Are you wondering how to incorporate referral rewards into your 2024 marketing plans? If executed well, these programs can be powerful to start in the first quarter. The key to a strong customer referral program is the right rewards for your advocates, whether they're customers or employees who are promoting your brand.
Gift cards are uniquely compelling program rewards due to their budget flexibility, wide range of brands, ease of distribution, and security for the sender. Read on for everything you need to know about building a successful gift card referral program.
Customer referral programs use your existing customers to evangelize your brand and expand your customer base. Referral rewards, such as gift cards, can be used to reward the referring customer, the referred customer, or both. This way, existing customers are incentivized to recommend your brand and new customers are motivated to sign up.
Referral programs are a low-cost way to organically expand your brand’s reach without expensive advertising or field marketing tactics. The small incentives are enough to get customers talking about your brand and recommending you to their friends. A gift card referral program specifically uses gift cards as incentives. Referral gift cards ensure each reward feels personal and impactful to the recipient and provides security on the investment to the brand sending the reward.
Gift cards are compelling rewards in many situations, but they are uniquely suited to customer referrals for a variety of reasons. Gift cards make great customer referral rewards because they:
Return on investment is key to achieving the business objectives of a gift card referral program. To ensure ROI, we suggest taking a few steps to maximize the impact on the reward recipients:
When choosing a gift card vendor to power your gift card referral program, it’s important to find the right fit. The Engage2Reward Platform offers flexibility to meet your program budget and over brands for your recipients to choose from. The Engage2Reward Platform also offers digital and physical cards, allowing you to reward program participants the best way for your business.
In addition to these features, the Engage2Reward Choice Card provides the ultimate gift card flexibility. This innovative reward option allows your team to provide a gift card value to the reward recipient, which they can then allocate to any of the 250+ brands available to them. This takes the pressure off your program administrators to provide meaningful gifts and puts power in your recipients’ hands to pick the reward that works for them.
Referral programs are powerful business growth tools. With the right rewards in place, like referral gift cards, these programs can take your business to the next level by rewarding and incentivizing loyal customers.
Contact our team today to elevate and streamline your referral program with the Engage2Reward Platform.