Savvy CPG leaders this holiday season are firing up customer advocacy with an online referral marketing platform that rewards high-value shoppers and their trusted circles for growth long after Black Friday sales peak. Sure, there will always be one-off bargain hunters who disappear when the markdowns are over. But the experts behind Mention Me, a referral marketing platform, help brands understand who their best customer advocates are so they can treat them right.
“Encouraging your high-value customers to spread the word about your brand extends sales beyond the seasonal spike,” said Andy Cockburn, co-founder and CEO of Mention Me. “These are the customers who purchase the most over time, and they’re inviting friends and family who trust them. Thank you rewards incentivize everyone to buy again, increasing repeat customers, and growing the entire customer base.”
Shopping is easier with a little help from your friends
Instead of viewing referrals as a simple marketing tactic, Cockburn said that Mention Me’s customer-led strategy “cracks the referral code” to increase consumer advocacy and long-term growth.
“At the heart of the referral is a complex social interaction between friends. In a split second, the customer is asking will my friends value this product, and view me positively or negatively for sharing it?,” he said. “Our Referral Engineering approach applies data science to put the right message in front of the right customer at the right time. This helps companies turn existing relationships with customers into growth by extending their lifetime value. Rather than looking purely at how many purchases a customer has made, extended lifetime value, or ELTV, also looks at how many new customers they’ve introduced.”
