What is a referral scheme or affiliate program?
A referral scheme is any method which rewards clients, customers, or other people for recommending a business. This is usually managed by creating discount codes or affiliate links which can be shared via your product packaging, marketing or anywhere online.
It’s fairly easy to set up a custom website address manually and track the results via your analytics software on a small scale, but larger referral and affiliate schemes will tend to use dedicated platforms to manage everything. This makes it easier to monitor results, set terms and conditions for anyone using your referral scheme, and share useful assets and other material.
Examples of self-employed and freelance referral marketing
The SEOFOMO email newsletter has grown to more than 26,000 subscribers in just a few years, and one of the reasons is the tiered rewards offered in each edition. These range from getting a shout out on Twitter from well-known founder and consultant Aleyda Solis for referring two subscribers, to a personal SEO Q&A session and branded backpack if you encourage 500 people to sign up.
At IPSE we also offer a referral program which not only rewards you, but also saves your friends and contacts money on their membership. That means everyone benefits from the scheme, and it’s incredibly quick and simple to use.
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