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Top 5 Referral Program Software Tools for Your Newsletter
Learn How To Grow Your Newsletter With These Top Tools
Nicola Vaughan
March 14th, 2023
If you’re looking to reach more people with your newsletters, you may be surprised to hear that the best place to start is with your subscriber base.
You may be thinking, ‘But they’re already subscribed! Why do I want to be focused on them?’
The answer is simple. These subscribers are already engaged with your brand and are likely to recommend your mailing list to a friend. This is called referral marketing, and it’s becoming ever more popular in the e-marketing sector.
So, how can you go about this? We’re here to help you learn all about referral marketing, including the best referral program software tools to help you grow your newsletter and online following.
First things first: what exactly is a newsletter referral program?
A newsletter referral program is essentially a way of encouraging your existing subscribers to become brand ambassadors and share your content with other members of their network.
Referral programs may reward subscribers for referring a friend by granting them access to special perks, such as discount codes, vouchers, or exclusive access to events or content.
You can significantly grow your mailing list by commencing a newsletter referral strategy. For extra rewards you can offer your referrers, check out our blog!
How Do I Grow My Referral Program?
The first step in growing your referral program is determining what avenues you want to try when it comes to referrals. You can collect referrals via email or social media, for example - essentially, choose the most likely way you’ll be able to reach your subscribers.
You’ll also want to consider which subscribers you want to help you grow your audience. It’s important to choose loyal subscribers who share your brand values - these audience members are likely to bring you more followers like themselves, which is key when growing a referral program.
You could also use referral software to help grow your newsletter. More on this in the next section.
What Is a Referral Software?
So what is referral software? Referral software helps you to do everything we’ve discussed already in terms of building your mailing list via referrals, but it automates much of the process so that it’s less time-consuming for your business, allowing you to get on with what you do best for your brand.
Software may provide features such as the following:
Unique referral templates
Different embed options
Reward distribution
Reporting and tracking to enable accurate campaign measurement
Referral software aims to make your referral program more streamlined and efficient. Contacting all subscribers regularly to encourage them to refer a friend would be extremely time-consuming, not to mention unreliable due to human error.
Referral software helps to automate this process to keep things regular and more efficient.
What Is the Best Referral Program?
There are many different referral programs on the market, each with different benefits and core competencies.
We’ve outlined a few popular referral programs below to get you well on your way to building an effective referral strategy!
GrowSurf
Growsurf is a referral tool that was designed specifically for tech companies that wanted an easy way to boost their referrals and can facilitate referral marketing for both B2B and B2C companies.
They boast benefits including fast set-up times, automatic link generators to make the process easier for subscribers, and a branded experience to give the effect that communications from GrowSurf have been sent from your own brand.
They offer a free demo, which you can sign up for with this link.
Referral Factory
Another referral tool you should check out is Referral Factory. These guys claim to be the best tool on the market if you don’t have developers, as their system is quick and easy to use.
They offer over 1,000 templates that have been designed by their team of experts, allowing you to customize your referral marketing and have the reassurance that the template you’re using has been tried and tested.
You can start a free trial with Referral Factory by visiting their website here.
Viral Loops is a UK-based referral software company whose system requires no code to get started. This is great for companies that have little tech experience, as you can quickly create a referral program without the need for coding experts.
Their fraud detection system is one of their key USPs, helping to stop spammers and cheaters from exploiting your referral program. You’ll also have access to a customizable design that is based on successful campaigns from companies such as Dropbox, Mailchimp, and Airbnb.
You can try Viral Loops for free via this link.
ReferralRock
Another referral tool for you to check out is ReferralKit, a company that claims to make referrals simple by focusing on putting your referral strategy on autopilot and specializing in email integration.
ReferralRock can be integrated into the current system you’re using for email marketing. It offers a customizable portal, multiple embed options, one-click sharing, and flexible rewards.
You can start a free trial with Referral Rock here.
Genius Referrals
The last referral tool on our list is Genius Referrals, a US-based company that claims to be the referral program software that works as hard as you do.
This company aims to empower your customers, encouraging them to shout about your brand and become advocates. They even provide advocates with their dashboard, encouraging them to measure results and focus on the best ways of achieving more referrals.
For a free 30-day trial, check out the Genius Referrals website.
What Are 5 Elements of an Effective Newsletter?
Now that you’ve got the basics of referral tools down to fine art, you need to make sure your newsletter is in tip-top shape so you can start preparing your content for all those new subscribers!
Here are the top five elements you need to create your best newsletter yet.
Strong Subject Line
The first element to creating a strong newsletter is to start with a great subject line. You don’t want this to be too long, as it may be cut off on smaller devices - somewhere in the region of 40 characters is about right.
Make sure you compel your subscribers to open your email with a catchy subject line. This could involve asking a question or implying that something is exciting inside the email, such as an offer/promotion.
Check out our blog for the best 20 subject lines that will get your email opened.
Call To Action
Another key element to your newsletter is a Call To Action (CTA). This is essentially a step to encourage your subscribers to take a particular action–for example, ‘Start A Free Trial’ or ‘Buy Now.’
It’s essentially guiding your user to where you want them to go. Without a CTA, your audience is less likely to follow through to your website or complete the goal that your newsletter is looking to achieve.
Concise Content
Concise content is super important when creating a great newsletter. While informative content is useful, you don’t want to bombard your audience with reams of text.
Your newsletter is a way of providing content in an easily digestible way that they can easily view on a phone or other small device. If you have more information that you’d like them to know, you can direct them to your website where more info can be found.
Engaging Graphics
Make sure to include engaging graphics when creating your next newsletter. This is fundamental, as it will grab the attention of your subscribers and give a more professional feel to your brand.
It’s important to impress your audience and show that you care about the content that you’re sending them. Engaging graphics and imagery are great ways to achieve this.
Clear Purpose
Lastly, it’s vital to ensure that your newsletter has a clear purpose. Approximately 347.3 billion emails are sent and received every day, so your email needs to have a clear focus to stand out!
It also helps, when measuring the performance of your email marketing, to have a clear purpose with every email you send. This can help narrow down which emails worked and which perhaps need changing.
There are many different types of newsletters - here are a few popular ones to give you some inspiration when writing your next email!
The Welcome Newsletter is a popular one to send out to new customers. When signing up for a brand’s mailing list, it’s nice to receive a quick email that thanks you for joining and provides a little more information on what the brand has to offer.
We recommend sending one of these out to your new subscribers, as it’s a great way to set a good first impression and make them feel they’re valued as a subscriber.
The Promotional Newsletter is perfect for giving some of your products or services a shout-out. Using your email platform to grow sales can be very successful, and sending out emails with a focus on your products and their price is perfect for driving more traffic/sales from your website.
Promotional newsletters can also be used to draw attention to a recent sale, or other time-sensitive topics.
Here’s a different one for you: the Interview Newsletter. This one is perfect if you want to steer away from sales content for a while and give your subscribers something wholesome to read that will provide information about your brand/industry.
You could interview your CEO to provide a peek behind the scenes, or speak to someone big in your industry whom your audience will love to hear from.
A Catch-Up Newsletter is great if you have some recent blog articles that you want to draw attention to, or if you haven’t reached out to your subscriber base in a while and want to get them up to speed with your latest activities.
This could also be useful if you segment your subscribers by activity - if they haven’t placed an order recently, you could reach out to catch up and remind them of your brand.
Last, but by no means least, is the Seasonal Newsletter. These are ideal for celebrating the holidays or announcing seasonal promotions you may be running.
Examples could include Christmas promotions, Black Friday sales, or Boxing Day price reductions. You can also use Seasonal Newsletters to wish your audience happy holidays and remind customers of your brand during big spending periods.
Conclusion - How To Start Your Referral Strategy
We hope this guide has helped build your referral strategy with software tools, and also offer some reminders when it comes to creating a great email newsletter.
So what are you waiting for? Sign up with beehiiv today to start building your email lists, and get to work building those referral ideas.
We even have an integrated referral program within our Scale plan, giving you an email platform and a referral tool all in one! Sign up today via this link.
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