Why your Squarespace store needs a referral marketing program

Introduction

The best businesses thrive off word of mouth.

They create products that are remarkable – Purple Cows, according to Seth Godin.

Then their fans rave about how great the products are.

How do you create fans like that? How do you reward fans like that?

If you’ve got killer products, your customers already love you. You just need to help them share the love.

Word of mouth marketing is untapped potential for your business.

What is a referral program?

A referral program increases word of mouth marketing.

You encourage customers to share your store with their friends by offering rewards.

Have you seen offers like “Give a friend $15 and get $15 off your next order”?

That’s a referral program.

Marketing’s best-kept secret

Referral programs are everywhere, but you wouldn’t even realise.

Dropbox grew massively off their referral program. American Express? They have one for their credit cards. Uber has one right now.

The smartest marketing teams in the world set up referral programs.

Why?

They know that traditional advertising is a) expensive, and b) untargeted.

What are you interested in? A creepy targeted Facebook ad…

Or a personal message from a friend about a store they know you’ll like.

Increase your store’s awareness

A customer said it best,

“[Our referral program is] a great incentive to create more awareness as well as give the customer some promo love.”

That’s referral programs in a nutshell. You reward your best, most loyal customers for talking about you.

Grow your email list

Referral programs are an awesome way to naturally grow your email list.

You collect the email of the person signing up to be a referrer. You know they love your products and want to talk about you. They’re also going to be highly receptive to flash sales in the future.

You can also access the email address of the friend receiving the recommendation. They’re not on your email list yet – but they’re a warm lead. Set up an email campaign to introduce yourself more formally, and give them an offer to join your email list.

Our customers increase their subscribers 10% month-over-month thanks to referral programs. (You can determine how much an email subscriber is worth to your business. I bet you’re under-utilising email marketing.)

Social proof and authenticity

Referrers and their friends have higher conversion rates and higher average order values than your average customer.

Why might that be?

One factor is that people have high loss-aversion – we don’t want to give up our money for a bad product. It wastes our time and makes us feel dumb.

But a referral program performs an important risk-reduction function. If a friend has told you about something, it’s already de-risked to you. You know it’s high quality and legitimate – your friend has already used it.

Another factor – referrers tailor their messages to their friends’ and followers’ needs. If you’ve got a friend with the same type of hair as you, an authentic, positive, personalized recommendation about a hair product is so unique to your needs that it’s almost a guaranteed purchase.

One last component is social proof – if you see other people talking about and using a product, you innately trust it more. You want in on the fun. You can’t stand missing out. You go over to the crowd to see what’s going on.

Conclusion

A referral program offers a huge upside for your Squarespace store.

You’ll encourage your customers to tell their friends about you. You’ll build a network and community around your products. You’ll reward your most loyal customers, and connect with their social groups.

It’s critical that your referral program fits seamlessly with your store’s aesthetic and brand vision – if it feels tacked on, people aren’t going to trust it.

But if you get it right, your word of mouth marketing will boom.

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Peach’s provides marketing tools to hundreds of Squarespace stores. We’re the #1 referral program platform for Squarespace eCommerce.

Contact our support team at [email protected] if you’d like to grow your Squarespace store.