This Can Help Get You to $1M in Revenue 🚀

Hey 👋🏼 - Chris here.

Happy Monday to the thousands of motivated marketers, founders, and business owners in this community. 

Here's one tip that can help you generate millions in topline revenue. 

Today's newsletter takes about 3 minutes to read. 

Enjoy!
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Some of the most successful companies in the world have referral programs to thank for their explosive growth.

What do Dropbox, AirBnB, and Uber have in common? They all had incredibly successful customer referral programs that helped them scale massively.

But this opportunity isn’t just for the “big guys”. 

Once your product hits a critical mass of customers (say a few hundred) it is amazing how properly incentivizing word of mouth marketing can exponentially scale your business. There are a few reasons why referral programs work…

✅ - Referral Programs Turn Happy Customers Into Your Sales Team

Customers are generally better at selling our products than we are. This is because they personally identify with the unique problems that your solution provides and can clearly communicate value.

Referral programs work because happy customers know who else has these same problems and where to find them. Oftentimes at scale (i.e. YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn) 

✅ - Referral Programs Generate Better Customers

According to a report from Deloitte referred customers have an average of 37% higher retention rate than non-referred. Wow.

Also, for e-commerce brands looking to scale acquisition, referral programs can drive some serious results. The mattress brand Casper generated a 7x ROI and a 13% increase in conversion rate by implementing a referral program with their customers.

✅ - Leverage Outside Brand Authority

One of the great tangental benefits of referral programs is that you can create INSTANT brand authority by drafting off of the recommendation of others.

Brand authority is hard to build but it so much easier when it happens organically. Referral programs are one great way to encourage organic growth of your brand.


HOW DO YOU SET THIS UP?

• Have Customers - Have a list of at least a few hundred happy customers. In order to have a successful referral program you must be able to tap into an existing base of customers. 
• Leverage Tech - Use a partner management tool like Partnerstack to manage the tracking, reporting, and incentives. BONUS! You can also use their marketplace to recruit affiliates.
• Have a Great Incentive - For referral programs the best incentive is one that offers product value or product discounts for customers and referrals. Users do not want to monetize off of their friends... but they DO want to help them. *Example -Dropbox: get free storage space for you and the person you invite*
  
• Ask At the Right Time - The best time to ask for a referral is after a moment of delight. Identify the top "happy" moments in the user journey and ask for the referral then! 

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Fun fact -- In 2017 I was a marketing team of one at a SaaS startup and had $0 budget. In 10 months I generated over $1M in Annual Recurring Revenue using the method explained above. If you've used a referral program I would love to hear your stories!

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