In a referral program, milestone rewards are given to participants for achieving predefined goals or milestones, based on the number of invited or converted referrals they make. Milestone rewards foster ongoing engagement with your referral program!
Would you prefer to learn more about Referral Factory rewards in general? You'll find a full breakdown here: 📖 Using Rewards with Referral Factory: A Full Guide 📖
In this guide 👇
1. Understanding Milestone Rewards
4. Setting Up Milestone Rewards in Referral Factory
5. Best Practices for Using Milestone Rewards
1. Understanding Milestone Rewards
Milestone rewards are incentive-based rewards that you can offer to your referral program participants for achieving specific goals or milestones.
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Standard Rewards vs Milestone Rewards
In Referral Factory, you have two options for configuring the logic of your rewards: "standard" rewards and "milestone" rewards. Standard rewards typically operate on an ongoing basis with no changes to the reward value as participants accumulate more and more referrals. Milestone rewards, on the other hand, allow you to change the value of a reward based on a goal or target number of referrals at various milestones. One common use case of a milestone reward structure is enabling a tiered structure, offering larger incentives as participants rack up more referrals.
When deciding whether to use standard or milestone rewards, it's important to consider what type of behavior you want to incentivize from participants. While both options can be effective depending on your goals, milestone programs tend to generate more sustained engagement and higher quality leads over time than programs that only offer standard incentives. However, milestone rewards can also be confusing for participants, especially if they are poorly communicated or overly complicated.
2. Why Use Milestone Rewards?
Increasing customer motivation to achieve goals, building stronger customer loyalty through meaningful incentives, and encouraging repeat business and referrals are just a few reasons businesses should consider using milestone rewards. By offering tangible rewards for reaching specific milestones, businesses can motivate their referral program participants to stay engaged with their brand and work towards achieving larger goals.
Here are some of the benefits of utilizing Milestone Rewards in your referral program:
👉 Customers will feel a sense of achievement when they reach each milestone.
👉 They provide an incentive for customers to keep coming back until they reach the next reward level.
👉 It helps create a competitive environment among participants within the referral program, which can be used to foster gamification.
👉 It encourages continued engagement with your brand.
Overall, implementing Milestone Rewards into your referral program is an excellent way to incentivize customers while keeping them motivated throughout the course of your program.
3. Milestone Reward Examples
There are many ways to structure milestone rewards. Here are a few ideas:
💡 Refer Friends and Earn up to $450 in Amazon Gift Cards
Refer 5 friends and get a $50 Amazon Gift Card when they complete a meeting with us. → Refer 10 friends and get a $100 Amazon Gift Card when they complete a meeting with us → Refer 20 friends and get a $200 Amazon Gift Card when they complete a meeting with us.
💡 Give $10, Get up to $60
Share your referral link to give your friends $10 off when they sign up. You'll get $10 for the 1st friend who signs up; $20 for the 2nd friend who signs up; and $30 for the 3rd friend who signs up!"
💡 Refer a Friend and Get Rewarded
Receive $10 for each of the initial five successful referrals you send our way, and enjoy an increased reward of $25 for every subsequent referral thereafter!
More referrals = more rewards.
4. Setting Up Milestone Rewards in Referral Factory
You will need:
- Any Referral Factory plan.
- To have created a referral campaign.
Create a Reward
- In the left-hand navigation bar of your Referral Factory dashboard, click the Rewards tab.
- Click ‘Add New Reward’.
- Name the reward. This is used for internal management purposes and won’t be shown to your users.
- Choose who should be rewarded: the Person Referring or the Person Invited.
Tip: If you want to reward both participants in the same campaign, you can create multiple rewards as part of the same campaign.
- Connect a campaign.
Please note: Rewards are linked to campaigns. If you have multiple campaigns and want to issue rewards in each of them, you will need to create multiple rewards.
- Click ‘Next’.
Rewards Setup
- Select how you want to issue the reward
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📖 To learn more about these options, read our full guide on rewarding with Referral Factory.
- Set the reward value. This is for internal management purposes and won’t be shown to your users.
- Once you have selected how you want to issue your reward, click Next.
Define Reward Rules
- From the dropdown menu for "Choose type of reward to issue", select Milestone.
- Select whether users should be rewarded for invited or converted referrals.
Start by setting up your first milestone.
- Select the target number of invited or converted referrals that will trigger the first milestone
- Set the reward value for the first milestone.
- Name your first milestone so that you can easily manage your rewards.
- Select + add milestone
- Repeat the previous steps for each additional milestone.
- Once you have added your milestones, click Next.
- Then, click Activate to complete the process.
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5. Best Practices for Using Milestone Rewards
Incentivizing customers with milestone rewards at different referral levels is a great way to encourage them to refer more. Make sure the rewards match the level of effort required and offer meaningful benefits that motivate customers to continue referring. By doing so, you can create a positive feedback loop where satisfied customers are incentivized to bring in new business.
Designing rewards that inspire feelings of accomplishment and achievement is an effective way to keep your customers engaged and motivated. Consider incorporating visual indicators such as badges or progress bars into your reward system, which increase transparency about the customer's progress towards their goal. These elements make it easier for users to track their efforts, while also driving healthy competition between users who want bragging rights over achieving certain milestones.
Offering smaller rewards along with bigger ones ensures everyone has something they can earn regardless of how much effort they put in, promoting a sense of inclusivity among all participants. This approach also encourages user retention by keeping them engaged throughout the referral process even if they do not hit big milestones like reaching 100 referrals or more. Small but regular incentives go a long way in maintaining user motivation as well as keeping churn rates low overall.
Are you interested in learning more about best practices in referral marketing? Here are some articles that might interest you:
📣 Referral Rewards: How To Choose Your Rewards And Calculate The Value
📣 Referral Marketing 101: A Comprehensive Guide for Business Owners
📣 15 Ways To Get Referrals – By Incentivising Your Customers