Mostly, it is difficult for ICO founders to gather enough people to invest in their project but a good marketing strategy can make a difference. This brings me to the topic at hand — Referral Programs : one of the most effective marketing strategy involving word of mouth. According to the Harvard Business Review, “Referral marketing is the science of converting a customer’s social capital into a brand’s economic capital” and we couldn’t agree more. Referral programs can bring in the right people to invest in your ideas by leveraging your existing customers’ social linkages.

What are Referral Programs?

Have you ever liked a product so much that you referred it to your friends to try as well? If yes, then you already know how “word-of-mouth” works. The referral programs are just like that. You are essentially recommending a product or a service that has earned your trust to a family member or a friend.

Referral programs are extremely effective because here the customers are essentially your marketing puppets. In fact, 92 percent of consumers say that they trust referrals from their friends and colleagues. Nearly, 74 percent say that word of mouth is the key to their purchase decision. Just as it is in the case of products, ICOs can also benefit from referral programs.

ICO Referral Programs

Referral programs for ICOs are very effective as it is safe as well as an easy marketing strategy that can increase your ICO’s popularity. It is the only marketing channel that could allow your brand to leverage word-of-mouth promotion. Exciting incentive plans for existing investors can encourage your customers to bring in more investors who they think will be interested in your product or idea.

Facebook, Instagram, Google and many other social media channels have already banned ICO advertisements due to occurrences of few fraudulent ICOs. Reaching to potential investors are getting harder as the existing channels which are proven to be effective are no more supporting ICO advertisements. This is why it is important to leverage other marketing strategies like referral programs, bounty programs etc.

How to launch a referral program?

We already know that the referral program is a great way to reach out to more potential investors. Let’s see how to launch a referral program for your ICO’s.

Decide the incentives

Referral marketing will get more traction if you offer better incentives. Find the best offer you can give to your customer in return for high-quality leads. You can either run a contest or just simply announce to reward a flat payment. The best practice is to reward your own ICO’s token rather than any other incentives.

Launching referral programs are extremely easy, especially if you are using an ICO launch platform with pre-built referral programs — like CoinFactory. Here, the users will get a unique referral URL, which they can share with their connections. Upon successful registration by the referred people, the referer will automatically get incentives.

Referral programs can create more acceptability of your Blockchain concept among your customers as compared to paid advertisements. Referral programs are the best in generating high-quality leads which you can get if you have a good incentive plan. Customers will work at their full potential if your rewards are promising. Plan your reward and find the best offer that you can give to your existing customers.