Customer and Internal Referral Program

Ross Reitman

Hi Team - we want to roll out a referral program both internally and to our customers to help boost our word of mouth marketing. Has anyone tried this and what was successful in terms of prizes/reward and roll-out?

Jordan Silverman

@Ross Reitman we have rolled out a really successful internal referral program. We are in the process of external but internal has worked great!

Here is what we have done:
1) Paid CSMs for each referral they bring in
- For us that is $100-$150 per lead --> For you it would depend on acquisition costs
- This is paid once a sales demo is held regardless if the customer closes

2) Quarterly Competition
- Whoever gets the most referrals gets a $1,500 bonus

3) Team goals
- If the team hits a threshold of referrals then it is an accelerator on top

Ross Reitman

Thanks @Jordan Silverman! I will share what we end up doing. I like how you also have team goals! I think I have leeway to add on top of that if anything closes.

Justine Wares

Hey @Ross Reitman I'd love to see what your org ended up going with for the external referral program. I know it's been a little while since this thread, but are you willing to share?

[Deleted User]

@Ross Reitman check out this Traction webinar on "The Ultimate SaaS Affiliate Marketing Playbook" with Paddy McGill who spent 10 years in affiliate marketing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZOdQyLQ6D4

toniann7

@Ross Reitman - we implemented Partnerstack. They are the best for B2B SaaS platforms if that is your business model!

Brian O'Keeffe

I was part of an internal referral program that paid us between $250 to $500 per qualified lead to enroll and identify advocates. That worked well and got it on everyone's radar. 

In another life, I was part of a rewards program where anyone in the company could identify and provide a lead and get a $500 AmEX gift card. A lot of it was looking for expansion opportunities or conversions to current SaaS product from legacy product. It was a little wonky and very manual but worked. The gift cards were not quite as powerful as cash. Just my two cents.

Sanjeev

@Ross Reitman We've regularly had programs that incentivises CSMs to drive referrals with successful customers. These referral actions range from activities like private reference calls, public reviews in vendor platforms, webinar participation, and more. This has always helped bring in leads which then our Marketing team work with to convert. 

For policy reasons, we've never had any incentives rolled out for customers. When I probed on this once, I was told that incentives to customers may be construed as a manipulation to fetch favourable reviews. However, in the market, I've seen vendors offer different rewards to encourage customers to post reviews, share leads, etc.