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Idea 💡

The most famous referral success stories are outliers.

The well-known referral programs that grew brands like Airbnb and Dropbox are highly unlikely to work for your startup.

In fact, instead of trying to "build a successful referral program," you should be focused on finding your company's viral loop.

Finding the right viral loop will likely be a combination of:

Product usage "units" (e.g. storage space, credits, pages, cash, stocks, etc)
Facilitating natural ways users share your product with other potential users
Incentivizing manufactured ways users share your product directly or indirectly with other potential users

Examples 🔍

Some ways this plays out in different industries:

If you run an e-commerce pet store, your viral loop might be getting dog owners to post pictures of their dogs on Instagram (with your brand tagged).
If you're in EdTech, your viral loop might be a bustling community where eager students get free course credits when they invite their classmates.
If you're a SaaS founder, your viral loop might be a freemium tier where your customers include your badge in their footer.

There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. You have to dig into what your product offers and align that with an incentive that increases your exposure.

Resources 📚

5 Examples of SaaS Products With Viral Loops

How to build a viral SaaS product

Virality and the 4 Steps To Design It In Your Product

Organic SaaS Growth: #13 The definitive guide to growth loops

Cheers,
Corey

p.s. want my brain-power on marketing your business? Book a Marketing Power Hour or invest in a Swipe Files Membership.

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We partner with trusted top-tier service providers. In fact, I reached out to them — each one has been carefully selected and vetted so I have 100% confidence in recommending them to you. Doing business with them supports this newsletter. 😊

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