Do you want to learn how to create a referral program to use for your CrowdFunding/fundraising campaign? Here are 4 easy steps to help you get started on creating a winning referral program for your CrowdFunding and fundraising needs.
Before we get started with creating the referral campaign, we need to understand what a referral program is and how it can be used to raise funds. Crowdfunding itself is one big referral based system for acquiring funding via large crowds of people. In today’s world, the crowd can refer others to your particular campaign by sharing your promotional content on their social media. Your backers will gain more backers, and their backers can also gain more backers. It can become a snowball effect. This is the power of the referral program.
Step 1. Choosing the Software
The very first step is to choose the software that you would like to use for your campaign. There are many different solutions available online such as white label software and CrowdFunding/fundraising platforms. For this article we are going to be exploring the use of a white label solution called Atlas in addition to a referral system called ReferralCandy which can be integrated with Atlas to build a better a user experience for your backers.
Atlas is a white label CrowdFunding platform that can be used for creating both platforms and run single campaigns.
Step 2. Creating the Campaign
Now that you know what software you can choose, it is now time to create the campaign. This does not mean you are launching the campaign. It simply means that you will be developing the necessary content for your campaign while choosing the rewards you want to offer to your backers. These rewards will be the mark in which you track your referrals so you can provide incentives for your community of backers to promote your campaign in return.
First, you must choose a subscription plan from the Atlas pricing page. Once you have chosen the correct subscription plan, you will need to configure the settings. To do this, you may want to read the appropriate information for your particular instance. The best place to go for help on such inquiries is Thrinacia’s general Discord chat. One of the staff from Thrinacia will be able to provide you with the best documentation for your needs.
You will need to fill out each campaign creation step in order to create the campaign.
On the rewards step, you will need to add coupons to the rewards in order for the ReferralCandy program to work. Once you have created the rewards, you will need to add the coupon code into the reward as per the following article here. This will allow you to enable the post purchase pop up message so that users can refer their friends via the share link, and receive incentives to do so.
Step 3. Prepairing for the Launch
Now that the campaign is created and ready for the launch, how are you going to drive your first sales to the campaign? This can be done using a pre-launch campaign. The pre-launch plays a critical role in the campaign as it will start the momentum. If you do not have momentum at the beginning of the campaign, it will be difficult to capture more backers as the campaign continues.
To briefly explian, the pre-launch campaign is designed to gather email addresses and promote the CrowdFunding campaign before it has been launched. There are many campaign creators that use incentives like contests and other approaches to gain the necessary information for the real launch of the CrowdFunding campaign.
During the pre-launch stages, you have the opportunity to inform the potential backers about your coupons and referral programs that you will be running.
Step 4. Running the Referral Program
Its time to launch the campaign and the referral program. If you have structured the pre-launch campaign properly, you should get your initial backers on board. These backers will be the base for your referral program. It is very important to follow up with those who have backed the campaign. If you are using Atlas, you can follow up with the backers of the campaign via email when a donation or reward has been purchased. If you can satisfy the backers enough to start promoting your campaign, you may then be able to gain a second wave of backers, in addition to other methods of marketing such as re-targeting ads, and more.
If you found this article helpful, let us know in the comments.