Matthew Roche, CEO of Extole, is quick to point out that his company doesn’t revolve around a loyalty platform, but an acquisition program.
Extole powers referral marketing programs for some of the world’s best-known brands−including Kraft, Advance Auto Parts, and Green Mountain Coffee−and helps challenger brands become the household names of tomorrow.
Extole serves both B2C and B2B companies across a range of verticals, including: financial services, retail, and consumer subscription markets. Extole delivers hundreds of referral programs that have helped acquire millions of new customers for brands.
“We’re an acquisition program that leverages an existing customer base to create new customers,” Roche told Loyalty360. “We believe the core asset it that all new customer acquisition comes from referrals and sharing. We want to bring more structure to it through repeatability, measurability, and exploitability.”
Roche views Extole as similar to a search management platform in that it gives marketers control over and insight into an important marketing channel.
“We deploy resources, use analytics, and deliverability,” Roche said. “Our focus is very specific: Reward customers for creating new customers. We have customers doing up to 40% of new acquisitions this way. The value of a given brand is not as valuable as the brand I have with my brothers and my dad.” That’s why referrals lead to better conversion rates, Roche said.
Roche believes that people who refer customers produce loyal customers while the “referrers” also become loyal.
“Referral marketing is not merely a campaign, it’s an ongoing program customers should be using,” Roche said. “Referrals are different from social media. We’re hard-nosed measurement people. We want to know if a customer came back and did they refer?”
Roche said Extole’s customer acquisition/referral program enables users to run multiple campaigns with a wide range of incentives.
Extole CMO Chris Duskin said the customer acquisition program is directly connected to the existing fabric of a loyalty program.
“There’s a natural synergy between the two programs controlled by marketers,” Duskin said.
Duskin believes referral marketing can help accelerate a brand’s customer acquisition and retention efforts because an incentive creates a sense of reciprocity between an existing customer and a new customer. The motivation to share might be attractive to people and it then becomes an opportunity for brands.
Referral marketing isn’t a new concept, Duskin said, but it allows for precise consumer targeting on a level difficult to achieve using current mobile ad technology and for multiple delivery options, such as email and social. With referrals, personalized recommendations for a brand or product are injected directly into a user’s pocket—wherever a user happens to be.