How ShoutOut Works . . .


Overview Account Setup Create Campaigns Create Sales Force Customers Refer Redeem Referrals Update Customers Manage with Reports

ShoutOut allows multiple users with different permission levels within an account. This means that the account owner can limit the activities and access to information for different types of employees if desired.

A referral campaign is based on a reward for an existing customer to incentivize them to proactively refer on your behalf, and an incentive for a new customer to give your business a try. ShoutOut steps you through this process – here, the incentive for the existing customer is being defined.

Once customer data is entered, either individually or via file upload, existing customers can be enrolled in the campaign. The screen for the customer enrollment step in the campaign, shown here, also displays the enrollment letter sent from your business to enrolled customers.

When your customers are enrolled in a campaign, the enrollment communication from your business gives them the option to refer friends through the ShoutOut engine, shown here. They see the message you wrote for them to present your business in the best way so they can feel confident in sending it. Alternatively, they can write their own using their unique referral ID code. All emails are sent from the referring customer’s email address, even when using the ShoutOut engine.

When a referral from an existing customer visits your business, just enter the referral ID presented by the customer. This automatically updates reporting in real time, and sets of the next round of communications.

To reinforce referring customers, an email update is sent out each time one of their referrals visits your business to thank them for referring on your behalf, let them know how close they are to achieving their own incentive from you, and to encourage them to continue to refer.

To allow you to better manage your campaigns and show your return on investment, reports are available graphically – like this one showing referrals to potential new customers sent through the ShoutOut engine and redemptions logged against this particular campaign - or in matrix format showing details on individual customers and campaigns.

How ShoutOut Works

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1. Account Setup

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2. Create Campaigns

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3. Enroll and Invite Customers

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4. Existing Customers Refer

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5. Redeem Referrals

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6. Update Referring Customers

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7. Dashboard and Reports

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8. How ShoutOut Works

How ShoutOut Works

ShoutOut is an automated referral marketing tool that helps you to easily turn your existing customers into your sales team working on your behalf to bring in new business. Here’s how:

quick, easy account setup

Step one is creating an account for your business. You’ll set up users and permission levels (for example, you may decide you want a receptionist or administrator to be able to redeem referrals, but not create referral campaigns or see reports), and tell us a bit about your business to enable ShoutOut to generate beneficial reports to help you manage your referral marketing campaigns.

create campaigns

The campaign engine is the heart of the ShoutOut program. Here, you will create a referral campaign and define incentives for your existing customers (we call them Promoters) to start to refer for you, and incentives for their friends and family (Prospects) to give you a try. You can create almost any type of an incentive – from discounts on services or products, to cash, to a product or service giveaway.

enroll and invite customers

Once you’ve created a campaign, you can invite your existing customers to participate with the click of a button. They receive an email from you, not ShouOut, detailing the campaign, including the incentive you’ve created for them to refer on your behalf, and the incentive for their friends to try your business. The ShoutOut customer database allows you to manage customer information in detail. Alternatively, you can load only the basics – name and email – to run a campaign. Information can be entered manually or uploaded from a .csv file.

existing customers refer on your behalf

Campaign incentives encourage existing customers to refer on your behalf. They can do this by using the ShoutOut referral engine, which sends a template email that you’ve created to highlight your business’ unique value proposition to their friends and family. Your existing customers can see this email in the engine, and simply have to load email addresses for people they want to refer. These emails will come from your existing customer’s email address.

Alternatively, if they’d rather send a more personalized email, they can send a campaign coupon link, or simply their unique Promoter Referral ID.

redeem referrals

For each campaign, each of your customers is set up with a unique referral identification number that links the referring customer to the new customer referred to your business. When a new customer visits your business, they must provide this unique ID to receive their incentive. You simply key this number into your ShoutOut dashboard.

At this point, you can also enroll the new customer in the campaign with the click of a button and add to your sales force.

update referring customers

The entry of the unique referral identification sets of the next cascade of communications. An email from your business to the new customer thanking them for visiting and asking them to join the existing referral campaign can be sent automatically. The existing customer who referred this new customer gets an update from your business saying that the new customer has visited. This communication thanks them for referring, tells them how close they are to earning their own incentive for referring, and asks them to keep the referrals coming.

Keying in the referral ID also updates all reports in real time.

dashboards and reports

The ShoutOut dashboard gives you quick insight into the success of your campaign, including summary information like how many emails were submitted and how many referrals have been redeemed. Reports give you detailed information, including things like the number of referrals submitted and redeemed per campaign, per location or per customer. With reports, you’ll have a clear understanding of the revenue you’ve brought in for what you’ve spent.