12 Reasons Why Referral Marketing is Perfect for eCommerce

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You'll often see referral programs on eCommerce websites. It is there because it is instrumental in driving up traffic and attracting sales. But before you ask the question 'Can I do affiliate marketing on Shopify?', let us show you some reasons why it works exceptionally well for eCommerce such as Shopify. In this article, you'll learn about the 12 reasons why you should have a referral program in your online store. You'll find that the benefits are just too good to pass.

1. It can easily be integrated into your eCommerce platform

Many eCommerce business owners forgot the idea of having a referral program, thinking that it is too complicated to implement. But it is relatively easy. It would help if you had some referral or influencer software, and you can easily set up a referral program for your business in a few clicks. Also, you can integrate it with any marketing automation platform or shopify apps that you use.

2. It doesn't require complicated rewards

You may know referral marketing as an incentivized form of marketing. With this, you may think that you will need a complicated reward to set it up. When really, you don't overthink it. You can easily set it up with a discount code on your website. Just think about a percentage that you can give away and create a discount code in your eCommerce platform. Then, you can now integrate this code into your referral system, and you are ready to go.

3. It attracts customers with high lifetime value

When it comes to running a successful eCommerce business, you can only say that you have succeeded if you found a significant amount of repeat customers in your industry. These people should not only buy from you in a single time. They should buy from you again and again in the future. This is what high lifetime value means. It means that you get customers who are willing to purchase from you also in the future.

4. It encourages user-generated content

If you are wondering how you can encourage more people to talk about your brand (both on site via blog commenting and off site on other platforms), you can use referral marketing. Since you will get your customers to talk about your brand, you will inevitably get more user-generated content to your brand. User-generated content is essential for SEO and social proof. And it can also lead to more sales.

5. It boosts your brand's social proof.

One of the things you should build if you want to get more sales and improve rankings in your business is social proof. You'll need other people vouching for you before you can get other people to get to know, trust, and buy from you. Trust is built over time. But it can be made faster if you other people talking about your brand consistently. You can get a steady stream of reviews if you have a referral program.

6. It attracts influencers

And if you want to promote your business with influencer marketing, you can also use your referral program to attract them. With a referral system, you can create exclusive referral programs that will attract more traffic to your business. Just create an exclusive referral system in the influencer's name, and you now have an offer that influencers would love to share with their followers.

7. It can be integrated into the checkout process.

The best part about referral marketing is it is not that hard to implement. It is not that hard to integrate into your current processes, either. You will find that you can easily fuse a referral program in your product or checkout pages. This can be a simple link or button that takes your customers to your referral page, or it can be the actual referral form or banner.

8. It can quickly be promoted via email.

If you already have a steady stream of customers, promoting your referral program is not a problem. You can search email through email finder and send an email or integrate it with your monthly newsletter. If you do it this way, every new customer that enters your funnel will be informed about your referral program.

ProTips: you should learn more about email list bulding strategies so you can know the email metrics and hopefully, your email subscribes will increase.

9. Almost all successful eCommerce sites have it.

If you look at some of the most successful eCommerce websites or B2B eCommerce Solutions on the Internet, you'll find that they don't run their business without a referral program. It is simple to implement, and it helps them get more sales. Take Amazon, for example. It even has an Associates program to encourage more people to direct customers to the site. It is the reason why the website has grown at such a rapid pace.

10. It is suitable even for single product online stores.

Are you selling a few or a single product? No problem! You can still use referral programs to promote them. Referral programs don't only work for eCommerce stores with multiple products. It can also work even if you have a few products as long as your products fulfill their purpose and your customers are happy. Nothing is stopping your audience from sharing it with other people. Having a referral program will allow you to catch all of that in one convenient dashboard.

11. It encourages social media sharing.

Social media promotions are essential in today's modern business. But your customers need to know that they can do it. Usually, your store may be one social share button away from getting more sales. But more than adding social buttons, you can also ask people to share your pages in exchange for incentives. You can do this by rewarding social shares in your referral program.

Facebook, the most popular social media is also the best place to share your e-commerce content.

12. It is a data-driven form of marketing.

The great thing about referral marketing is it is data-driven. It means that you can increase your results if you have more people in your funnel. You'll see how well your referral system is performing and see the exact amount of referrals each referrer can invite. Data back it, and you can use that data for future promotions.

BONUS: It lowers cart abandonment

You don't even need cart abandonment software to know the impact of referral marketing on your cart abandonment rates.

As you can see, there are so many reasons why referral marketing is vital to your eCommerce business. If you are still on the fence on whether you should get one for your site, this article should have convinced you that it is one of the best decisions you can make for your online store. It works even if you are running a new website like Drum Set Lab and Hunting Bow Lab. Try it and see how it works for you.