Are you looking for one article that has everything that you need to know about Referral Rock? Well you've come to the right spot! Whether you're a brand new user, someone trying to optimize their account, or you're just looking around, this article goes into great detail on the who, what and how of Referral Rock.

Let's start from the beginning...

Referral Marketing is when you promote your products or services to new customers by using the influence of your existing network (customers, partners, etc.). Referral marketing is founded on the idea of word of mouth marketing but is a more proactive and scalable way to generate new customers.

Before you setup your referral program, it is important that you understand the components behind managing the Referral Rock platform. Review the Admin Navigation article to understand the different areas of your Referral Rock account.

Referral Rock is a full referral marketing software, which means there are multiple components that make up your Referral Rock Account. When you are building out your referral program, you will be focused on two different experiences: The Member Experience and the Referral Experience.

In the next section, we will go over the important things to consider and some best practices when building out each of these experiences.

The Program Editor is where you will build out the Member and Referral experiences, including the logic for rewards and the automated emails Referral Rock sends.

In order to gain participants for your referral program it’s important to build the Member experience throughout your customer journey and across your various marketing touch points. Make sure the Member experience is as straightforward and as seamless as possible. The easier it is for your Members to engage with your referral program, the more likely they are to join and continue sharing with their networks.

Referral Rock lets you integrate your referral program across all of your customer channels and touchpoints including your website, email marketing system, online portal/account page, and much more.

Once you have identified your target Member audience, you should have a plan in place for getting them registered for your program in the easiest way possible.

The default registration path for any referral program is the Registration Page, but we also offer options to auto-enroll members through a One-Click-Access URL (email marketing) or iFrame (on website).

If you have a .CSV file of your potential members, you may use our Invite campaign option to import the list directly into Referral Rock. Then, create an email requesting their membership to your referral program.

Make it easy for your members to access your referral program by placing it where they already interact with your brand, like your website. This is possible by using our Member Access integration options:

Once a Member joins your program, they will gain access to their personal sharing dashboard (built out in the Member Portal) which hosts social media and email easy-share options. Make it simple for members to share by providing them with pre-drafted social, email, and SMS messaging (formatted on the Share page of the program editor).

Here are a few tips when it comes to these pre-drafted sharing messages:

Once a Member shares and their Referral takes the desired action, they'll get rewarded based on the reward rules and criteria you define.

See the Reward section below for how to set this up within Referral Rock.

Now that you have developed a plan for attracting new Members, you will want to focus on the design of your referral experience. For most of your new leads/referrals, this will be the first time they will interact with your business and brand. Make sure that you start the relationship on a good foot by giving off a great first impression!

After a Member shares your business with their networks (through the sharing options on their Member Dashboard), the new leads will start to discover your company and brand. This will drive the new Referral to your Referral Page where they will hopefully take your desired action (i.e. make a purchase, complete a lead form, etc.).

The Referral Page is sometimes the very first interaction that a new Referral will have with your business and brand. Make sure that you start the relationship with a great first impression!

Your Referral Page should include:

Once you’ve set up how you’ll motivate new referrals to take action, you need to capture their information and so that you can credit the referring Member. Referral Rock has many options for automating how we capture new leads, associate them with the correct member, and then update their status to match your sales process. Depending on your particular workflow and systems, we can recommend the best integration option for you from the options below:

If your sales process involves multiple steps, you will likely want to update your referrals' status as they reach those sales milestones.
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Referral Rock allows you to put referrals into four different statuses, which we use to line up with your sales workflow. The four statuses are Pending, Qualified, Approved and Denied.
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For example, a referral may fill out a lead capture form and then receive a demonstration from a sales person, followed by their decision to make a purchase.
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The flow in Referral Rock for this example sales process would look something like this:

Lead Capture form filled out = Pending Referral

Demonstration given by sales team = Qualified Referral

Decision to purchase/not purchase = Approved/Denied Referral

We want to automate this process as much as possible, so we have several integrations options to update a referral's status automatically (Of course, you can always manually update a status from the Referral Rock dashboard):

Referral Rock gives you control to customize your referral rewards based on an advanced set of rules and triggers. Not only does this allow you to map your rewards to events in your sales process (see above), but allows you to determine when, what, and how the reward is fulfilled.

When a triggering event occurs, like a request for a quote or a completed sale, Referral Rock will run though your reward rules to confirm that all of your reward qualifications were met before issuing a reward. Reward rules allow you to specify things like what referral status triggers a reward, what the reward amount will be, if there is a minimum or maximum purchase amount to receive a reward, and if you want tiered rewards.

Referral Rock offers many different types of reward payouts including over 100 gift card options, PayPal, discount coupons, and API/credit based rewards. If the reward happens online, we can automatically fulfill and distribute it for you. If the reward happens offline, we’ll provide you with the tools to easily manage your rewards. You simply set the reward criteria and we’ll take care of the rest!

Now that your program is designed and integrated, it’s time to launch and increase engagement.

Once you have setup your ideal referral workflow, it's time to promote it to your desired Members! Don't expect your program to go viral overnight. Successful referral programs are the result of well thought out promotion plans.

Create an outreach strategy for your referral program by including it in as many customer touchpoints as possible. Examples include:

Remember, you want to have a good mixture of both DIRECT and INDIRECT strategies for asking new Members to join your program. The diagram below shows the difference between a direct and indirect promotion strategy.

Here are some more great resources for building out a successful launch and promotion plan for your program:

As discussed above, it's important to keep your Members engaged and coming back to your referral program. This way they’ll continue to share and ultimately, you'll get more referrals!

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Increase Engagement

And don't forget, we are here to help! Reach out to our Success team if you have any questions about the general setup and maintenance of your Referral Rock account!