The Challenge
Fashion is social by nature. We share, compare, discuss and compliment each other on new items. We ask trusted friends’ opinions on certain looks and styles ahead of future buying decisions. In other words, we place trust in our social circles to shape and reinforce our buying habits.
Well aware of the potential for capturing these real world brand discussions, Schuh decided to invest in referral marketing.
They appointed Mention Me to power their referral programme, in part because of its unique ‘Share by Name’ functionality which can track, measure and reward these face to face recommendations.
Social Media is a key enabler for these discussions particularly for the Schuh demographic. Retail Dive recently reported that 80 per cent of Generation Z purchases are influenced by social media. This meant that Schuh needed a referral solution which supported all social media sharing channels.
The Strategy
AB Testing By Cohort Key To Driving Results
The Client Success Manager from Mention Me has worked with the Schuh team to develop a series of tests to ensure the best combination of offer, creative and messaging is shown to referring customers and their friends.
The team have already experimented with several offers which have delivered an uptick in results. One, testing a percentage discount, drove twice as many new customers as a £ discount.
Ongoing AB testing will ensure that the programme continues to deliver increasing numbers of new customers.
The Results
Although the referral programme has only been live for just over 3 months, the results are already impressive. Within that time, over £160K in revenue has been generated from referred customers’ first purchases. These new customers are valuable; they make 10 per cent more purchases than non referred customers and their AOV is 12 per cent higher.
Through a series of experiments, the share rate (percentage of customers sharing the brand) has increased by 15 per cent and the purchase rate has increased by 17 per cent. A third of referred customers come from Mention Me’s unique ‘Name Sharing’ functionality.