· 5 min read · referral-marketing

How to Grow Your Audience with A Newsletter Referral Program

Do you want to grow your audience while you sleep? Then it’s time to implement a newsletter referral program.

Do you want to grow your audience while you sleep? Then it’s time to implement a newsletter referral program.

Research shows that 95% of people trust recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. With a thoughtfully crafted newsletter referral program, you can leverage your current subscriber list to grow exponentially.

Let’s say you have 1,000 subscribers right now and just half of them refer at least one person. Suddenly, you’ve got 500 new subscribers. Then, if half of those new subscribers refer one friend each, you’ve successfully almost doubled your subscriber list – and basically all you had to do was ask!

We’re going to go over exactly what a newsletter referral program is, how it can help you, and how easy it is to get yours set up today.

What is A Newsletter Referral Program?

All referral programs work through word of mouth: someone who has already connected with you tells another person about you and connects that person with you, too. This helps you get more marketing work done without having to really do any work. Essentially, your audience is working for you. For free.

Well, not totally free. As you’ll find out in a little bit, one of the most effective ways to operate an email subscriber referral program is by offering an incentive for the referral. It’s all about finding a reward that comes at no or very little cost for you and brings your audience great value.

If you don’t yet believe us that email subscriber referral programs are so effective, just take a look at these results from The Morning Brew, TheSkimm, and The Hustle:

  • The Morning Brew’s newsletter referral program grew their email list from 100,000 to 1.5 million subscribers in a year and a half! They reported that 30% of their initial subscribers came from referrals and, out of all their subscribers, the ones that came through the referral program have a 75% conversion rate on The Morning Brew’s landing page.
  • 20% of TheSkimm’s email subscribers have come from their referral program.
  • The Hustle’s newsletter referrals brought in 300,000 new subscribers in only a few months!

With those stats in your head, you’re probably ready to create your own newsletter referral program! And we’re here to help.

4 Steps to Setting up an Email Subscriber Referral Program

To make this as easy as possible for you, we’re going to give you the exact, step-by-step method that you can use to design a newsletter referral program that works.

1. Offer a no or low-cost, high-value reward

This is perhaps the most important part of your email referral program. Your subscribers need a reason and incentive to share your newsletter with other people. In other words, what’s going to be in it for them?

You must offer an incentive that most people will find value in, but that costs very little for you to provide. Otherwise, the offer wouldn’t be worth it to your business. One of the best reward structures is one that offers cumulative rewards. The more people a subscriber gets to join your email list, the larger their rewards are.

This helps offset the cost of larger rewards because you know that your audience will have grown, which will help drive more sales. For example:

  • First tier: Something small and inexpensive like a magnet or sticker. OR something that costs you nothing to produce, like a digital checklist or eGuide.
  • Second tier: Branded swag or a higher-value digital offering, like a free eBook or access to an exclusive online community
  • Third tier: For your most dedicated subscribers who bring in hundreds of referrals, you might thank them with a gift card, large giveaway package, or a free item from your store.

2. Promote your referral program in your newsletter

Yes, that’s right: shameless self-promotion! The best way to tell your email subscribers about your program is right there in your newsletter. You can also promote on social media and in-store (if you have a physical location) but within your newsletter is going to be the best place.

  • Mention your newsletter referral program in the first line of your email
  • Have a more obvious mention of your program in the body (in a bold or different font)
  • Highlight your program within at the end of each email with an eye-catching banner that readers can’t ignore

3. Make your newsletter referral program easy to participate in

If your subscribers can invite more people with just a few clicks, they’re likely to get involved. If they have to jump through a bunch of hoops, they’re probably going to decide it’s not worth their time. This is exactly why it’s such a good idea to mention your referral program within each newsletter: they’re already reading it. If it just takes a couple more clicks to get a free magnet, why not??

Have a unique subscriber link in each email so all a reader has to do is copy and paste wherever they like.

4. Automate your referral program

You don’t want to have to sit at your computer all day, every day, running your newsletter referral program. And we don’t want you to do that, either! These days, you can automate pretty much any online process, including a newsletter referral program.

Automated newsletter referral programs will generate unique referral links for you, manage new referrals, track referrals, and automatically send out referral rewards (like a coupon) with instructions for how to claim.

When you’re ready to grow your email list, Firewards will be right behind you. We will give you the tools, support, and direction your need to create a newsletter referral program, grow your email list, and reach as many people in your audience as possible! Let’s grow your business, together!

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Published by

Dennis Stücken

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