- beehiiv Academy
- Posts
- Referral Program
Referral Program
Module 4 — Lesson 18
The referral program is one of the most powerful ways to grow your audience. Our very own Tyler Denk (CEO at beehiiv) designed Morning Brew’s referral program and took them from 100,000 subscribers to 1.5M in 18 months.
Referrals are an excellent way of gaining new audience members by providing your existing audience with an incentive to share your content with their friends/contacts.
What Is an Email Referral Program?
An email referral program is a marketing strategy that encourages your existing email subscribers to refer a friend/contact via email. This is generally accompanied by an incentive to persuade your audience to share your content - this could be a discount, free product, or merchandise, for example.
At beehiiv, we offer the Integrated Referral Program within our Scale plan, which allows you to automatically grow your subscriber base by incentivizing your existing subscribers to refer a friend.
How Do You Set Up a Referral Program?
Setting up an email referral program may seem like a daunting task, but with the beehiiv platform, it’s super simple.
Follow the below steps to set up an Integrated Referral Program with beehiiv:
Login to your beehiiv account and go to “Grow → Referral Program → Configure”
Add the number of referrals needed to receive the reward
Name the reward
Give a brief description
Click ‘Physical’ if a digital guide (click ‘Promo Code’ if the gift is a discount)
Add an image
Hit ‘Create’
Create a Milestone Email and include the link to the reward
Link to your Referral Program in your newsletter
What it looks like in the editor:
And here’s the legend himself, Tyler Denk, covering how to set up your referral program:
What are some examples of successful referral programs?
1) Gift a Swipe File
Is your newsletter centered around a specific skill your readers are interested in? Can you aggregate a bunch of sources surrounding that topic and use it as an incentive?
2) Gift a Book List
Is your newsletter blog-styled and centered around you? Can you make a list of your favorite books, tools, or resources and use it as an incentive?
3) Give Away a Special Report
If you write about the finance of investing space, could you offer exclusive stock picks for readers who share your newsletter?
4) Gift a Short Guide
Do you write about a new or trending topic that your readers want to be more knowledgeable about? Could you create a short guide about the fundamentals of your topic?
5) Understand What Your Audience Wants
It’s possible readers aren’t interested in wearing t-shirts and hoodies with your newsletter’s logo on them.
Take a step back and understand why your subscribers signed up to your newsletter in the first place. From there, what tangential benefits can you provide readers that are a true value-add and something that would appeal to your audience?
If you were a finance and investing newsletter—perhaps you could offer “exclusive stock picks” for readers who have achieved ten referrals
If you’re a sports newsletter—maybe 25 referrals earns you two tickets to a game to see your favorite team
If you cover crypto and NFTs—maybe you offer community tokens or early access to exclusive drops
The point is: every newsletter is different. Ask yourself, “What do my readers actually want?” before you model a referral program from another newsletter.
Additional Resources
Reply