Category: EarlyParrot

Running a B2B business is demanding, there are no doubts about that. In these markets relationships with your clients are very crucial, you have fewer clients than in the B2C market but each of them disposes of quite the sum of money. In other words, it is good to create loyalty and a solid bond with your clients. 

One way to do this is referral marketing and delivering a program to your clients. Is it worth doing so? According to this report, referrals influence more than 90% of B2B decisions. Consider this to be a yes.

Getting started, how does referral marketing work in B2B, and why is it wise for you to sign up for an EarlyParrot account for this? We will tell you!

B2B vs B2C referrals

Before we jump into the sea of referrals’ pros, let’s focus for a while on the differences between B2B and B2C. It is important to know how these two differ.

	B2B referrals	B2C referrals
Audience	Smaller	Bigger
Main focus	Creating a long time relationship  Boosting awareness Staggered purchasing decisions Sharing knowledge about product and industry Coming up with new solutions  Managing risks	Products or services Short-time purchasing decision Brands’ USPs and image Emotions
Mediums	Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook	YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Types of content	Product pages Blog posts Webinars Ebooks Whitepapers	Videos Social media posts Apps

As the above tab presents, there are some differences between these two referral types, so even if you run a B2C referral program, you should gain some info about B2B ones. These are not the same. 

One of the main differences between them is the length of purchasing decisions – on the B2C they can take even minutes, and they apply to one person. On the B2B market, such decisions are long, complex processes with various people and stages at different departments involved. 

The next issue here is the main focus of each type. When it comes to B2B referral, they aim to build a bond and share knowledge about products, so clients come back to them to get some more. With B2B referrals, it is also common to manage risks and present new, tailored solutions rather than offer regular products. 

Another big difference between these two is a way of communication. First, we go with the medium, individuals are influenced and use different platforms than business clients, so you should adapt to this habit. Moreover, preferable content types differ too. With business clients, you should focus on longer forms, fulfilled with information and knowledge. To individuals, it is better to send short, casual messages.

Why do you need an EarlyParrot driven referral program?

According to Harvard Business Review, more than 80% of B2B sales start with a referral. This statistic shows that recommendations in business are crucial too. What’s more?

Let’s start from the very beginning. If you want to create a referral program, you should do it with EarlyParrot. The process is very simple and takes up to 15 minutes. Once you get it done and integrate our tool with your daily use apps or tools, you can create the program and benefit from it. OK, but what are the benefits of B2B referrals, though?

#1 You can follow the progress

As you have read above, in the B2B market it is crucial to make your leads high-quality, i.e. make the relationship long-term. Referred customers show 15 times longer LTV than non-referred, this shows how quality they can be. 

EarlyParrot lets you track the referrals – when did they shop for the last time, what did they buy, and who referred them. All the information you need is right at your fingertips with our tool, so you will be able to tailor the communication or do a follow-up if needed in order to make a bond with them. The better designed the messages, the better (and longer) perspectives are in front of you and your customer base. 

#2 You can vary channels

The tab above shows that various content types and mediums need to be used for B2B and B2C referrals to be successful. The good news is that with EarlyParrot you can use various channels from Facebook to WhatsApp. You can even design a Telegram message. What you need to think about is that every social platform has its character limits, so while designing the message keep this fact in mind and do not go all the way. Social media are mostly dedicated to short updates.

Besides, each channel has various demands. For example, if you want to design social media messages you can surely do it by yourself, but when it comes to writing blog posts or ebooks you should have it done for you. It is important for such longer forms to be written by professionals who know how to write interesting and insightful pieces (if you can do it, go for it). Of course, this content has to be fulfilled with industry insights, so you should provide some background in order to make these pieces informative and useful. 

#3 You can make it a useful part of your app portfolio

It is crucial for the new app or tool to be easily integrated with the programs you use on a daily basis. Your apps and tools would be more useful if they were integrated into a coherent whole. EarlyParrot can be integrated with lots of popular tools like 

• Typeform,
• Mailchimp,
• Autopilot, 
• AWeber,
• Shopify, 
• WordPress,
• Magento,
• and many more.

Furthermore, the integration process won’t take you long, and you don’t have to be an IT pro or have an IT department to do it. It is very easy, and the tool indicates what to do and what should happen next. 

#4 You can use it both for SaaS companies and eCommerce

We provided two articles about these topics – how EarlyParrot can help SaaS businesses and eCommerce, so we won’t dwell on these topics for long. EarlyParrot can be integrated into both with CMS like WordPress or Joomla and eCommerce providers like Shopify and WooCommerce. 

For both industries, it is a great idea to use referrals, especially if they operate in the B2B market. Creating a loyal customer base and strengthening bonds is profitable for both these industries, no matter what type of products or services they offer.  

Top practises for B2B referral programs

Creating a program is just a first step, to make it useful you have to take care of a few aspects. Here are our tips & tricks on using the whole power of referrals. If you want to learn more about this topic, feel free to visit our blog. You will find there many useful pieces regarding referral marketing and more. But now, let’s get back to the topic – B2B referral best practices. 

Make the lead form as clear as possible

While a B2B client is trying to sign up, sometimes asking about too much information can scare them off. You do not have to know everything about them. Once they start to be your clients, there will be time to get to know each other better and ask for more details. 

What such a form should include:

• Referrer name/company’s name
• Email address
• Phone number
• Lead/company name 

This is it. The above information is the most crucial and needed to start operation. Everything beyond that is unnecessary and can wait. 

Keep terms and conditions simple

For every B2B client, it is crucial to get to know all terms and conditions of the cooperation. An individual simply clicking “I agree” without opening the file is a very common situation, but with B2B clients it is completely different. Be aware that while B2B referrals, there may be some questions, and you need to face them. 

To limit them, you should first provide the “Terms and conditions” file in a visible way and make it easy to download. Moreover, it should be done in a simple and informative language. If any questions occur, you should also provide a way to address them.

Inform your loyal customers

If you are about to start your first referral program, you have to make some noise about it. Before you launch a referral campaign, you should send emails to your regular customers (all you have to do is to choose the right EarlyParrot template) to let them convince their business partners or industry colleagues that your offer is the best. In the B2B market, where much money is at the stage, time matters a lot. Nobody will decide spontaneously about issues that may cost the company thousands or millions of dollars. 

Also, from the referrers’ perspective, they need time to think whether it would be profitable for them (and you need time to convince them that it surely would be). As a recap, what is very important when it comes to cooperation between business partners is time, and you should keep this in mind. 

Make it personal

In the B2B market, you don’t have as many clients as in the B2C, so it would be easier to personalize the experience. Make the referral client feel special. Besides the personalized communication that is a must nowadays, you should make a special offer just for them. Every business has different needs, and it is your job to meet them. 

By personalizing their referral experience, you show them that it was the right decision to choose your company, and you are worth the recommendation, so they would recommend you, too. It is a simple way to broaden your customer base and improve your brand image.

Conclusion

Partnering with B2B clients through referral marketing is a great way to improve your relationships and company’s image. Without a doubt, thanks to the recommendations of your regular customers, you would be able to expand your customer base and be more recognizable in the industry. 

We hope that thanks to our article, you will find EarlyParrot useful on your referral way and want to explore this world with our tool. Moreover, we are sure that with our few tips you would rock the industry with your referral program.

Today, running an eCommerce platform is no easy task. 

Several companies are vying for the same market share. Your main objective should be to stand out and make your business shine, but that’s easier said than done, right?

You probably know that your customers are getting more demanding, and it is your job to meet those demands. In the ever-evolving digital world, providing a great user experience has never been more necessary. Over 90% of consumers are willing to switch companies after only one bad experience. Since this is a very challenging environment, yet if you want to succeed, you must cope with it and remain competitive. 

This may be hard without a proper guidance, so we’ve prepared some tips for you 

6 tips to support your eCommerce performance

In this post we’ll address a list of eCommerce hacks. Here are a few tips on how to maximize your eCommerce efforts. Here’s a secret! The majority of the ideas can be addressed by EarlyParrot. How about we get started?

#1 Get to know your customers better

Before taking any business step, you should establish the type of audience for which your offer is intended. It dictates your company’s whole journey in the future. What is the best place to begin? The target audience of your eCommerce business should be understood in terms of its characteristics, needs, and preferences. By doing so, you will be able to tailor not only the offer, but also the way you communicate and market. 

What is the best way to reach them? You won’t find it as difficult as you thought. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best, so keep asking your audience for what they expect! Give customers a chance to provide feedback on their shopping experience. The market and their preferences change constantly, so follow what are the bestsellers and what your existing customer base is interested in. Customer satisfaction would increase and new potential customers could be targeted with a more tailored offer. 

#2 Reward your clients

It is a given that people enjoy receiving rewards. 

However, you need to find a golden mean here: don’t offer rewards to everyone, because then rewards would seem less enticing. 

As well, you should figure out how to best manage such a system. When you want to reward many clients, then things can get complicated. 

Here’s where EarlyParrot can help.

It would take you minutes to make your own referral program using EarlyParrot. It’s a very straightforward process.

You will be able to recognize your brand ambassadors and reward them accordingly with such a referral campaign. In the meantime, let’s recap how referrals work. In essence, once you have designed your program, you can invite your entire email list and wait for them to join. The individuals who sign up for your program receive their own unique referral link once they become interested in it. After successful referral, both the new client and the referring party may receive rewards. You decide on the rules and referral types, just make sure you explain them clearly to everyone involved. Clearly determine what constitutes a successful referral, such as whether the user has to comply with registration requirements, fill out a shopping cart, and complete the checkout process. Recognition and appreciation of the most active users can also be beneficial. Following them on EarlyParrot will allow you to reward them accordingly.

#3 Keep clients in the loop

In simple terms, it means that you should inform your customer about any upcoming changes, drops, etc. Email marketing is a good solution here, set up a newsletter, let your customer base know what is going on with your brand. If you want to set a default email campaign regarding referrals, you can do it while designing a program with EarlyParrot. You can set up a “Thank you campaign”, “Welcome campaign” and many more. There is a message creator so you can customize them as you wish. Building (and using) your email list may become a game-changer for your eCommerce business, we write about this topic here. 

Speaking of communication, nowadays, social media platforms are a major channel to stay in touch with your target audience. Probably many of your loyal customers are following you on social media, so it is crucial to be active out there. It is also a way to reach your prospective customers and start their customer journey from the “like” on the Facebook page. Social media is also a perfect place to present product reviews or user-generated content as social proof that people love your items. 9/10 people say that authenticity is a crucial aspect while deciding which brand to support. In order to increase these factors, implement the above tips. 

#4 What about self-service?

As with the brick-and-mortar stores, you can provide a self-service with your online one. We don’t mean the sale process itself since it is self-service already. We talk about post-purchase activities.

To be even more specific, we mean customer service. In these situations, the client is at the mercy of the customer service agent. You can change it. Over 6 out of 10 U.S consumers prefer automated self customer service via mobile apps or websites. It means that it is a very influential factor in the whole customer experience. So how to provide such self-service? Over half of the consumers claims that lack of available information is the main issue while it comes to solving problems on their own. In other words, you should deliver information and let your customers know where to look. As an online retailer, you should provide a FAQ section and knowledge base. These two should be done precisely and involve all questions and issues that may occur. Both sections should also be updated over time. A chatbot is also a good idea, but choosing the right provider and setting it up can take some time. 

Moreover, you can consider your referral and affiliate partners as your customer agents for special tasks! During recommendations they can answer questions and dispel all the doubts. It helps you save time and lower the number of queries for your customer team.

Providing self-service doesn’t mean you should resign from customer service representatives and fire your whole customer support team. There are some issues that couldn’t be solved without a living human being and besides, some people just prefer a personal consultation over looking for the answers on your website. You may also provide an online chat for people who prefer interaction with people but via the internet. This way you will deliver excellent customer service and offer help for all types of your customers. 

#5 Make yourself known

Your eCommerce marketing strategy must include SEO, paid social and Google ads, in addition to a strong customer service policy. The importance of SEO for eCommerce businesses cannot be overstated, especially in such fierce competition. 

Most clients type into the search engine the product they wish to buy, then check the results that appear. Since these users are your potential customers, attracting them to your website is crucial for you. However, how can we do that if everyone in the industry is striving for the same result?

Enhancing SEO is a popular eCommerce marketing strategy. Thus, ensure that you are using content marketing and brand referral links (we already mentioned that EarlyParrot makes it easy). Additionally, you should review your website copy. If you are focusing on search engine optimization, inquire about customer testimonials on Google and have your loyal customers contribute. Online reviews are another form of social proof that establishes your trustworthiness. 

You can also boost your business performance by setting up Google Ads. It is worth trying them since 90% of consumers agree that they can influence their purchase choices. You should have a long lasting impact on the purchase decisions of your customers in order to keep them coming back to your online store. You can help it by using SEO and paid advertising, on top of other solutions we have already mentioned.

#6 Measure and optimize – also with EarlyParrot

Running a business means that you should keep your finger on the pulse constantly especially when it comes to all the most important indicators. This means checking ROI, retention, abandonment rate, etc. 

These factors are all crucial for success. You can track most of the KPIs in your Google Analytics account but if you want to dig deeper e.g. in your referral marketing programs performance, EarlyParrot can do that for you. Due to the comprehensive overview of each of your campaigns, you are able to make necessary adjustments. 

Moreover, always keep in mind this sequence for effective analytics:

1. Measure
2. Optimize
3. Repeat

Will it guarantee the success of your eCommerce business? No, but it will definitely help it stay on track with measurable results. 

Ready to conquer the eCommerce market?

Let’s make a short recap of what we have established so far. In order to provide the highest customer experience and stand out from the crowded market you should:

1. Recognize the needs and habits of your customers.
2. Be in touch with them.
3. Customer service should be available in many forms so that everyone can find something to suit their needs.
4. Be visible in the search engine.
5. Optimize your marketing and sales actions.

Once you cover these aspects you will see the difference and your customer will recognize and appreciate it too.

Fingers crossed for your online business!

Online/virtual meetings and events began to spring up like mushrooms as the world moved into remote and online mode. Since we are slowly getting back to “normal”, offline meetings are ready to come back, but that doesn’t mean online events are going to disappear. They have become a convenient way to meet with people, teach, and learn from anywhere in the world. Numerous business events have been held online, and plenty more will be in the future too. 

How to organise such an event and stand out from the crowd of online classes, webinars and virtual meetings? We have some ideas. To begin, let’s define what virtual events are. 

What is an online event?

As the name suggests, it is an event that takes place online. It gathers groups of people who may or may not have paid for an entrance fee in front of their laptops or mobiles to watch a broadcast over the internet. Such events can be hosted on a variety of platforms:

• dedicated ones like Zoom, LiveWebinar, or ClickMeeting, etc.
• social media like Instagram or Facebook (mostly live streams)

Moreover there is also the ability to broadcast your e.g. LiveWebinar meeting to Facebook.

Such virtual events could be conferences, online classes, webinars, or private live streams. Furthermore, if we focus on the term event, we can say that business fairs and employee training count too. 

This can all be summed up in the one sentence that a group of people meet online, using their digital devices to speak with and listen to one another. It may be a situation where everybody is allowed to talk and contribute a few words to the conversation, or only an invited expert is given a speaking role. 

One of the biggest advantages of such events is that they are relatively easy to organize. All you need is an electronic device,  an internet connection, and people who wish to participate or attend.

How to organise an online event?

Organising a physical event may involve lots of planning – a venue, guest list, food and drink, invites, the agenda, etc. The process is so much simpler with online events! You do not need to book a venue or choose a caterer. Nevertheless, there are a couple of issues worth discussing, which we will do below.

#1 What is your goal?

Setting goals determines the whole process. Why do you want to organise your event?  To gather a few specialists and let them share the knowledge, to present you business/offer, or promote new products? And an even more important question is what do you want to achieve? Here are some examples of such goals:

• Increase brand awareness
• Boost lead generation
• Promote a new product launch
• Present your brand on the new market
  

Determining your goal is the first step to organising a blockbuster event! You have probably heard about the SMART rule. It is a very common and simple principle, yet it is proven to work. According to this rule your goal should be:

• S for Specific – you have to be precise and clear about what you want to achieve (what, when, and who will be involved, etc.)
• M for Measurable – “how many” or “how much” questions are here to help you, this way it will be easier for you to follow the progress.
• A for Achievable – when setting goals you should keep both feet on the ground, otherwise it could be hard to achieve aims that are too ambitious.
• R for Relevant – on the other hand, your goals should be meaningful for your business, so they should bring (positive) change.
• T for Time bound – setting a time frame is crucial for achieving your goals and progress is crucial in order to consider them as achieved.

#2 Select the right type of the online event

Before you start organising, choose the event type. Here is a list of the most popular ones: 

• Webinars give you the opportunity to network with professionals around the world. By hosting a webinar, you can increase your brand recognition and expand your network in the virtual world. It is also a great way to present yourself as a professional and share your knowledge with others.

• Virtual conference – large gatherings can be hosted online without the need for costly venues or many staff, and this is the beauty of online events. They are official occasions during which you and the guests can talk about business-related issues and exchange your experience with one another.

• Live streaming allows you to meet with your audience in real-time, without the need to send loads of invitations in advance. Such events can be more spontaneous and less formal. Also, they are a great way to meet your followers and answer some questions or show them new products.

#3 Choose your fighter i.e. a platform

The software you choose is the online equivalent of a venue, but it is definitely easier to arrange. There are dozens of possibilities out there, you just have to choose your perfect tool. What element should you pay most attention to? For example, audio and video quality should be as high as possible. Moreover, take a glance at pricing options, sometimes one tool’s business plan can cover the same basic features as another’s standard plan. Also, it would be nice to use some advanced features to improve the comfort of the audience and their user experience, so do some research on what is offered and the pricing plans.

There are many popular platforms to choose from, but check out LiveWebinar if you want to offer amazing content directly from your browser (no need to install another app on your laptop). There are four pricing options (custom included), so simply choose the most suitable one for you and move to step four.

#4 Invite the speakers

If you want to invite a few experts, you should ask about their availability in advance. Each of them should be given limited time so they do not drag out the whole event. Of course, each of them should have an extra few minutes after speaking for little Q&A sessions. The guests you invite are making an investment of time to share their knowledge, which could raise audience engagement as well as present your brand as professional and well-positioned on the market. 

As you may have noticed, great speakers increase the quality of virtual events, so it is worth putting in a bit of effort to invite outstanding people from the industry to share their insights. Don’t forget about the formal aspects of such cooperation – contracts, terms, and payments should be covered at the very beginning of the discussion. Be professional about that. 

#5 Set the agenda

After you invite the speakers, you can create the schedule, which will be very helpful for promoting your online summit. All you have to do is to decide on the limited time span that each of your guests will have, then add a few minutes for Q&A sessions, and consider the order that they will speak in. Of course, as an organiser, you should start the event by saying a few words to introduce the guests and explain the reasons why you are all gathered there. If your online event is expected to last for a few hours, short breaks will be required too. 

By planning the schedule, you will be able to deliver your participants clear messages about what is coming and when. This will be useful information for people who can’t (or don’t want to) participate in the whole event. 

Speaking of the agenda, there is one more issue to cover – what time and day of the week is the best to organize an online event? It is clear that weekends are a big no if you are running business training. If you want to plan a hobby related event, like yoga classes or something like that, then the weekend may actually be a good choice though. But let’s get back to the business model – if you have plans to arrange a virtual summit for IT business owners or a webinar about improving skills then you should schedule it on a weekday. Wednesdays are said to be the best days, right in the middle of the week. Mondays are not the right choices because very often, everybody has tons of work to catch up on after the weekend and that may last until Tuesday. Thursdays and Fridays are the second half of the week, during which everybody is looking forward to the weekend and relaxing. So Wednesdays it is, when that is possible.

Now what time is the right time? It depends on the form of your event. If you want to organise workshops for a whole team, it would be great to gather them around their lunch break (11 am to 2 pm, say). This way your audience will be in a good mood and still have a fresh and open mind, ready to learn. If you want to arrange a webinar that people will attend privately, not as an employee of a given business, then early evening around 6 to 7 pm should be good. Also, when you are choosing the perfect date and time, remember about time zones if you are aiming to attract a global audience.

#6 Ready, set, promote!

You’ve got the theoretical plan so now it is time to work! You know who, what, and when so let people know about your event! What should you do first? Use your email list or social media platform to spread the news. Set up a Facebook or LinkedIn event and invite people to a page on which you present an online program, show the agenda and… ask people for help! If you want the potential audience to engage, use referrals! With the right referral marketing tool, you can give each of your participants links thanks to which their invited  friends and/or themselves will receive incentives like a coupon for your store or discount code for your next event. Thanks to referral marketing you will be able to acquire qualified leads, so it is an amazing option for creating bonds with potential clients. All you have to do is to create a referral program, and with EarlyParrot you can in a flash!

First, create an account, then choose your goal, and let the tool do the work for you. It indicates what step is next and what information is required. Once you have created a whole referral program, you can brand referral URLs and spread the news to your whole email list. Moreover, you can encourage the speakers to share referral links so that information about your event reaches a wider audience.

To sum up

Organising an online event can provide your users with a whole new and better user experience. As you will obtain a bundle of new leads, you can prove your expertise in your field and demonstrate your brand’s strong position in your niche. 

Moreover, you will likely rank higher in people’s minds and remain there longer by inviting some famous names to speak at your events.  This will also cause people to associate you with a willingness to share knowledge and experience.

If you want to arrange an online event, keep in mind this article. You can come back to it every time you are planning something new, use it to organise your work, and check what has been completed or what needs to be done before each event. 

Are you ready to conquer the online events market?

A crucial component of digital marketing is list building. You must use emails to reach a large audience and communicate with them regularly. More than 60% of consumers prefer this method of communication.  

Email marketing is a complex issue because it encompasses a variety of forms: cold emails, newsletters, and thank you messages, just to name a few. Ideally, they should be written in a way that makes the recipient feel appreciated. In order for the email to succeed, you have to think of a catchy subject, interesting content, and an encouraging CTA. 

The following tips provide a few guidelines on how to write a referral email.

It is highly likely that you think about job seeking or employer recommendations when you hear “referral email.”. Although these would be valid associations, we will discuss messages related to your referral program in this article. There are no hiring process tips here, only advice for writing successful referral messages. How about we get started?

What is a referral email?

Referral emails are sent to your customer base to keep them informed about your referral program. Your customers should receive messages that are tailored and personal to them. By doing so, you can strengthen your relationships with your clients and streamline the referral process. By using a referral email campaign, you can keep in touch with all your recipients and inform them of upcoming programs and changes. In addition, asking customers for their opinions or allowing them to choose is a great way to appreciate their commitment and engage them in the creation process.

Referral email templates are the best way to promote your program and tick all of the above boxes. How should it be done? With the right tool, of course!

How to write a successful referral email with EarlyParrot?

You can use our software to set up a referral program as well as design it. When creating the perfect referral letter, you need to consider factors such as:

• basic information about the campaign,]
• goals
• type of program
• reward information such as system, name, target, and referral link, etc.
• social media invitations

For now, let’s take a look at the last point – you can create invitations that appear on social media when the referrer shares a link. It is possible to create a social media message for any platform that you choose. There are a large number of popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter at your disposal. There are also messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to choose from. Make your message as clear as possible to encourage participation.

Let’s get back to emails now – we will guide you through the process of creating them with EarlyParrot. 

step one: fill in the “from” field

A clear sender ID is essential for the recipient to see the sender’s name and the source, i.e. their email address. When it comes to opening or rejecting a message, its source is often a deciding factor. Therefore, make sure the address looks legitimate and professional.

step two: select a referral template

EarlyParrot offers two templates: list building and online  summit. The trigger can also be set so that it occurs when you receive “X” referrals or each new one. Now it’s time to get creative.

step three: craft the message

By default, the system sends three types of emails, but you can add your own if you wish. There is a separate email editor that you can access after clicking the edit email button. There is a lot of flexibility here, such as adding images, buttons, and dividing your text into columns. Your email is ready once you submit the changes.

step four: all done, send it

Make sure all copy, images, and links are correct. Then it’s time to send your online referral letter to your satisfied customer. Complete your program, integrate with your provider’s app, and begin sending your messages automatically.

Now that you know how to design a referral message, it is time to learn a few hacks that will increase the success of your campaign.

Referral emails: best practices

While sending emails is part of the battle, getting leads from them is the true prize. How can you help ensure that happens? Our list below contains some ideas that you may find useful.

#1 Step into your client’s shoes

In other words, if you want to create an effective copy, you should understand your customers’ motivations for joining your program and purchasing your products. To have an impact on your communication, you need to observe what is important from their perspective. 

In order to understand your customers fully, you can simply ask them some questions and obtain their feedback. Consider using social media or sending a survey to accomplish this goal. By doing so, you will be able to learn about your customers’ behavioral patterns, motivation, and communicate with them more effectively, not only in terms of referral emails. 

#2 Keep it simple

You should avoid overloading your messages with information. Use short, simple sentences that are straight to the point. Unlike a business letter, a referral email does not require formal language and so you can use casual communication methods. Don’t forget to include all the essential information and additional details that may motivate your customers to join, such as a 5% extra discount for the first 50 participants. You should create a separate page dedicated to your program and link to it so that all the information a potential participant could need will be available right at their fingertips.

#3 Highlight two-sided benefits

It is important to emphasize that your referral program will benefit both potential clients and the referral sources. In this relationship, both sides must have a motivation for joining. A referral involves two parties – the referrer shares the link and encourages use, and the referee clicks and completes the desired action, like making a purchase, so both parties need to see the value. Make sure you deliver it.

#4 Focus on the subject

It should be engaging, but too much so-called click bait is annoying. In order to increase conversions, it is essential that the recipients open your messages (a higher open rate allows you to do that), but if they do not find what the title implies then they may be less likely to open future emails from you because they feel cheated. The title should be a gateway to a bigger promise. Make sure it is simple and that it conveys the right message. For a referral program this shouldn’t be too much hassle, since the incentive will be enough motivation to open the email and make a promise that can be kept.

#5 Make it personal 

Personalization is something we are all familiar with. As a result, personalized emails have higher open rates of up to 26%, but in today’s world adding a recipient’s name is not enough. It is also important to personalize the copy. 

A good reminder to be more active might look something like this:

Thank you for your recent successful referrals. We hope Josh and Anne enjoy being part of our community. 

Motivate them to continue taking action.

In addition, the signature needs to be personalized. You want the recipient to sense that the email came from an individual and not from a company.

Sign as follows:

Thank you for being with us!

Natalie from [the company’s name]

Rather than:

Thanks for your support!

[The company’s name]

There’s an air of informality and of face-to-face contact in the first example text. The smallest changes make the biggest impact.

#6 Call them to action loudly and clearly

The first step is to design the CTA. Ideally, the message should be inspiring and motivating; however, there is always a limit. You need to balance this aspect as you do not want to make the message sound like a command. Furthermore, if you place your CTA on on a button, the text shouldn’t be too long. A clear message must be communicated, and recipients must be aware of what to do. 

The next step is to place your message in a visible location. When using buttons, select the right colours (those that correspond to your brand) and position them appropriately. Make sure you link the CTA, otherwise it won’t work. 

#7 No hidden information or small print

Referrals must meet certain additional requirements in order to be successful. In your email, you should mention, for example, if the referred friend must spend $100 on a purchase to qualify for a discount. Both parties will lose trust if they are not aware of the terms and the promised discount turns out to be invalid.

The email should highlight any program limitations. Although there is an attached URL, most recipients will not necessarily click it if they are unaware of the conditions. 

#8 Play with content

How many times have you heard that content is king? Probably quite a few. This statement has been repeated for years for a simple reason: it is true. The more  interesting and high-quality the content, the higher the chances of conversion. 

Your email may still fail to convert even if it reaches your audience, but your content can turn that situation around 180 degrees if you handle it properly. Emails give you a lot of options to include images, videos, and gifts. One major rule is that your content should be high quality – pay attention to picture resolution, for example. Alternatively, you could design a classic invitation and send it as an attachment. Imagine how appreciated this gift would be by the recipients and how special they would feel. 

Be creative and try out different formats. You are only limited by your imagination!

To sum up 

An email campaign for referrals plays an important role in promoting your program. In addition, it keeps you on good terms with your recipients and avoids leaving them in the dark. Ideally, your referrers should be treated as your partners. Keep them updated and ask about their opinions. Your top performers should be recognized and rewarded accordingly. 

In all of these cases, email is necessary. With these tips, you will master this aspect and make emails a very effective channel, which is exactly what you want, right?

A brand ambassador campaign is a great way to make some noise about your company. Providing such a program can be a low-cost method to introduce your brand to more potential customers. 

To make the most of this marketing method, you should get to know what a brand ambassador program is exactly, who is a brand ambassador, and what are the types of such roles. We will cover all of these aspects in this article. 

Let’s spend a minute discussing the basis of your program before we get started. What is it and how does it work?  

What is a brand ambassador program?

Brand ambassador programs usually have one specific goal, such as increasing sales. To achieve the desired goal, ambassadors promote the brand or products among their followers. Promotion can be made on both online channels (e.g. social media) and offline (e.g. events). In order to increase the chances of success of the program, both channels are often used. Most brand ambassador programs invitation-only; the smaller the company, the more likely this is to be the case. As a result, it is much easier to reach a niche audience. Brand ambassadors are typically involved with brands for a long time, since a long-term relationship with a company is important in convincing consumers that the ambassador genuinely uses the brand’s products.

To start it right, you need to know who can be a potential brand ambassador. It could be a happy customer, an influencer, or even an employee. Furthermore, you should have a marketing plan before you go live with the program.

Why you should start an brand ambassador program

Brand ambassadors can do so much good for your company. They can provide a sense of community or simply improve your marketing communication. There are dozens of reasons why you should try such programs, so below are just a few. 

#1 Brand ambassadors take care of your content 

Most ambassadors use social media accounts as their main channel of communication with followers. They publish pieces of content related to your company and build brand awareness. 

They also post unique content like blog posts or online reviews, creating a buzz about you. Ambassadors can go the extra mile and interact with their followers. Moreover, they can motivate an active audience to provide user-generated content. This may be a great way to achieve your business goal, as almost 80% of people say that user-generated content highly influences their purchasing decisions.

#2 Brand ambassadors  expand a company’s reach

Content that you publish on your company’s social media profiles or website is only seen by its audience, but you can reach even twice as many people when you use brand ambassadors. This means you can reach a variety of people without retargeting. 

Even if an ambassador has a small audience, it still can be profitable for you. Their followers may not have heard of or been interested in your brand before, but they may become your future customers when they find out about it from their favorite blogger. Nevertheless, thanks to an ambassadors’ recommendation, the seed is sown and new, potential customers are on the horizon.

#3 Brand ambassadors provide you with constructive feedback

They use your products and know them inside and out, so they can be your brand’s biggest advocates but also harshest critics. It is very common that brand ambassadors are the first users of your products, so they can provide some information and help you improve items before their official launch. 

Keeping ambassadors in the feedback loop can prevent you from many common mistakes, which might be small but still significant for the end-users. This will help with improving your brand’s user experience. 

#4 Involving brand ambassadors is cost-effective 

Providing a brand ambassador program won’t burn a hole in your pocket, there are no hidden costs. You just need to find the right candidates, handle the communication, and establish the terms. You should focus on clarifying your demands – the types of social media content or blog posts, etc. Setting time frames and providing marketing materials are also crucial. Your ambassadors should have access to ready-made materials, otherwise it will be difficult for them to provide decent content.

Basically the main cost here is ambassador commission, but it could be part of a trade too. You need to set the financial aspects very clearly – there are many options to choose from like PPS, PPC, and more. 

To track ambassadors’ performance and have an overview of their work, you should install the right software. It will be a great help when it comes to monitoring your ambassador’s campaigns. EarlyParrot gives you access to them via its dashboard. Referral marketing is the main purpose of this tool, but it can also be used for ambassadors who are considered to be like such programs.

With this software, you can cover the following aspects of your program:

• quick and easy program design process
• communication with your ambassadors
• monitoring performance and key metrics of each ambassador and campaign
• quick redesigning your campaigns

You can implement this tool into your site in minutes; it works with most existing platforms and apps. Moreover, if you operate on a non-English speaking market, the good news is that EarlyParrot handles such languages as Greek, Spanish, Italian, German, and French. If you wish to try it out, there is a free trial available. 

How to create a brand ambassador program from scratch?

There are several stages of creating such a program. Below we will cover a few of the most important steps, but you should also consider such aspects as:

• Main and secondary marketing channels
• Tools that you and your ambassadors will need, 
• Plan to blend ambassador marketing into your overall strategy

Keep these three factors in mind while reading the guidelines below.  

Step 1: choose your goal

You have probably seen this step in many guides, but it is crucial for keeping your program on track. You must know what you want to achieve in order to set your requirements clearly and run a successful program. The most popular goals of brand ambassador campaigns are connected with:

• sales
• brand awareness and engagement
• leads
• customer retention and referral rate

Once you decide what you want to achieve, you can move onto the next step. 

Step 2: describe your ideal brand ambassador

It is a similar situation to the goal rule. You need to know what you want, otherwise it may be hard to find it. Before you start looking for a potential ambassador, you need to establish a few aspects such as their niche, preferable channels, follower/subscriber thresholds, and other campaigns that they participate in. Below you’ll find some popular types of ambassadors:. 

1. Affiliate brand ambassador – they promote your products among their own social network. For example, they publish a positive review of your item on their personal blog and add an affiliate link in the post content. Thanks to such links, you will be able to track how the campaign is going. In this collaboration, you need to keep affiliates encouraged, and incentives are a good way to do so. To keep them motivated, you can offer them, e.g., higher commissions per sale after reaching a given number of transactions. 
2. Customer brand ambassador – in other words, a referral program or word-of-mouth marketing. Here, EarlyParrot should be your go-to. With this tool, you will be able to create such a program in a flash. You can establish basically everything – goals, incentives and their details, communication pages, and even branded referral links. This type of program relies on your existing customers’ relationships with their close ones to whom they recommend your products and share their links. If ambassadors’ friends or family members clink on these links and perform the desired action, a referral is complete and rewards will be earnt. 
3. Employee brand ambassadors – this is a very close company-ambassador relationship. Your employees can promote your brand and will probably put their whole hearts into it, since company performance earns them money. Employees can spread the word about you and your products, which will sound more natural and less salesy than, e.g., influencer recommendations. It can work on the same principles as a referral program, but instead of discount codes you can offer higher salaries to those employees.

Now it is time to start searching.

Step 3: search for and choose your ambassadors

You can start your journey by searching for ambassadors manually, i.e., via dedicated hashtags. Type in a hashtag and check out posts including it. In this way, you will be able to have a complete overview of influencers in a given industry and it will therefore be easier to compare them with one another. 

You can also check out social media influencers’ platforms. This is a more efficient way because you gather information about each potential ambassador in one place. It is also a good idea to provide an ambassador application form on your website. Perhaps the perfect candidate will visit your website someday?

If you choose to use a referral program or turn your employees into ambassadors, this step won’t take you long. In the first case, referrers will find themselves. With employees, you can choose the most suitable ones or encourage everyone to be your brand advocates. 

Once you choose your potential candidates, you need to compare them with your ideal ambassador. This will allow you to select the best option.  

Step 4: it’s time to work

Choose who you want to cooperate with, get in touch with them, agree the terms, and let your ambassador campaign begin. All contract terms should be clear, and you should be upfront with your demands. 

Once you establish all your terms and conditions, you can start to work together. It’s then crucial to keep track of the program’s performance (with EarlyParrot) and communicate with your ambassadors if some aspects need improvement. 

Step 5: recognise the best ambassadors

Good cooperation means that if somebody is doing a great job, you should recognize and reward them. Ambassadors’ marketing efforts should be recognised. As a reward, you can offer them a free item, gift card, or money (which would probably be their preferred option). Depending on the type of your programs you can shuffle such awards, but you still have to be sure that everyone from your ambassador team who has done an extraordinary job is appreciated.

All of these steps will help you with providing a successful brand ambassador program. You should give it a try with EarlyParrot!

Find your brand ambassador

Establishing a brand ambassador program is a great way to increase brand awareness and to improve your brand’s image. 

Whatever your business goals, by using this short but comprehensive guide you will be able to create an effective ambassador program that will last a lifetime and bring you countless new, loyal customers.

Building brand awareness is imperative for your business in order for you to reach more potential clients. High brand recognition contributes to building a community and keeping customers loyal. It is important to stay active in the minds of your consumers to keep them coming back to you.

However, it can be difficult to build a brand that stands out in a crowded market. To achieve that, you will need a solid digital marketing strategy and the right focus on your target audience. We have some ideas about how to accomplish this. Below are some marketing tips you may find helpful for achieving the goal of increasing the recognition of your company.

Nonetheless, it is best to take one step at a time and begin with the concept of brand awareness. What does it mean, and why is it important?

What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness is crucial, no matter which industry your company operates in. In a nutshell, it stands for people’s ability to recognize your brand. The higher your brand awareness, the better results advertising and campaigns will achieve. Knowing your brand may encourage a lot of consumers to choose your company to fulfill their needs as the go-to option. As such, there is a great need to build a strong brand identity and become a top name in your industry.

This is also an essential aspect for both B2C and  B2B companies. More than 75% of B2B leaders admit that a strong brand is crucial for their growth plans. So no matter who your target is, it would be nice to stay in their minds for longer. 

Why is brand awareness important?

Reaching potential customers is not a piece of cake; countless businesses are fighting to reach a similar target audience. Keeping your brand at the forefront of people’s minds is the first and one of the most important stages of the marketing funnel. It is crucial for acquiring more clients and building a community.

Brand awareness campaigns support expanding your audience and help to search for the best strategies. There are plenty of digital marketing tactics that may come in handy with this matter. For starters, it would be good to focus on the type of content you publish and how you encourage people to visit your website. In such terms, referrals can be a huge support. They will help you to reach a broad audience and increase your engagement rate. 

How can a referral program boost brand awareness?

What can you do to use referral marketing for a brand engagement campaign? We are here to show you. But first things first, before you use a referral program to boost brand awareness, you should choose the best tool to do so. In our opinion, it is EarlyParrot, and we will explain to you why.

Making noise about your brand

Once you have created your campaign (with EarlyParrot, this can happen in the blink of an eye), you will be able to reach new customers. Thanks to offering incentives, your regular customers will be more willing to spread the word about your business and invite their friends or family to join your community. By using referral links, you will be able to track who is the best brand ambassador and maybe reward them even more than usual. 

Your customers can share their recommendations and links across social platforms and become part of your content marketing strategy. What you need to do is to design the messages for them to share. With EarlyParrot, you can create the content of each sharing page and message that your customers will publish. Think about valuable content that will have a major impact on the recipients and boost social engagement. You will see that social media users appreciate such content and visit your website as a result. 

Branding your communication

Speaking of communication, it should be clear as day which brand is behind this content. You need to focus on your visual brand identity. About 3/4 of customers recognize a brand via its logo. So put it in a visible place when creating a communication widget. Moreover, it is also important to brand your rewards. Once a new customer earns a gift for, e.g., registering to receive your newsletter, it should be clear who will send it. This will stick in their mind and place you one step closer to your ultimate goal, which is remaining in their memory. With EarlyParrot, you can add an image to each incentive, no matter if it is a welcome gift or a referral reward. Keep in mind the above and add your logo to the pictures of them. Visual content has a significant impact on increasing visual brand identity, so remember to brand all graphics or videos that you post too.

Taking care of your SEO efforts

One of the most crucial aspects of any content marketing strategy is SEO. It supports boosting conversion rate and keeping your position in search engine results high. When you hear SEO, the first thing that comes to mind is probably keywords. This is the right association, but it is also crucial when making blog posts or other pieces of content. When it comes to referral marketing, links matter the most. Add the name of your brand to referral links in order to boost brand awareness and support your SEO effort at the same time. If you take care of your SEO comprehensively, you will see the results – a high position in search engine results and branded referral links that are a claim to fame. 

Staying in touch with your clients

Keeping your customers in the loop allows them to feel a sense of community, and thus brand awareness to increase. Inform them about each change in the program or other general ones. It would also be great to provide customers with some valuable content like whitepapers, ebooks, or infographics. Help them expand their horizons. 

In this regard, list building is a crucial aspect to keep everything in order. EarlyParrot supports this process too. Once a given client registers on your site, they will receive an email with an invitation to join your referral program. By inviting each of your customers and informing them about upcoming or earned rewards you will keep them in the loop and expand your brand community, which is the main point of referrals. Plus, you can add some extras to these emails too. 

It is important to note that EarlyParrot supports most of the commonly used email marketing providers like MailChimp, ConvertKit, and AWeber, so it won’t be a problem to integrate this tool with your apps. 

What else can you do to build brand awareness? 

There are plenty of digital marketing strategies for boosting your company’s recognizability. But none of them will bring outstanding results by themself. To support your referral efforts, you need to use the synergy effect and choose which ones would work best together. We have some propositions.

Social media marketing 

Being present on social media allows you to stay in customers’ minds for longer. Let’s consider a situation when a client receives a referral link from a friend and visits your site, but isn’t convinced. As they scroll through Instagram, they notice your advertisement and are encouraged by quality content on your profile. Acquisition of a new lead would be the cherry on top if you handle it properly. Inspired by your Instagram content, the potential client may return to your site, use a referral link, and join your program. Doesn’t that sound promising?

Guest posting 

Be present on many channels and… websites. Make the most of the possibilities offered by guest posting. Promote your business on different sites and industry platforms by writing informative and interesting texts that refer to your business. Remember, however, that this should not be an intrusive promotion – you should gently suggest checking out your company or its products. Thanks to such occasional guest posts, you will have the opportunity to reach a larger group and acquire new customers. You can capitalize on the reach of the pages your posts are published on and catch their audiences’ attention. It’s a perfect solution.

There is one catch – the content must be valuable and high quality. It should be insightful and full of interesting facts or stats. Otherwise, hardly anyone will want to collaborate with you. It is also crucial to offer something in exchange, such as a post on your blog or backlink. The conditions depend on both parties, but do not forget that no business activity is one-sided. Ask and receive, that is the main rule. 

Affiliate marketing 

This kind of marketing is often confused with referral marketing, and although they act on similar principles they differ from each other quite significantly. Both are about recommendations, which in the case of affiliate marketing are made by affiliates, i.e. people who have gathered a large audience on social media. They recommend your product and provide affiliate links to followers, allowing them to purchase with, e.g., a 10% discount. The combination of these two recommendation channels may turn out to be very effective. For example, a customer sees a video on YouTube about your product but is not fully convinced. If a friend also makes the same recommendation, though, success is guaranteed.

It is worth using omnichannel marketing to increase brand awareness – you can increase revenue by as much as 23% by presenting your brand consistently across all platforms. In addition, too many channels and advertisements can cause readers to become overwhelmed, which is the exact opposite of what you want to accomplish. Therefore take care when deciding which channels and ads to ignore.

Over to you

Increasing brand awareness is a significant step towards building the appearance of your business. Remaining at the forefront of people’s minds by gaining their recommendations is a good way to stay relevant. But to have everything under control, you need a good strategy and  tools. One of them is EarlyParrot, and it will assist you from the first minutes of the installation process. 

Thanks to EarlyParrot, you will be able to use the full power of referrals and plan an entire omnichannel strategy too. Once you launch your referral program, this tool will handle the communication on your behalf and automate every process. Moreover, you will be able to track the performance of your program at any time. 

Thanks to such support, you will have more time to take care of other strategic aspects and plan, e.g., collaboration with affiliates or social media posts.

Ready to boost your brand awareness?

The SaaS industry is a demanding one. In order to promote your products successfully you need to attract potential customers and stay step further ahead of your competitors. Moreover, you need clients to stay with you for a while and spend some money on your solutions. It is not a piece of cake.

Additionally, it is not so easy to create a marketing campaign about SaaS products. Digital products are harder to promote than physical ones since you can’t show customers how beautiful they are or encourage them to choose from a large variety of designs, for example. It is hard to present why the product should be chosen by potential customers when they want to see visual proof. 

People talking about your product provides similar evidence for digital products. In this case, what can you do to make a buzz about your SaaS? One way is referral marketing, or to be more precise, creating a referral program with EarlyParrot.

Let’s start from scratch, what are the benefits of referral marketing for SaaS businesses?

Why is it worth starting a referral program in the SaaS industry?

The following reasons should convince you to set up a referral program for your customers. As a SaaS business you need to take care of your leads; they should have a long lifetime value and be high quality in order to deliver you some results. What are some reasons to fall in love with referral marketing if you run a SaaS business? Does the referral process give you qualified leads and increase revenue? Let’s find out!

Greater customer lifetime value and lead quality

As we mentioned, customer lifetime value matters across all industries, but in the SaaS field it is even more important. When it comes to referral customers, they have up to 16 times longer lifetime value. This means they stay with you longer, trust you, and spend more money on your solutions. Moreover, thanks to a referral strategy, your churn rate may decrease too. Doesn’t that sound promising?

In addition, as a SaaS, you need to build an audience of qualified and knowledgeable people who will be able to use your solution, as well as people who are familiar with the challenges it can solve. All the boxes will be checked when using referral marketing – your clients spread the word about you to their friends in the industry, which means they will be knowledgeable about the field and have experience in the area.

People are more likely to trust referrals from known people than strangers

This is always one of the first advantages stated about referral marketing. No surprise, since it is a very important aspect and the main power of referrals.  Advice from your friends is probably worth more than that from influencers, as you can probably say from your own experience. After all, our close ones are close for a reason. They are reliable, and that is one of their big plus points. When it comes to referrals, the same applies. If clients have doubts about what to buy, they may ask their friends. If they recommend your site and share a referral link too, it’s mission accomplished. You will probably gain new, loyal customers this way, provided you meet their expectations and deliver a great user experience.

It decreases costs

Referral marketing is relatively low cost. The price of the software shouldn’t burn a hole in your pocket, plus it can help with lowering other expenses like customer acquisition costs. Referral links can bring you a 25% higher profit margin. As one of the cheapest distribution channels, it can be said that referrals marketing is highly reliable. Moreover, it does not require big investments in resources either. No need for an IT team or a bunch of marketing people, you can do it yourself provided you choose the right software to support you. What’s more, creating campaigns is also a very easy process that doesn’t require much time. 

Referrals build brand awareness

Generating a buzz around your brand might get you some fame. Riding a wave of popularity can build your brand positioning in many people’s minds. Moreover, you may become the go-to solution when a given company hits bumps on the road. Needless to say the more people who know about your brand, the more will be curious about your solution and test out a free trial and/or buy your product.

Great examples (click here for more) of such buzz are Uber’s referral program and the latest flavour of the month, Clubhouse. People were curious about the latter, and its popularity went wild recently, with everybody talking about it and asking for referral links.

Referral marketing software – why choose EarlyParrot?

You might ask yourself why it is so important to choose the right referral software. Well, without a good tool you won’t be able to achieve any of the above results, at least not on a large scale. What criteria should the best software solutions meet?

• Implementing and integrating it with other apps/programs should be easy.
• It has to be simple to create a referral program and track its performance.
• This should make it easy for you to follow the analytics of your programs.
• You must be able to customize your campaigns as much as you wish.

And we have some great news – EarlyParrot meets all of the above requirements!

So now it is time to show you how to use EarlyParrot to its fullest potential. Let’s start from the beginning – the installation process.  

#1 It takes up to 15 minutes to install

EarlyParrot is so user-friendly that it will guide you through the installation process step-by-step. You don’t need to have an IT degree to install it, as the tool will advise what to clink and when. Moreover, the whole process only takes up to 15 minutes, so there is no long-term plan or implementation strategy needed. 

#2 Creating a referral marketing campaign is quick and easy 

Once the software is installed, you should focus on creating your referral marketing campaign. You need to start by establishing your goal, which for most SaaS businesses is simply generating more sign-ups.

Now it’s time to click next and start your campaign. The first step here is choosing a reward system. You have three options to choose from: Reward Unlocking, Top Influencer, or Fast Lane. Once you choose the system, it is high to establish the rewards themselves. Think about what would work best for you – cash incentives, free gifts, extended free trials, or perhaps something else?

EarlyParrot allows you to name your reward, establish a target, and choose whether it will be a welcome gift or a referral one. In other words, take care of your reward structure. Moreover, you can even upload an image of the reward. No worries if you are creating your first campaign. An explanation appears on each text box when the pointer hovers over it to help you decide what to type into each one. What’s more, this referral program software will not let you hit next until you complete all of the required fields.

In this step, you can also design a unique coupon code to be sent with a referral reward email. Small things that matter!

#3 EarlyParrot handles communication on your behalf

Communication is an essential factor when it comes to building relationships with your customers and improving the user experience. Thanks to EarlyParrot you have it covered! What’s the plan? Start by writing the content of invitations.

The first step is to invite people, so you need to design messages and their content for customers to be able to share across social media channels. You have Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to choose from, as well as messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Viber, and Telegram.

Speaking of invitations, you should invite people from your customer base to join your referral marketing program, and it is very easy to do so. You can import your existing customers via CSV. Such a massive injection of participants will allow you to hit the ground running with your customer referral program.

However, let’s return to your communication. You can design emails too. First, fill in the “From field”, i.e. your name and email address. Then you can choose email templates and triggers. There are various options depending on the type of email you want to send. Once you choose the template you can go to the next step.

The most crucial aspect when it comes to sharing pages is their design. You can set how sharing widgets will look for your referral program participants. Also, sharing widget activity and the appearance of reward widgets can be customized according to your taste.

In keeping with the sharing topic, referral links can be branded. This will be a great boost for your SEO efforts, and may also help improve brand awareness. 

#4 The analytical aspects of your campaign are not a secret anymore

EarlyParrot’s dashboards allow you to get a quick overview of each of your campaigns. Additionally, you can edit them any time you log in to the platform.

It is possible to track the number of invites sent out, shares on social media, conversion rate, and more crucial indicators. Since there is no ready-made recipe for working together with people, it is important to follow such KPIs. The program needs to be adapted to continuously changing market needs and preferences. Monitoring such measures helps also with arranging or redesigning your referral marketing strategy.

As a recap, to run a successful referral program you should focus on analyzing your referral model and providing some tests from time to time. Only this way will you be able to stay up to date with market trends. And EarlyParrot is on duty!

Over to you

There may be a perception that referral marketing is timeless, even though online marketing trends change all the time. Recommendations from friends will always be precious, and that goes for SaaS companies too. In this industry, more money is involved than the consumer market, which means the risks are greater. So good advice from a reliable source is even more valuable for SaaS businesses.

We hope that after reading this article you will be curious about referral marketing and want to give it a try with EarlyParrot. It could drive you increased traffic and help with decreasing costs. If you want to dive into the topic even deeper by reading more about starting your own referral marketing program, feel free to check out this article.

Are you running a business, but your customers are not fond of signing up for your newsletter or even creating accounts? It’s hard to communicate with customers that leave no information for you to get in touch with them. And as you surely already know, communication with clients is the essence of a well-functioning business. So forget for a moment about hyped social media and creating content for the masses – let’s go back to good, old e-mails.

What should you do to make visitors to your website more likely to subscribe to your newsletter, create an account, or leave their contact details?

Focus on list building. You probably already have an e-mail list, but you need to expand it and encourage more people to sign up. It’s easier said than done, but it’s a crucial step for success. No worries though, we’ve prepared some guidelines that will help you build a professional e-mail list and encourage new customers to sign up. And we will advise about how to use EarlyParrot for this purpose. 

But let start from the very basics – why is list building worth the effort?

Why should you focus on e-mail list building?

Having a solid e-mail list allows you to expand your brand and stay in touch with your customers. E-mail is a preferred communication channel for 73% of Millennials, which shows that e-mails still have what it takes despite the rise in popularity of social media. So why not use them to your advantage?

Additionally, list building allows you to reach a broad audience. You can acquire customers from the farthest corners of the World and thus expand your brand awareness. Moreover, it gives you a general view of the buyer, bringing you closer to the possibility of personalising the offer and communication towards them. List building also makes it easier to divide your audience into smaller segments.

It goes without saying that e-mails are a longer form of communication, and you can simply include everything you need there. The number of permitted characters are not as limited as in the case of social media platforms or even SMS marketing. You can describe everything in detail and add graphical materials, photos, GIFs, or even short videos to your messages.

A big plus about e-mail marketing is that it can be personalised, whereas it’s hard to directly address each follower on social media. In fact it’s almost impossible. E-mails are a completely different story though, as you can personalise not only for the recipient but also the sender. Yes, it’s nice when you say hello directly using the person’s name, but it’s even better when the sender field also says something more than just company X. It’s a good idea to use names, for example Anne from company X. This makes your communication more human. Keep in mind that bulk e-mails are quite simply not the best solution if you want to bond with your customers. Moreover, personalised emails have a higher open rate (18.8%) than bulk ones (13.1%) – almost a 6% increase. 

The more personalisation, the more friendly and open the relationship will be. Remember that a signature at the end of each e-mail should also include a person’s name in order to complete the mission successfully.

Great news – you can set all of this up with EarlyParrot!

How to make the most of e-mail list building?

The creation of an email list can take many forms depending on the target and industry, though it will be effective regardless of these. Below you will find some examples that might inspire you. Create, test them, and then evaluate the results.

Synergy effect: list building plus referral marketing 

Are you up for referral marketing? Hopefully the answer is “yes”, because It could bring a great synergy effect together with e-mail marketing. If you’re an EarlyParrot member, the effects will be even better. So how can this referral marketing platform help with increasing your brand awareness and gaining new subscribers?

Let’s start from the very beginning, i.e. the registration process. When a new customer signs up, they will receive an invitation e-mail about joining your referral program. This is the best moment to invite them, since a customer will be most convinced about your brand just after signing up and may be curious for more. 

There is also a kind of saving when a new customer registers thanks to a referral link or coupon code, as the cost of new client acquisition in this way is almost imperceptibly low.

You’re probably wondering how creating e-mails looks in EarlyParrot then. Well, it is effortless – you can simply choose which types of e-mails you want to send to your subscribers and which you don’t.

You will draft each of these e-mails yourself – both the topic and the content are up to you. An important tip here is to remember who exactly the recipient is, because the language and the way you address your audience is very important. The content of an e-mail addressed to teenagers should differ from one that will be sent to business people, for example. The subject must be catchy, as the number of e-mails sent per day is huge and so yours must be unique and stand out if the recipient is to open it.

Ask for feedback via surveys

Surveys are a great way to get feedback and encourage your existing customers to become more involved. It’s important to listen to your audience, as doing so will allow you to improve the quality of the content you provide them. 

Suppose a customer hasn’t set up an account but has signed up for your newsletter and made a purchase on your website. By sending this client a feedback survey, you can find out why they chose not to set up an account and decided to only subscribe to the newsletter. Thus, you will learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your communication, which can be a game changer for e-mail design and list building. Who better to advise you than the recipients?

Remember that with EarlyParrot, you can modify your campaigns at any time, so if your referral communication is not the best then ask your audience for their opinions and make adjustments accordingly.

Let them sign up

The option to sign up must be clearly visible on your website. A user will not search long and hard for a place to sign up – it has to be obvious. Integrating the ability to sign up from your landing page is a key aspect of the success of your list building, so just a friendly reminder that this takes a matter of minutes with EarlyParrot. Think about where you place the Sign Up button. The option to subscribe to your newsletter should also be visible, but not too intrusive. You can choose different layouts for your subscription form. 

One of the most popular types of subscription form is a pop-up that appears when a user first enters your website. But it’s easy to overdo it – pop-ups on each subpage would be too intrusive and the visitor may simply leave as a result. It can be just annoying to have to click close on each subpage.

You can create fixed or floating forms too, which won’t be as annoying for visitors. A fixed one is placed in a specific part of the website and stays there until the client views it or pulls it back. When it comes to floating forms, they may be placed in each part of your site and won’t disappear until the visitor takes action.

Segmentation is important

When you have been runing a business for a long time, you can often forget about the basics. And segmentation is one such fundamental aspect. The division of your target group into smaller segments is important not only in terms of positioning your offer, but also from a marketing perspective. 

Communication should be tailored to the recipient. We have already mentioned the differences between creating content for teenagers and businessmen, and the same rules apply here – when you divide your clients into smaller groups, varied communication with them may be necessary. If your offer undergoes a repositioning over time, your channels may also need to change accordingly. 

Therefore, regardless of what you create right now – an e-mail copy or a pop-up newsletter, say – remember who your recipients are and how to speak to them. 

Social proof as a decision factor 

Social proof has its power, and if you run a referral campaign then you should definitely be aware of it. Nothing convinces customers to make a purchase more than hearing a positive review from another user, especially if they are a friend or family member. Sharing social proof is a good way to gain trust and thus encourage potential clients to leave their e-mail addresses. 

How to present social proof? You can share positive feedback on social media and encourage customers to make their referrals right there. The more people who see them, the better. EarlyParrot allows you to design your own share widget on which you can compose the message that will appear together with a shared referral link as a post on, e.g., Facebook.

It would also be helpful to include a testimonial area on your website. If you are running an online store, customers’ opinions should be placed visibly near the relevant product descriptions. Don’t be afraid of customer feedback. Even if there are negative comments they may be constructive, while positive ones still greatly impact upon a hesitant customer’s final purchasing decision.

Surprise them with a lead magnet

First things first – what are lead magnets? They are additional free materials to encourage users to leave their contact details. What could these materials be? They could be e-books or webinar invitations, for example. If you arrange lead magnet action in return for registering for your newsletter, the details about this must be clearly formulated and highlighted in the communication. After all, it’s supposed to be an incentive for encouraging people to sign up.

A lead magnet is also a good way to get rewarded for joining or inviting someone else to a referral marketing program. Remember that regardless of what purpose you use a lead magnet for, you should emphasise it in your communication. 

Thanks to easy integration with the most popular e-mail marketing providers, EarlyParrot will make this task much easier for you.

Start to build your e-mail list right now

Building an e-mail list is a task that stretches over a period of time. It’s impossible to set a deadline for it because it should be continuous work that relies on new ideas to encourage more customers to become your subscribers.

The right level of communication, frequency, personalisation, and the style in which you establish relationships with your customers has a significant impact on whether or not they will, firstly, read all of your e-mails, and secondly, ultimately use your services.

Right now, the eCommerce market is very crowded. The pandemic has forced many retailers to switch to digital, and thus the competition is fierce here. Maybe you didn’t experience this for yourself, or on the contrary you are feeling the competition’s breath on your back. No matter which situation is closest to yours, it’s useful to know some good ways to support your eCommerce performance. 

So let’s assume that, unfortunately, your customers aren’t breaking down your doors right now. It may be a challenging situation, after all you need customers if you are to stay on the market. Why are customers not visiting your store? You have to answer this question yourself. Perhaps, as mentioned before, there’s too much competition in your sector, and you can’t get through potential customers or maybe they just don’t know you are. If you’ve read our text on ways to increase sales, you will know that referral marketing is one of the most suitable strategies in this case. Why not give it a go? It’s worth trying new solutions that will interest customers, and perhaps they will stay for longer and make some purchases.

Now let’s start from scratch. Why should referral marketing be your cup of tea?

Referral marketing in a nutshell

Referral marketing is based on the relationships you manage to build with your customers. In this respect, it’s worth taking care of the customer experience, since almost 90% of customers say that they would be willing to pay for something if they have a good one. By building relationships you can create a community, and this is the perfect foundation for acquiring more and more customers. The support of your eCommerce operation through referral marketing can become really visible, and all this with relatively little effort. 

So what’s the drill? First you need to create a program and set the rewards, then let your clients know about it. When customers engage in it and share referral links with their friends, you will most likely see an increase in sales. 

If you are wondering if recommendations really have that much power, we have some numbers to back it up. Over 90% of customers trust referrals from their friends over those from other sources, e.g. influencers. In addition, take into account the desire to win a prize. People are competitive by nature, so why not make the most of this. Encourage both your regular clients and those who visit your site for the first time to participate and try to win the referral trophy. You can choose the prizes differently for both groups – the rewards system is up to you.

Thanks to referral marketing, you can also lower your CTAs, extend your reach, and increase customer engagement and loyalty. It will drive up your conversions for sure – referrals can convert up to 30% better than other marketing types.

However, in order to prepare a referral marketing program well, you will need the help of a tool. EarlyParrot may be a game-changer for you! Why is it so great?

Reason no. 1: easy installation and seamless integration

Let’s start from the very beginning, which means the installation process. If you are worried about your IT skills, there’s no reason to be. EarlyParrot does not require any, and the whole process would guide you through it step by step. The installation won’t take you more than 15 minutes. 

What to do first? Pasting the code is the most important step. For everything to work properly, you need to have tracking on both the landing page and the share page. You can paste the code manually or use Google Tag Manager. Now click the Verify Installation button.

If you use Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento, that’s great. For other platforms, you can contact EarlyParrot and they might be able to make it work for you as well. If you have chosen one of the aforementioned three, what you need to do now is to set up a webhook. Thanks to this, the platform will know about every new purchase made on your website. EarlyParrot does its job at this point, which is to detect whether a given transaction was initiated from an email or not. If this criterion is met, a notification or reward will be sent to the referrer. 

Now it’s time to create your program, design communication, import and invite your customers, then you can go live. But hold your horses. We will show you some big pros of EarlyParrot before you gain countless new customers. 

Reason no. 2: convenient program creator

The program creator is very handy and intuitive. What’s more, it shows you which aspects need more improvement. For starters you can decide on your goal, which in the case of eCommerce would be more sales.

The next step is the reward system. You can choose who you want to reward by picking from the three options Reward Unlocking, Top Influencer, and Fast Lane. 

Once you choose your system, you can then create the rewards. Select its criteria, and decide whether it will be a repeat reward or not. If so, define the target. Add more specifics like image, name, and description. You can also write a coupon code in a reward email, in which case you need to create that. 

Here you can create emails, invites, and share pages. Another great advantage at the end when you are required to integrate the program with your landing page, share page, and eCommerce platform. You won’t be able to click finish if you don’t configure this properly. What’s more, all changes are saved automatically.

Reason no. 3: personalized communication

If you are worried about your communication, you have absolutely no reason to be. EarlyParrot allows you to define all the details of your communication with customers. You can customize the invitations that your customers will share on social media, and no EarlyParrot logo is visible at any stage. 

You have many social media platforms to choose from: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Messenger, Viber Messenger, and Telegram. As you can see, your clients have a wide range of possibilities to spread the word about you and your program. Therefore you should enter a short message that will appear in the post when your client shares the link with their friends or family.

E-mail personalization

Another aspect that can be customized is emails. EarlyParrot will send emails on your behalf, so you should write your customers the highest level messages.

If a customer feels like they have received another bulk email, it won’t do much good. Do you know that personalized emails have an average open rate of nearly 19%, compared to 13% for those that are not. You probably open emails that contain your first name more often than those which don’t. It’s a natural mechanism. Therefore, if you want a customer to feel cared about, personalization is a must. Whether it’s an invitation email, one informing about a reward, or a thank you for their first referral, you should address every user by name. Moreover, don’t forget about the content. First, it should be grammatically correct and spell checked. Typos are the worst possible mistake in the copy, so double check before saving your template. And remember about the title, which should be catchy.

What’s very cool about EarlyParrot is that you can add the kinds of emails you want to send. You can choose to send, or not, an email upon a customer reaching X numbers of referrals, a welcome to the campaign, or every time a new customer is gained from a given referrer, for example.

Don’t forget to add the ‘email from’ field, which is your signature under the message. Also, the address from which your emails are sent is an important aspect, otherwise recipients might consider them to be viruses or spam.

Share page personalization

You can edit the share widget. There are four styles to choose from: full widget, slim, one line, and referral URL. You can edit HTML code if you want to, or choose to leave it as it is.

Reason no. 4: everything at your fingertips

After logging in to your account, you will have all your campaigns in one place. You can view all parameters related to each of them on the dashboard. You can analyze the statistics of each campaign step by step, and also choose the time period you are interested in. Do you want to check how the previous week went, or review the entire last month? No problem.

It’s crucial to have such information at hand. Thanks to it, you can check what types of campaigns work best for your recipients. If a certain campaign is not effective enough, you can refine it or create a new one in its place.

Reason no. 5: support on cue

If you are going to invest in an external platform, it’s essential to be able to count on support. And with EarlyParrot, that’s certainly the case. For starters, you can download a demo version to get to know the whole system. It has limitations though, so if you need more campaigns then you’ll need to purchase paid access –  but there is a free trial available. You will always have a chat box on hand where you can ask questions, or search for answers in the knowledge base or the blog.

If you would prefer to contact us by email, you can reach us at [email protected] and you will receive a reply as soon as possible. 

As we have already mentioned, if your store uses a platform other than Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento, feel free to let us know and we will try to find a solution. When it comes to the process of creating the program, you can also count on support for that. The platform dictates the sequence of steps and shows which elements must be refined before the program goes live.

Let’s create a referral program!

Creating a referral marketing program can be a real turning point for you. Regardless of whether your eCommerce is having a hard time or customers visit you in their droves all the time, you can never have too many, right? A solution such as a referral program will build brand awareness among potential and current recipients, which translates into better sales results. 

Nevertheless, creating a program without a good tool will be practically impossible. That’s why EarlyParrot comes in handy. It’s an intuitive tool that’s effortless to use, thanks to which you can easily create a program that will bring the desired results. The reasons above are only a brief introduction to what EarlyParrot is capable of, so download the demo and check it out for yourself!

Let’s imagine that a potential customer is in need of a certain type of product, but they have no idea where to look for such an item or which brand would be best to buy from. What’s the solution? Ask a friend. That’s how referral marketing begins.

Referral marketing is gaining popularity, but it is still not a go-to solution for many businesses. This is a pity, because 92% of consumers believe in referrals from people they know well. As it is also known by some, word-of-mouth marketing is very easy to implement and it won’t cost you a lot of money either. 

To make the most of this type of marketing, though, you will need a well-tailored referral program. And we will tell you how to run one with EarlyParrot!

But let’s start from the very beginning, which is why you even need referrals.

Why should you start a referral program?

Creating a referral program can help you acquire new customers relatively quickly and cheaply. Information spreads very quickly between customers, and if you promise rewards in return then it will happen even more so. Research shows that customers who visit your website thanks to recommendations will spend 25% more money there, and the probability of them recommending you to someone else is three times higher than in the case of other customers. As you can see, referral marketing not only produces results but also builds trust.

Such solutions are also relatively easy to monitor. Thanks to using an appropriate tool, such as EarlyParrot, you can track all referrals and see how they affect sales. You can have all of the most important KPIs at hand, and you can analyze the performance of your program whenever you want.

What exactly is a referral program?

In short, it is a system of rewarding customers for recommending your store. Your existing and future clients will gain rewards for making an appropriate number of referrals according to your set criteria. Your clients can share referral links or codes with their friends or family, who then visit and use your site. That’s basically it: rewards are distributed afterwards, and you gain another client.

One of the most popular programs of this type that you may have heard about is Uber: you share a code with your friends and both of you can save some money on your next rides.

In order for the program to fulfill its task, you need to choose the right incentives. It is crucial to the success of such a program. In the case of Uber saving money is the reward, but it is not always the best solution. Sometimes it’s better to offer a product or service as a reward. The situation depends on the type of business and, of course, your target audience.

How can EarlyParrot help with your referral program?

EarlyParrot is a referral marketing platform that will improve the implementation of your program. Its installation is simple and only takes a moment, only requiring a computer and 15 minutes. You can easily implement a program into current purchasing processes. You don’t have to change anything, so customers can shop and log in as before. One difference will be an opportunity to participate in the referral program. Both new and existing customers will be informed about the possibility to join the program, receiving a notification with this information. 

After successful implementation, you can set up a reward system of when, to whom, and what will be delivered. It is up to you what and how referrers and referrals will be rewarded for their cooperation. 

Another important feature of this platform is the ability to brand communication with your clients, without an EarlyParrot logo. Feel free to customize emails and pages as you wish. You can also take care of your relationships with customers thanks to broadcasted messages, so you can be sure that everything is running smoothly and your subscribers are taken care of.  

This tool can be easily integrated with the most popular platforms like WordPress, Shopify, Magento, Typeform, MailChimp, and many more. Why not give it a try?

Referral program for SaaS

If you are planning on taking a SaaS solution live, it could be very beneficial to start a referral program too. How to make this happen with EarlyParrot?

If you are about to implement a referral solution just before launching your SaaS, then great. You can increase engagement among your early adopters, and they will be able to share their referrals via social media, messengers, or emails from day one. Why is it a good idea to start a referral program together with your SaaS?

First of all, you can improve the engagement rate from the very beginning and build bonds with your users. The stronger the relationship and the trust is, the longer they will be with you. On top of this, more referral leads means lower CTAs. Everybody wants lower CTAs, especially at the beginning of their journey. 

Thanks to the recommendations of your referrers, your reach can extend immediately. If you encourage people enough, they will talk about you. Nothing gains attention like the buzz made by users and being a newbie on the market. People are curious about such solutions and want to see what the hype is about.

Thanks to a referral program, you can also find out if your SaaS is liked by users (they will not recommend something that they don’t) and which of your brand ambassadors have the greatest clout. It is worth rewarding them accordingly.

In the case of implementing a referral program with EarlyParrot to an existing SaaS solution, there are yet more advantages. 

You can set premium features or discounts for your biggest fans and most active referrers. You can also adapt the program to existing strategies to drive the best results, and even set the time at which program invitations will be sent. 

Referral marketing in eCommerce

If you are an eCommerce provider, referral marketing may be beneficial for you too. How to surprise your customers with a referral program? We’ll tell you what EarlyParrot can offer your eCommerce to boost sales and gain more loyal clients.

As you have already read, EarlyParrot can be implemented with most eCommerce providers like Shopify, Magneto, or PrestaShop. So if you have 15 minutes spare then you can install this solution to your website right now, and thanks to referral marketing you can drive more conversions. Did you know that referral leads have a 30% higher conversion rate than conversions from other channels? That is a great score. Thanks to implementing a referral program you can gain more trust and improve your brand image. Thanks to broadcasting messages you can also build relationships with customers, making your website a go-to place for buying products in the categories that you offer. 

As with SaaS solutions, EarlyParrot supports your business with expanding its reach. The more people who share their opinions about you on social media or via email the better. Reducing CTAs in eCommerce is also a very important aspect. 

The timing of encouraging your customers to take part in the program is crucial, and it is best to do so as soon as they finish shopping and are satisfied with their purchases. Thanks to EarlyParrot, invitations are sent automatically, so you don’t have to worry about remembering to do so. This is similar with rewards, in that as soon as a given client meets the criteria you have set, notifications will be sent.

Building your links with a referral program

It might be surprising that referral marketing is a great way to build your email lists. Thanks to such a solution you can check whether new subscribers joined via referrals or not, and reward them accordingly. Not only can you ask them to share referrals, but also remind and motivate them to be more active. 

You can integrate EarlyParrot with your CRM or autoresponder and let the magic begin. The platform will determine whether a new subscriber was referred or not, and only send a reward if they were. It works with all the most popular autoresponders and CRM like MailChimp, AWeber, Infusionsoft, or ConvertKit. If you use software that is not on our list then reach out to us and we’ll figure it out.

Why is it a good solution to let EarlyParrot help with your subscribers? You will get to know them better, and find out who has the power to improve communication. Thanks to rewarding your subscribers you can build a loyal community, which is essential for your brand image. 

Why should you choose EarlyParrot?

First of all, it is very easy to implement and even easier to use. There is also a free demo that you can use to see if it’s your cup of tea. We are almost 100% sure that the answer here will be yes. Moreover, this platform has got your back. It helps to show you which parts of the program need improvement before it goes live. You can also choose the best rewards: coupon codes, secret links, downloadables, or account upgrades. No matter which you choose, the platform will automatically send it to everyone who meets the criteria set by you.

No worries if your website is not in English, this platform provides campaigns in Spanish,  French, German, Greek, and Italian too. 

Data security is the priority here. EarlyParrot is GDPR-compliant, and also has fraud protection. No suspicious emails or web traffic, and all social media shares are confirmed via IP tracking.

Are you ready to start a referral marketing journey?

As you should now know, referral marketing is a low-cost, easy-to-implement solution that is also quite simple to monitor. Thanks to EarlyParrot, referral magic can basically happen by itself. Once you integrate this platform with your eCommerce store or SaaS solution, you will never look back. Referrals will soon come, and you will start to benefit from them as a result.

However, remember to keep your finger on the pulse. In time tastes change and so your rewards may need to as well, or customers might not recommend you so willingly. You must be proactive and track the program’s performance continually.
So, do you want to try a free demo first?