Referral marketing may be underrated in the digital marketing industry. Still, the truth of the matter is that it is one of the most effective customer acquisition and lead generation strategies. We may agree that PPC, influencer marketing and social media is the craze at the moment, but an experienced marketer will tell you the importance and influence that referral marketing can have in your lead generation efforts is unmatched.
Referral marketing has, hitherto, been driven by word of mouth. When a customer loves your brand or service, they tell it to their friends, and you end up getting new customers based on this referral. As much as the traditional word-of-mouth strategy may be effective in referral marketing, it may not always be feasible. This is especially so for a new company or business that is yet to attract a loyal clientele. On the other hand, a big company may not be in a position to always track their referrals by themselves. So what happens in such a case? Referral marketing software steps in to fill the gap.
The advent in technology has seen the development of automated tools that can help improve the speed and efficiency of referral marketing. Currently, there is quite a number of referral marketing tools in the market. However, not all of these will be ideal for your marketing strategy. As such, we have taken our time to research and present to you some of the most notable referral marketing software that you can adopt for your business.
| Software | Starting Price | Free Version | Loyalty Programs | Packages | Integration |
| Referral Candy | $49/month | No | Yes | Premium ad enterprise | Fairly Simple |
| FriendBuy | $249/month | Yes | Yes | 2 self management monthly plans/ custom plan | Fairly Simple |
| CrewFire | $69/month | No | Yes | Basic and Premium | Needs Technical commitment |
| Ambassador | $800/month | Yes | No | Starter, professional and enterprise | Simple |
| Influitive | Available on request | Yes | Yes | Professional, corporate and Enterprise | Learning curve expected |
| Refersion | $89/month | Yes | Yes | Starter and Professional | Needs Technical comitment |
1. Friendbuy
Friendbuy is a revolutionary tool that activates and encourages your existing clients to bring in new customers. It works best through a refer-a-friend format.
Offering incentives
To fully convince your existing customers, Friendbuy makes use of incentives. These may be anything ranging from discounts to points, offers and any other form of reward that could spur action.
Marketing experts
Friendbuy boasts of a team of marketing experts that will walk with you, hand in hand to design a whole referral marketing program from the bottom up. Right from planning to execution, Friendbuy makes sure that you get the drift and succeed in your referral bid. This is in addition to their revolutionary analytics suite. With this, you can easily measure and keep track of your performance.
2. Influitive
You cannot go wrong with a program that has been trusted by household names like IBM and Cisco. Influitive is an award-winning referral tool that gets you to action by mobilizing your brand advocates and customer to get on a customer acquisition spree.
Using gamification
Influitve makes use of gamification to scale up your referral marketing efforts. The best thing about this tool is that its scope is not limited to the acquisition of customers alone. Instead, it also goes ahead to help you get new brand advocates.
Reviews management
As a business guru, you would understand the importance of reviews to your business. However, it may not always be possible to keep track of reviews from your current and previous customers. Luckily, Influitive steps in to help keep track of your customer reviews. This is in addition to encouraging them to write even more reviews.
3. Referral Candy
Referral Candy is a popular tool among startups or those trying to test if referral marketing will work for them. This is mainly because of their ease of use and integration at a friendly price.
Easy integration
If you are running an e-commerce or Shopify store, then referral candy is the tool for you. This is all thanks to their convenient and straightforward integration format and support for custom platforms. What’s more, you can also integrate other popular third party e-commerce apps
Beginner-friendly
With referral Candy, you will love its basic fraud prevention feature, simple reports, pre-designed templates and intuitive UI. What’s more, you have standard referral campaign settings to try out. If you are looking for an MVP-like solution but not sure where to start, then Referral Candy will work best for you.
4. Ambassador
Ambassador is an all-in-one tool used by referral marketers to manage all of their brand ambassadors in one location. These could be employees, customers, associates or any other brand advocates.
Numbers don’t lie
Ambassador boasts of unmatched experienced having been in the market for some time now. During this time, their performance has been exemplary. They have since registered over 10 million brand ambassadors and created another 38 million touchpoints targeted at their clients.
More than just customers
Ambassador goes beyond focusing on just customer acquisition and includes all your esteemed brand advocates. Since this is an all-in-one solution for your referral endeavours, it works best for established businesses. Such businesses already have a strong network of brand advocates and will be looking for better management.
Multiple opportunities
Since they offer an all-in-one package, you can take advantage of their multiple opportunities to grow your customer base. Here, you can easily customize specific referral programs as per your customer type. This makes it possible to deliver unique messaging and rewards while analyzing and tracking each segment of your business. Take advantage of their out-of-the-box CRM, eCommerce and billing integrations.
5. Refersion
If you are looking to easily engage people in recommending your business while tracking your referral sales, then Refersion is your tool of choice. This software seamlessly connects with other platforms and allows you to complete your payments right from the software.
Precise and detailed
The tool offers a detailed report that not only helps you understand the current progress but also plan for future campaigns. This works best if you are also focusing on affiliate marketing since you can easily show your sales records to your partners. This keeps them motivated, and they will be willing to collaborate with you in growing the business further.
Strong customer support
As a beginner, you need someone to hold your hand and show you the way. This is exactly what
Refersion does; its customer support is always available and reachable whenever you need help or guidance. This should keep you on your toes and prepare you for even better prospects in your referral endeavours.
6. Crewfire
If you have been looking for the most effective way to turn your customers into loyal ambassadors for your business, then Crewfire is here to help you do just that. Crewfire will work to ensure that every time you upload or introduce new products, content or posts, your current customers will be prompted to comment, like and share the same as quickly as possible.
Best for B2C
If you are running a B2C business and wondering how to increase your customer base through referrals, then Crewfire is here to help you out. The tool helps with street team management, word of mouth marketing and employee engagement.
Confidence in their service
The fact that they do not have a free or trial version goes to show how the brand is confident of its service. With a starting price of $69 per month, you can easily afford to take your business to the next level with referral marketing.
What makes a good referral program?
We understand how much you wish to see your business expand to greater heights through referral marketing. However, this does not mean that you fall for any referral tool that comes your way. It is important to look at the implications and effectiveness of the same. A good referral program will be:
Consent conscious – A referral will only be effective if everyone involved participates willingly. Without this factor, your referral efforts can lead to inappropriate connections.
Realistic – The referral tool should offer a real opportunity to the participant
Relevant – When the connection is finally made, it should remain relevant to all parties involved
Open for an exit – An idea referral program should provide a window for the referrer to exit the transaction as soon as the connection is made.
Niche focused – A referral program ought to have the right features and abilities to work for your specific niche or business format. This brings about convenience and seamless integration to the business format.
Conclusion
With the above list, you are well equipped with some of the best referral software in the market today. Whether you are looking for an all-in-one premium tool or cheaper options with limited functionality, your search would probably end here. By now, we hope that you understand each software works in its unique ways, and there is no one-size-fits-all. A variety of factors will determine your choice. These may include your niche, business format, size and much more. However, you can always change or upgrade as your business format or goals change. With these, you have all the possibilities to start and run a successful lead generation and customer acquisition campaign.