Referral Makes A Tasty Contribution To The Growth Of Pasta Evangelists
Founded in 2017 by Alessandro Savelli, Pasta Evangelists was born from his passion for Italian produce and desire to bring fresh artisanal pasta to homes throughout the UK.
The Challenge
In just a year, Pasta Evangelists has already built a brand synonymous with quality fresh pasta. Their boxes are available for home delivery on a subscription basis or as individual purchases from a varied menu which changes weekly.
One-off purchases seem highly unlikely once customers taste the delicious recipes. In fact, the team at Pasta Evangelists quickly realised that their customers were as passionate about quality pasta as they were. Launching a referral programme to capture this advocacy was an obvious next step in building the brand.
They appointed Mention Me to power their referral programme in early 2018 and have seen refer-a-friend quickly become a powerful marketing channel.
The Strategy
Eye Catching Designs And A/B Testing Driving Impressive Results
The Mention Me platform enables full customisation of all referral messages – something fully utilised with Pasta Evangelists mouth-watering imagery. Combined with A/B testing by cohort this has enabled them to find the sweet spot with their customers, in terms of message, offer and creative. This has resulted in an increase of 67 per cent in referred customers compared to the first three months of the campaign.
It is also clear that enabling customers to share the brand in natural conversations results in a frictionless customer experience which maximises the number of referred customers. This unique share mechanism drives more than a third of all their referrals.
The Results
Pasta Evangelists has a very referable product which is evident in the strong performance of their scheme:
- Referral is now a key acquisition channel – over 20 per cent of new customer acquisition is driven by refer-a-friend.
- Friends love to discuss food discoveries – recommendations tend to take place in natural conversations, so having a mechanism to capture these informal recommendations is crucial. Over 35 per cent of Pasta Evangelists’ referrals come via Mention Me’s unique Name Share functionality.
- Referral is not a one-off benefit – referred customers go on to become loyal customers. For Pasta Evangelists, over 37 per cent of revenue from referred customers is from their subsequent orders.