Overview
Can you give me a quick overview of your business?
Bikmo is a cycle insurer protecting the world's riders in the UK, Ireland, Germany, and Austria.
Why did you decide to create a referral/ambassador program?
A lot of the riders we know and speak to have always naturally recommended Bikmo to their cycling friends so it was only right that we offered a way that they can get rewarded. As consumers, we naturally talk about brands we love, and know incentivizing can encourage our customers to be more vocal about our brand.
What were you looking for in a solution?
Key factors in choosing a referral platform for us included easy custom integration with our website to track successful referrals, and a great UX so our teams could jump into the platform and make new campaigns and adjustments.
Why did you choose ReferralHero?
ReferralHero provided a well-rounded referral platform for us to get going quickly, efficiently, and at an affordable cost. The flexibility in the platform and the ability to release unique prize codes to both referrer and referral made ReferralHero a great option for Bikmo.
Campaign Setup
What was the user journey like for someone joining your referral program?
1. We created a dedicated refer-a-friend page within Bikmo's cycle insurance dashboard.
2. We added the ReferralHero Widget to our page and decided to have people opt-in to join the referral program. We made it easy for people to join by pre-populating the form fields so all they had to do was click “sign up”.
3. After the person signs up they are immediately shown the share screen.
4. From the share screen, people could copy their unique referral link and share it with a friend.
5. At the same time, the person is also sent a welcome email explaining the program. Creating the email templates was fairly easy as we could copy over our template HTML source code from our email provider and paste it directly into the ReferralHero automation emails.
6. We set up a dedicated landing page for inbound referral traffic and offered a 5% discount and a £10 Freewheel voucher (more on this below) if they signed up immediately.
7. As ‘friends’ sign up through our “Get a Quote” application process, we bound the ReferralHero FormSumbit() javascript to our signup button so that each referral was tracked.
8. We also added the ReferralHero TrackReferral() javascript to our post-purchase thank you page via Google Tag Manager so that purchases would be successfully tacked.
9. For each successful referral, an email is sent to the referrer containing a unique coupon code for one of our online cycling retailer partners.
How much time did it take you to set up your referral campaign?
We turned our campaign around in two weeks. Most of the setup was straightforward and now that we have our blueprint, building new referral campaigns for new territories we enter has become much easier. We have since created separate campaigns for the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, and Ireland.
What rewards did you offer in your referral program?
We offered £10 coupon codes to a third-party retailer for both the referrer and referral. We wanted to ensure both parties were rewarded for their part in the program, whilst keeping our cost per acquisition at a level we were comfortable with. We have trialed different price points to understand behavior and did see a small improvement with a double-sided £20 coupon.
How did you promote or drive traffic to your referral program?
In general, we get a lot of organic sales built upon brand awareness through our strong partnerships. We also use Google Ads and focus our efforts on SEO by producing high-quality content. Customers discover the refer-a-friend program in their customer dashboard, but we also push this out on an ad-hoc basis to current customers via email, at certain times in the year. The refer-a-friend program customer acquisition cost is considerably less than our other channels.
Results
What was the goal of your campaign and why?
Our goal was to understand the effect of a referral program and see how it could help us reach our monthly marketing targets. We wanted to see what the power of referrals looked like for our business.
Can you measure any increase in revenue or growth?
Bikmo's refer a friend scheme has helped increase the number of riders we insure and protect each month. We maintain a ~20% successful new customer referral rate to all those that sign up for the program, and it helps keep our customer acquisition cost low whilst rewarding current customers.
What is the most important aspect of running a successful referral program and why?
We believe the most important aspect is to reward everyone involved in the referral and that the reward is worthwhile and meaningful to the customer.
What features did you like most about ReferralHero and why?
The ability to send unique coupon codes and fully customize the event-triggered emails meant we could operate our referral program exactly the way we intended.
What would you say to someone who is thinking about launching a referral program?
Go for it! ReferralHero is one of the strongest offerings we found in the market. Take your time to understand the software fully to get the most out of your referral program.
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Thanks to Angus for speaking with me today. Visit Bikmo to see the referral program in action or if you’re looking for some cycling insurance :)
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