How to create a referral campaign that doesn’t suck — Part 3
👉 Step 1: Closing the campaign
This sounds obvious, and it is!
When your campaign is over, close it. Change the header in your page, announce it on social media, make it clear. The worst thing it could happen is that people sign up and invite their friends without knowing the competition was over. You piss them off. They hate you. Nobody wins.
Currently there is no native way to close a Maître campaign from the dashboard. You must physically remove the widget from your page.
Top tip: Use Maître for lead generation
Some people keep Maître on their pages after the contest is over to keep collecting emails. For example they change the copy to something like “Sign up and be informed when we run a new contest” or something like that.
👉 Step 2: Announce the winner(s)
Yes, you have run a viral contest to get loads of emails but your subscribers simply don’t care. This is your success. Their success is the reward of your contest.
When you close your contest don’t forget to celebrate the winners. Send them a personal email. Post on your Facebook page. Tweet about them. Make them the real stars.
To get the list of winners is very easy. Go to the “Registrations” tab and export the CSV file. In the CSV file you will find the list of all your subscribers. You can sort them by number of people referred, total points or position in the list (if you have run a waiting list).
If you run a sweepstake we will do this for you. You just need to click on the blue button “Manage winners”. You can read more in this support article.
Top tip: Turn winners into ambassadors
Since you have just made them happy, you can ask them to make you happy. Simply ask them to tweet or publish on their FB page what they won. They will happily do it and you will get an extra social boost.
You could even go as far as asking them to take a photo (or a selfie) of themselves with the prize (if it’s a physical product). Alternatively you can ask to write about them on your blog. Whatever you come up with, make them part of your story and in turn they will become your brand ambassadors.
👉 Step 3: Repeat
Now that you have run a successful referral campaign, why not run another one? In fact, referral contests can turn into a long term strategy for lead generation. If you generate 5,000 subscribers with one contest, imagine how many you can generate if you were to do 4/5 contests a year.
Besides, now that you have collected hundreds or thousands of emails it will be even easier to kick off your next contest 😉
👉 Final thoughts
Running a successful referral campaign is not hard, but it requires preparation. Nobody can predict the level of success of your campaign but you can increase your odds by following some basic principles. Make clear what your objective is and plan things ahead. Have a clear strategy about how you are going to drive traffic to your contest. Lastly, make sure that what you offer is something your niche really REALLY want. People won’t get crazy for an early access (most of the time), nor a 10% discount. Offer something they can’t refuse.
Hope this guide has helped you create a better referral campaign.
If you have any thoughts or ideas please get in touch.
