Update 5/15/07: Please submit this quick 1-minute survey to help ReferNow learn more about the role of referrals in business. 5 random participants will win a free 1-year subscription to ReferNow!
I was asked to write a review of ReferNow, a new type of referral service for business owners and affiliates; decided I like the program's concept.
ReferNow allows two basic types of activity:
1. A business owner to set up their own affiliate program to get it's products and services recommended ReferNow Affiliates by Word of Mouth and track the results as well as reward the affiliates.
2. Allows anyone to sign up as a ReferNow Affiliate, choose business to recommend from the ReferNow Directory and spread the word about that business while gaining points that are redeemable for valuable products, services and cash.
Here's a more detailed breakdown of ReferNow – an Online and Offline Referral / Marketing Tool:
If you want to motivate your customers to talk about and recommend your business to others AND you want to measure which customers do the best job of talking about you offline, try ReferNow (see screenshots ). You can sign up free for the first 30 days and just $19.99 per month thereafter.
If you own a website, you probably know that most sales in the United States are influenced by word-of-mouth. The question is … how do you generate more word of mouth – especially offline?
ReferNow attempts to solve this age-old problem – and helps you get your customers, friends and readers to start talking about you to others. How does ReferNow encourage people to refer your business to their friends and associates?
ReferNow offers a sophisticated set of online tools, comparable to any big company referral management system (e.g. NWA WorldPerks, My Coke Rewards, MaxPerks, Borders Rewards) at an affordable price for small business owners. For example, you can:
- Manage online/offline referral marketing campaigns
- Design promotional pages for your customers
- Create and redeem coupons and referral codes easily
- Include referral marketing techniques in emails you send
- Reward those who send you the most new business
ReferNow.com acts as a traditional Affiliate program – For every business an affiliate tells about ReferNow that signs up for a ReferNow commercial account, gives the affiliate $25. In fact, that's just one way of making money with ReferNow.
Here's some ReferNow testimonials from others that use the service. You can also use this order form, enter promotional code (95F69) and get your free 30-day trial.
What impresses me about ReferNow is they are actually looking for Case Studies – that's right – they want REAL SUCCESS STORIES.
ReferNow is also looking for case studies – so if you want to be mentioned on their website as part of a case study, send us your info and we'll pass it along.
Personally, I haven't signed up for ReferNow yet, but I like the idea of finding businesses I'm interested in and then referring them with coupon codes, etc, that I can track.
Right now, ReferNow needs more businesses to sign up; that will help a lot.
As the business directory grows much larger there will be plenty of affiliates. As a Web Analyst and Artist – I'd also like to see companies sign up that I can recommend, like a local Art Store that I like, or a Web Analytics Vendor I'd recommend.
The service might actually be most useful as a local search marketing program – to recommend dentists, pharmacies, grocery stores, florists, things like that – but it could also work as a national service if large vendors signed up (except, in many cases, they already have affiliate programs of their own).
What might improve ReferNow? If you could nominate a business and it automatically contacts the company and makes an attractive offer to sign up in the Business Directory – then the affiliate makes money.
It's a Win-Win situation as the Directory grows bigger and people make money building that directory.
