Almost no business, regardless of diversity and well-roundedness, is totally self-sufficient in terms of marketing. That’s the reason they usually rely on an external referral marketing platform. However, using an outside source requires meticulous considerations.
There are the most vital points to take into account as you choose your referral marketing program:
Suitability
Clearly, your new program has to be readily compatible with any programs you may be presently using, such as your CRMs, POS systems, and the rest.This means you can monitor a referral’s progress seamlessly via through your sales funnel and later follow up on a customer’s status. Additionally, strong integration capabilities let you take good care of your faithful customers pre-and post-referral.
Scalability
Your referral marketing software must be pliable enough to adapt to the shape that you want as you optimize your marketing techniques, and to give you full control over the direction you want to go.Scalability will help you in define expectations from the platform in terms of speed, usability, and abilities.
Legit Labeling and APIs
Your referral software should be white labeled and have the suitable API capabilities, allowing you complete usage and giving you associated rights.Meanwhile, your API documents have to contribute to interoperability with other systems.
Customization
Before choosing a referral system, see to it that it can be modified as per the requirements of your business. For instance, you must be able to customize notifications, template designs, etc.
Contact Grouping
The ability to sort and segment your contacts is key to maintaining organized customer lists; at the same time, it also lets you target a certain kind of consumer for a certain campaign. For example, if you’re targeting your most loyal customers for a new or updated referral marketing campaign that offers more rewards, make sure your referral management platform makes it possible to reach out to those very customers.
Referral Analytics
Numbers alone can accurately determine the best and worst areas of your campaign and give you concrete basis for making necessary adjustments to enhance results. Your program, for example, should offer insights regarding your top influencers, the total number of referral actions taken and referrals sent, and so on. Besides data collection, your software should also allow you to generate organized and detailed reports that educate you and lead you into making sound decisions.
Reliable Customer Service
Finally, the referral software you choose should be backed by a solid customer support team that is knowledgeable and experienced enough to resolve system problems within a reasonable timeframe.Research may be cumbersome, but taking the time out to know the background of a certain system will save you a ton of future headaches. You will certainly find lots of options nowadays, but remember, none of them are created equal.