earn rewards so this should be very straightforward for them.

3. Add FAQs to the Terms & Conditions Section

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Portal) > Terms
    Other than Terms & Conditions, add a list of commonly asked questions to the top of this section and change the link name to "FAQs and Terms".

  • Why?
    Instead of crowding your Registration Page and Member Dashboard with a list of instructions, utilize the Terms & Conditions section to house FAQs that your Members may have.

Problem: Imported Members are Not Engaging with the Platform

Some of our customers choose to Import their Members before launching their program. We don't typically recommend doing this, as it usually results in a list of Members who are not active participants in your program.

1. Re-engage Members via Email Campaigns

  • How to Implement? Referral Rock Dashboard > Members > Email Campaigns or click here
    Begin writing a re-engagement campaign, and narrow down what Members will receive by using Member Segments to target those who have not been sharing.

  • Why?
    Especially if the Member was auto-registered, they may not remember the program or the incentive. Remind them of your program and encourage them to share.

Problem: Low Open/Click Rate for Member Emails

A healthy email marketing open rate is between 25-40%, so what do you do if your referral emails fall below that threshold?

1. Brand Emails with Email Templates

  • How to Implement? Settings > Branding > Email or click here
    Customize an email template to align your brand with Referral Rock emails.

  • Why?
    Aligning email designs inside Referral Rock with those from your company helps ensure that emails are trustworthy to Members. Outlook for Desktop may render emails with HTML incorrectly.

    Note: If you have an audience that tends to use the desktop version of Outlook, you may want to refrain from using templates with your emails. Instead, add your company logo using the Add Image button inside the email editor.

2. Insert Merge Tags for More Personalized Messages

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Emails)
    Using the email editor, on the right side of each email it’s possible to add a number of personalized merge tags by clicking on the blue links.

  • Why?
    Personalized email addresses create trust and engagement with Members by ensuring that the email does not come across as SPAM or from a strange source.

3. Update Email Subject Lines from Automated Emails

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Emails)
    Update appropriate subject lines in the email editor for each email enabled.

  • Why?
    Subject lines are the first line Members will read in an email. Ensure that the subject lines contain relevant eye-catching information to increase open rates.

4. Change the Sending Domain of Emails

  • How to Implement? Settings > Branding > Advanced Email or click here
    Update the sending domain for the email settings according to the instructions on Referral Rock.

  • Why?
    Using a sending domain that is familiar to your brand and audience will increase the open rate of your emails.

Note: Sending emails from your custom domain is available on our Professional Plus and Engage Plus plans.

Problem: Want to monitor the Members who join the Referral Program

While we typically recommend leaving registration for your referral program open to anyone who wants to participate, sometimes that's not always appropriate. For example, if you are running an affiliate program.

1. Consider Enabling Request Registration (or Closed Registration) for Member Access

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (select the gear icon at the top right)
    Enabling the Request Registration setting allows an Administrator to determine who is accepted or denied into a referral program. You can also add a list of Members who are pre-approved so they can immediately participate upon registering.

  • Why?
    The Registration Process setting allows direct monitoring of who may or may not join the referral program.

2. Monitor New Members through Notification Emails

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Emails) > Member Added email
    Add your Administrator’s email address under the “Custom Event Emails” in the email editor for the “Added Member” message.

  • Why?
    Enabling email notifications allows close monitoring of who is joining the referral program, without having to log into Referral Rock.

Problem: Noticing Higher Rate of Unsubscribes in Emails

Sometimes, Members may choose to unsubscribe to your referral program emails. While this is their right and you can expect a few Members to choose this option, if you notice a large number of Members are unsubscribing it may be due to the setup of your emails themselves.

1. Update Sending Domain of Emails

  • How to Implement? Settings > Branding > Email / Advanced Email
    Change your sending domain, From Name, and From Email Address (reply-to) to reflect that the emails being sent are from your company.

  • Why?
    If a Member recognizes where an email is from, they are less likely to unsubscribe.

Note: Sending emails from your custom domain is available on our Professional Plus and Engage Plus plans.

3. Use Language Familiar to Members and Product

  • How to Implement? Program Editor (Emails)
    Update the language in the email editor for the emails that are being sent from Referral Rock in the Program Editor.

  • Why?
    If the verbiage of an email doesn't fit your company's brand, Members may be distrustful of the source and unsubscribe.

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