How can I make a double-sided referral program successful?(instant vs delayed rewards)

Sometimes what happens, socially with older blogs is that they get picked up by a media writer, think Yahoo columns. They'll credit you and link back but won't even ask you. Maybe someone found it and posted on Reddit or tumblr. Because you have a picture of Gandhi and the title itself is kind of catchy, I wouldn't be surprised someone else shared it on Reddit or even tumblr where the reposts are SO easy, even if they don't get read people repost for someone else... If you have Googles Blogger you should be able to trace it down. Maybe conduct a G search based on date with that title... Unless you have analytics it would be hard to trace exactly. Maybe there is a software not even I am aware of. The question I would ask myself is instead is: Why did people share it. For that you don't have to trace so back. And the answers you get are way more valuable than you finding out who shared it first. #Unthink

I have more than 15 years of marketing experience and this includes experience in growth hacking. I look forward to the possibility of talking soon.

Question ... If the lower end of the retail price range for your jewelry is $100, why would you be giving away $50 in cash? Presumably, the margin on a $100 piece of jewelry is such that its wholesale cost is roughly comparable to that $50 in cash. So if the choice is between giving away $50 in cash versus giving away $50 indirectly in the form of products worth more than $50, why would you pass over the opportunity to place your products with your customers? There are dozens of ways to spend $50 on marketing. But the best way -- surely -- is to put your branded jewelry around the necks or on the hands and wrists of people who will go out in public wearing / promoting you! I'm sure you could structure this in various ways to make it just as cost effective as giving away cash. At worst, the cash probably ought to be in-store credit. Yet you might also want to consider incentivizing a person to refer 2 people or 3 people or 5 people as a minimum in order to redeem free merchandise of various price points. Anyone who sees that they are 1 more referral away from a $500 piece of jewelry will be much more eager to bring in another friend than someone who has already been paid $50 apiece for each referral thus far.

I haven't come across something that does exactly that. If it's a relatively small number of companies you refer, signing up to an affiliate program for each of them is probably easiest. If the number of brands/companies is bigger, this sounds like something that should be built. Would love to have a quick chat with you on that.

Expertise: I currently run a high performing referral channel with several million invites every year. As you build out your growth strategy it’s important to identify the main “macro” conversion. This is an action that you need users to take to make the product successful. In your case, the product goal is - get multiple people to commit to buying a single product. On the other side of this, your customer’s goal is - to get a deep discount on a product. On the surface it would seem that the more comprehensive way to get users to invite others to your service is to get them to go in on buying a product together. This would mean that you want to build your growth features around sharing product pages. However, one might consider that while friends and family might be buying same offer for things like food, activities and experiences, they might not be willing to buy the exact same shoes, dress or pants. That said, you seem to be on the right track with the referral link plan. The key to getting people to invite others is to clearly showcase the functionality and benefits. a) Triggers - you need multiple placements from which to invoke the invite flow. Product page to display -10% price with CTA to share ("Get this product for 10% by inviting friends) Home page (“Make your next purchase 10% by getting your friends to sign up and buy”) Emails promoting the program. b) Landing page that clearly explains the program (“Get $30 to spend when your friends join and buy”) c) 2-sided benefits, consider clearly offering something to the invitee other than your great group buying prices (“Invite your friends and you both get 10% off your next purchase") On the technical level for Facebook sharing you might want to consider Messenger vs. Wall Posts. While you might think that you’re getting more reach with a wall post, consider that Facebook algorithm is not very kind and your shared post might not get seen much. Direct messages on the other hand are user-to-user. They have a very high likelihood of getting opened and lead to much better clickthrough. This might be quite a bit to build on your own and you might want to experiment with a service like Extole. I haven’t used them myself, but I’ve recently reviewed their offering and it seems like a good way to get a new referral program started. Lastly, don’t discount email invites. They still perform really well in terms of engagement and can be fairly simple to set up with a mailer and a well optimized template. Most important - figure out what kind of numbers work for you. It’s easy to get a referral program get out of hand in terms of cost if you’re finding that your payback period is of significant length. Feel free to schedule a call if you would like to discuss further.