Building and launching a referral program can feel like an overwhelming series of tasks. Depending on your program's setup, you may need to rely on other teams or wait for other priority projects to be completed in order to get marketing materials or integrations setup.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, or want to launch ASAP before focusing on optimization, there are a few ways to fast-track your program's launch and still produce a great referral program.
Use the following tips in order to build & launch your referral program quickly using the Program Editor.
Tips for Launching Faster:
Tip #1: Use Our Hosted Landing Page
While you can redirect to your own website as your referral destination*, in doing so you will need to configure Conversion Tracking. This is not a complicated integration, but often requires assistance from your web development team. Since web developers are very busy, integrating with your website may slow launch time.
Instead, avoid delays by building a referral page using our Hosted Landing Page.
Learn more about our Hosted Landing Page and reference our Referral Page Best Practices for tips on how to build a great referral page.
*The referral destination is where referrals will be directed to once they click on a member's referral URL or share post.
Tip #2: Send an Invite Email Campaign (Inside of Referral Rock)
If you don't have access to your 3rd party email platform, or you're waiting on the person who sends your marketing emails, don't delay your launch! You can still launch your referral program using Referral Rock's Invite Email Campaign feature.
Import a CSV into Referral Rock and use our email editor to create and send a great email inviting people to join your referral program.
Tip #3: Use the Standalone Member Portal Experience
Another popular integration with Referral Rock is embedding the member share experience (or entire Member Portal) on your website or app. Similar to the webpage redirect option above, embedding the share experience often requires developer assistance, which takes time.
The great news is, by default, the Member Portal is a standalone webpage experience. Once someone clicks on the registration link in their Invite Email, they will be led to the full Member Portal experience on their browser.
Therefore, don't delay your program launch while you wait to embed the share experience with your website. It's a nice to have, but not a "must have" for launch.
Tip #4: Delay Payout Funding
Are you waiting for approval or assistance to fund your payout accounts?
While it is important to create your reward rule logic to determine how and when someone earns a reward, it is not necessary to setup the payout accounts prior to launching your referral program.
Payout accounts do not need to be funded until rewards are ready to be issued. Since the process of getting new referrals often takes time, go ahead and launch while you wait for your CFO, controller, accounting team, or other payout funding assistance.
Tip #5: Turn Off Non-Essential Program Emails
Each program comes with a set of event-based emails which are automatically sent as members and/or referrals reach certain milestones. These emails can be turned on/off based on your personal preferences, with the exception of the Password Reset email.
Since designing emails can take time, for a faster launch, we recommend only keeping ON the following emails:
Registration Email
Registration Reminder
Approved Referral
Form Confirmation
This email is for the referral once they complete the form on your referral page.
Don't Forget to Test your Program
Activate
Once you are ready to set your program live, Activate it on the Launch page of the Program Editor.
Activating your referral program will create the public URLs for your Registration, Login and Password Reset pages.
Test
Before launching your referral program, be sure to test the entire referral journey.
Reference our Testing Before Launch article to properly test your referral program.
Once you complete testing, make any necessary edits and get ready to launch!