Referral Program

[Audrey]

Do you offer any type of referral program? When you do get a referral, how do you thank the person who did the referring?

[MindyL]

If a friend of ours sends someone to our design firm and that person ends up going with our services, we usually send that friend a $25 gift card somewhere. When we launched our newest website, we sent out an email to our friends and told them if they referred a friend to us and that person bought a website, we'd give our friend $50.

I think referral programs can work great among your friends 'cause it gives them just a little bit more motivation to spread the word about your business :-)

[Audrey]

Mindy,

Gift cards are an awesome thank-you. Tupperware just launched a $25 gas card program. My tank is close to $50 to fill when it's empty. So, what an awesome gift.

I also love gift certificates to restaurants and department stores. I'll bet your gifts are much appreciated.

[Nani]

We've offered $50 to friends/other customers who get us an order of 10 boxes or more. It seems to be a decent motivator, but sometimes I wonder if the image they present to potential customers is really what we want to encourage. Has that been a problem for anybody else?

Nani

[MindyL]

We haven't had any problems with our image being distorted due to friends just wanting some extra cash. I think it just naturally will come up if they come accross another friend or aquaintance that needs our services. Of course they don't mention to the friend that they've got some sort of incentive to recommend us, so the other person doesn't usually know.

The first referral program I mentioned about the 25 dollar gift card is actually one that we don't "advertise" to our friends. It's actually a surprise to them when they receive it in the mail as a thanks. The other one, the 50 dollar one, is one that we openly told friends about.