Turn your customers into your best advocates using a friend referral campaign!
Boost registration by encouraging members to invite their friends to join the program and offering them a special reward for each friend that joins — such as bonus points or a special coupon.
📚 In this article...
How It Works
App Setup
Reward Setup
Data
Requirements
How Does it Work?
STEP 1: Friend invitation
The member taps an invite button from a dedicated app screen, and selects which platform to use (such as email, SMS, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.) and which friends to invite.
NOTE: The message text is autofilled but the member can edit it. The default text can also be changed by the business.
STEP 2: Registration
Your friend opens the link from the invite message and then registers using the referral code (via web form or after downloading the app).
STEP 3: Rewards
The advocate and their friend receive a reward!
App Setup
STEP 1: Invite Screen
From Content > Layout, create a layout block that opens the Invite Friends screen and add it to a tile in your app:
- Icon: icon_friendReferral
- Button action: Open App Screen > Invite Friends
-
Restrict access only to members?: Yes
STEP 2: Custom Icons (Optional)
From Content > Branding > Custom Icons, you can customize the icon that appears on the invite screen (by changing the image of Invite Friends).
STEP 3: Custom Texts (Optional)
From Settings > Override App Text, you can customize any text that appears on:
- App invite screen
- Autofill invite message
- Landing page
For example, change the default text for the invite screen from "Get a benefit" to "Get bonus points" if you'd like to specify which reward the member will get if a friend they invited joins the program.
STEP 4: Registration Form
From Operation > Registration > Registration Form, add the Invite Code (Referral Code) field to your registration form.
NOTES:
- This field should not be a required field to allow all members to register.
- This field is not available for the update form (so if the friend doesn't enter it when they register, they can't go back and add it later).
- This field is not available for registration via import or the registration API.
- The invite code is case sensitive.
Reward Setup
From the Campaign Center, create rules to reward the advocate and the friend that joins.
Reward for Advocates
To reward the advocate, create a rule based on when a member's invited a friend who joined.
The second option is to reward the advocate only once the referred member makes their first purchase.
Reward for Invited Friends
To give members who join with an invite code an extra reward than other members who join the regular way, create a rule based on when a member joins with an invite code. If the program also has another joining gift, this member will receive this reward in addition to the regular joining gift.
NOTE: This rule applies when an invited friend joins the program, and not when they are invited.
To give members who join with an invite code a different joining gift than other members, create a rule based on when a member joins the program with cases: one case for members who used an invite code and one case for members who didn't use an invite code.
Data
You can view the following data related to your friend referral campaign.
Advocate code
From the data explorer, friend referral report, you can view the advocate personal invite code (the code they send to friends that they invite).
Friend Profile
When a member joins the program using an invite code, the log in their member profile indicates which invite code they used and the membership key of the "advocate" (the member who invited them).
Filter Members
From Filter Members, you can search for all members that joined using an invite code, and even for members that joined with a specific invite code (for example, for find all the members who joined with the code of a specific advocate).
NOTE: You can filter by multiple invite codes.
You can also search how many members joined with a specific referral code by the advocate details or by the referral code.
Looker
In your Data Explorer section, you can analyze friend referral and their purchase measures with breakdown to joining time, purchase details and member details (referring and joined members).
Here is an example:
Requirements
To use this feature, the download app link should be added by the submission team (Settings > App Settings).
NOTE: For programs with paid membership, the landing page doesn't allow registration via web form (only after downloading the app since it supports the membership payment flows).
Creating a Friend Referral Campaign With SMS & Email
You can also use this feature without an app, by adding a referral link to your SMS/Email/Push campaign.
All you have to do is create a "Friend Referral" campaign through your chosen channel of
communication and insert the following URL for SMS/Push:
https://connect.prod.bcomo.com/r/{LOCATION-ID}/Member: Como Member ID.
Note: In order to apply "Member: Como Member ID" as an attribute in the link, add "@" before the attribute and select the "Como Member ID" field from the dropdown options.
for Email campaigns insert the URL: https://janua.como.com/ssr-modules/friend-invite/{LOCATION-ID}/{{context.Membership.ComoMemberID}} in a button or as a link.
You would also need to create a Rule in your Campaign Center in order to reward the advocate and the friend they referred.
Create a rule based on when a member's invited a friend who joined, as explained earlier in the article.
Setting Up a Friend Referral Campaign in a Third Party App
You can also set up referral campaigns in third-party apps by creating a dedicated app view for friend referrals and using our Friend Referral API.