Mimic Hotjar success. 60,000 emails prior launching. That is insane
"We threw in a lot of kind of incentives in there. It just took off. It went crazy, literally. So within a few months we hit around 60,000 emails and growing."
--David Darmanin - https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/036-david-darmanin-of-hotjar
Everyone heard about Hotjar. They are huge. They are located in Malta (just like me and EarlyParrot.com). Anyway when interview David Darmanin CEO of Hotjar stated that one of the huge wins that Hotjar had was to build a huge list prior launching by having a good referral marketing campaign.
They still have their referral marketing campaign going. In fact if you sign up, one of the most prominent tabs is called Refer a Friend.
Whilst working on EarlyParrot.com I learnt a great deal about referral marketing from our early adopters. Whilst it is not easy to get a huge list like Hotjar did, referral marketing can definitely help you to grow a healthy list prior launching and keep generating hot leads after launching. If you need help post a comment here with your question on how to best implement a referral marketing campaign for your SaaS
Valuable post, and congrats on EarlyParrot! I'm interested to get your opinion on how to create a referral marketing campaign for https://SalesWolf.io
It's consistently getting 2-5 new users per day but I'm after some explosive growth.
@Michael I signed up to SalesWolf to understand what is your offer. It is a super simple yet very effective offer. I have already referred it to a friend of mine who will be using this... anyway...
Here are my suggestions:
Do not just ask for referrals straight away. Just put a button in top menu that will take your to the share screen. A Share screen is where all the sharing functionality will be located.
After say 2-3 days that a user sign up, automatically invite the users to join your referral program OR after they successfully create their first script, ask them to join your program. Do not invite everyone - only those who find your service useful and have spent time trying it.
Come up with a feature or a small set of features that you only give them out for those who share your service. These features will be an exclusive rewards to those who reach a certain level of sharing - Eg. someone who shares your project on Facebook and Twitter and gets at least 2 signups.
Alternatively if you don't have an exclusive feature set, give away an ebook that helps anyone to create the best Sales Script... or FREE 1 hour call discussing tips on how to improve their SalesScript.
If you are interested in implementing the above connect with me on gaetano@earlyparrot.com. We might even be able to do a brainstorming session over Skype!
To echo Gaetano's comment
You might want to also test requesting customer testimonials instead of referrals at first. If you could have a couple customer testimonial videos on your landing page, text quotes, etc. that could really help with adoption in your funnel!
Here's a cool article on getting testimonials: https://sixteenventures.com/get-testimonials
Good luck and congrats on your success so far!
Thanks Gaetano, for both the referral and the advice! All those points are great and I'll take them on board for the next version release.
And thank you too Harry, that info provides another element.
I'm currently updating the landing page and it will include testimonials received from current clients.
Would be great to connect with you both again soon!
Harry provided you with a solid piece of advice! ;-)
@Michael if you need help do not hesitate to contact me here or via email gaetano@earlyparrot.com
Will do, thanks :)
Hey
Saw the post and that you're running your own web referral marketing site.
Let's talk. Get me your email, and we can exchange msgs.
I've looked over a number of online sites - launchrock, referalcandy etc.. but haven't yet found what I need.
Basically, I want to allow a user to signup/join, and then refer others. I also want the user who joins to be able to see/track other users they've recruited, as well as to see who else has joined. I'm thinking of a kind of social network/membership app combined with the prelaunch functionality.
My project is a kind of groupon process.. where the more people who join, the cheaper the service/product. So, I'm looking to be able to not only have people refer others but to be able to have the users see/connect with others within the community.
So, if you're up to it, let''s talk.
I'm not sure how large your operation is, but it might be possible to do some additional dev, to get what I need.
Hit me up with your email or phone if you're in the US...
thanks
Hey tsmith - this is definitely doable.
gaetano@earlyparrot.com is my email.
60,000 is crazy! I forget what David's background was to get to 60,000 - is it possible to go from relative obscurity to that kind of mailing list?
His background was that he worked in the industry of conversions optimization and knew basically everyone from going to a lot of conferences and being an expert in the space. So... he had put in the hard yards to get to a very good position to launch that kind of business. Though to everyone else it looks like overnight success haha.
spot on. He basically leveraged his network but it also means that if you leverage your network + use referral marketing it will take your very far!
I actually tried something very similar to what Dropbox did for Citationsy, but hardly anyone ended up sharing their referral link and getting friends to join up. So my advice would be to not spend too much time building a complicated automatic system for referrals, but rather to try it out with some manual work in the beginning until you know it works.
@Cenk. It really depends on how you positioned your referral marketing campaign, what rewards you offered too.
I don't recommend anyone building their referral marketing system - you can use off the shelf (trial or even free version) to test out how it works for you.
P.S. I am biased I am founder of a referral marketing platform that offers a free plan forever.
Exactly, that’s what I’m saying too. Before building a complicated custom system test it to see if it works for your product and customers.
I checked out your site, I love the name but your frontend could use some fine-tuning: https://i.imgur.com/gMFSv26.png
Bammm :( Thanks for pointing that out. We shall be launching a new website for our launch due next week.
Thanks - will make sure that gets fixed
Hi Gaetano! Actually I just sent you an email now :-)
I also believe that referral marketing is a great way to acquire users (Dropbox/Gmail/Hotmail used it to scale and yet, is is barely used)
I have a few questions (if you could answer publicly I think this would help the community as well):
In your opinion, what are the components of a successful referral marketing campaigns?
Do you believe that referral can also be used for Indie products that do not have a lot of users yet? At which point should you decide "OK, my business is big enough to do referrals now"?
Robin - I agree with you it so under used as a lot of SaaS founders think it is overly complicated when really it is not... I remember when Gmail launched everyone was craving for an invite! :-) Creating scarcity really really works!
With regards to your questions:
Successful referral marketing campaigns (in my opinion and from my experience) should have:
a. Targeted incentives / rewards. Offer amazing rewards - try to be original. Ask yourself what would referrers really really want as a reward? For instance, we have worked with a backup software company who their target audience is systems administrators. They were giving out PS4s. I am not saying give out PS4s, I am saying that you should give out well though rewards.
b. Double sided rewards. Think of Dropbox... it rewards both referrer and referral. It gives them both 500mbs. This gives a lot of incentive to invite all of your friends with the hope that most of them sign up from your referral link.
c. AHA moment. Target your users at the right moment. Do not bombard all your users as soon as they sign up. It will not work. It's like you go to a pub and as soon as you sit down they will ask you to call all your friends to share a pint with you. NOOO... First let them enjoy the night and then as they are leaving pitch them... "Hey next time bring your friend with you..."
d. Attainable results. Do expect that anyone will spend a weekend referring your project to win a bumper sticker. Make sure that you reward referrers accordingly.