Referral Marketing Channels
Overview of the different marketing channels used in a referral program.
The marketing channels (or touchpoints) of a referral program are all the components of your referral program that your users will interact with. These include the Referral Widget, notification emails, share messages, and marketing emails.
For a referral program to be successful it is crucial that each of these components is providing a unified, clear, and concise message about how the referral program works, the user’s progress within it, and what the user needs to do next. When users are well-informed about the availability of a referral program, what the program offers, and how to get involved, it makes it easier for them to start making successful referrals.
The sections below discuss the touchpoint components of a referral program, the role they each play, and how your users will be interacting with them.
🔗 Referral Widget
The Saasquatch platform provides a responsive widget for users to access. The widget is a one-stop-shop for your users to participate in the referral program; they can refer friends, track the status of their referrals, and see the rewards earned from referrals. This can be surfaced anywhere users can be identified on your website and used to track users for registration, display the widget, and more.
The widget provides full support for the SaaSquatch themes which allow you to customize your referral program to pixel-perfect brand constraints. The widget can either be served as a popup / modal window, or embedded directly into the page, and is fully mobile and tablet responsive.
Note: SaaSquatch offers two types of referral widgets--verified access and instant access. See our doc on widget types for more information.
🔗 Share Messages
SaaSquatch widget and email themes let you customize Your referral program to allow your users to share their referral link on Facebook, Twitter, or by email with ease. The SaaSquatch social media integration helps reducing the friction for users looking to share their referral link by not requiring users to authorize access to their Facebook or Twitter account in order to share their post.
Within the SaaSquatch portal, you can provide pre-written messaging for all social sharing options to ensure that essentials like the user’s unique sharelink are included correctly, and that the messaging is captivating and relevant. Users can still edit the posts, but providing a solid starting point can help improve program performance. You can also update the messaging any time, to maintain consistency with other promotions or seasonal offerings.
🔗 Notification Emails
SaaSquatch provides a complete notification email service for your referral program.
Email notifications are available to be sent whenever a Referred User signs up for a new trial or free account, and then again whenever a referral is converted. These notifications allow the Referrer to keep track of the progress of their referrals and be notified when they have earned their reward. By default, the notification emails also include referral program sharing options to further incentivize participation.
SaaSquatch includes a drag-and-drop editor for emails that are also fully customizable via any HTML and CSS of your choice.
🔗 Marketing Emails
Marketing, blast, or mass emails are a great way to promote your referral program to your existing user base or email subscription list. By providing a list of existing users, SaaSquatch will register them and return an export with their unique share links.
This data can be imported into an email platform, like Mailchimp, where the share links can be utilized as merge variables. Individual share links can also be looked up using an API call for use in personalized emails. These powerful tools make it possible to deliver emails with all the information user’s need to participate in your referral program directly from their inbox!
🔗 Additional Information
These touchpoints tie in closely with the structure of a referral program that is covered in our How Referral SaaSquatch Works article.
To learn more about referral programs and how to get your program up and running, check out our Referral Program 101 article.