Introducing Referrals to Company Profiles

Today we launched the first version of a new feature on Birchal that will provide companies a tool to encourage and recognise word of mouth for their brand.

For startups and high growth companies — having an effective referral marketing channel for attracting new customers can drive revenue growth and be one of the cost effective channels to build awareness of the brand. We believe the same applies to attracting investors.

When a company receives a referral from a trusted friend, individual or publisher, the referrer is much more likely to take an action ie. purchase a product or service.

“People are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend.” Nielson

The “Refer” button on company profiles. See PARK

VERSION 1.0
The first step to implementing a referral system on Birchal was to start tracking shares and signups from link shares. Every profile on Birchal now has a “Refer” button that makes it super easy to grab a URL with a unique code. We’ve also made it really easy to directly share on social, email and text message (mobile).

Unique share URL. See Next Address — I used this code above ;)

Tracking & Notification

To recognise the people that share links, we believe it’s really important to first notify sharers on traction. In the same way we love to see notifications of likes and shares on our social media.

So, on Birchal once someone signs up (or signs in) using your shared link — the person that shared the link will get notified via email on who it was and be able to view all referrals in their Portfolio.

Josh here referred our team members to ORDER, PELIKIN, PARK

VERSION 2.0 — Offering incentives / rewards for sharing

It’s pretty obvious that people like getting rewarded (and incentivised) for making referrals. Particularly, if your an ‘influencer’.

“88% of Americans say they would like some sort of incentive (money, product or service, loyalty points, early access, swag) for sharing a produce via social media or email. That number jumps to 95% among 18-to-34 year olds.” Neilsen

However, with Birchal and Equity Crowdfunding in Australia — do investors (and particularly retail investors) want money or something else for referring other people to a company?

And note, a referral could end up attracting $1000’s in investment for a company

Disclosure: signing up with the links in this article will be my referrals ;)