Founded in 1957, Roman are a women’s fashion retailer offering outfits for any occasion, from daywear to evening and occasionwear. The brand have found continual success by providing affordable, timeless clothing through a personalised customer service.
Given the strength of the Roman brand, it made sense to see whether their loyal customers would turn their support into advocacy as part of a referral programme.
Here is how Roman, Awin, and tech partner Soreto created a valuable acquisition channel spanning multiple touchpoints.
The challenge
Word of mouth remains one of the most powerful tools brands can use to drive sales. Research shows that 55% of consumers learn about products through their friends and family, with 40% making purchases off the back of these recommendations.
Due to its continued effectiveness, many brands have launched ‘refer-a-friend’ schemes where customers are asked to share recommendations on their social media channels, often for a reward.
Roman and Awin’s overarching plan was to generate organic reach on social media to attract new customers authentically and cost-effectively.
Awin saw the potential for a tech partner to create a referral solution that Roman could own and control. The path led straight to Soreto, whose referral marketing and social sharing technology enables customers to post about their favourite brands via social media and messaging platforms.
Aside from the objective of creating a new referral programme, Roman wanted to measure Soreto’s all-round performance by looking into core KPIs like sales and revenue, engagement in terms of clicks and shares, as well as the quality of customers by measuring their average order value (AOV).
The solution
The referral campaign initially launched with a ‘Hero’ placement on Roman’s order confirmation page. Customers headed to Roman’s site, completed a purchase, and saw an overlay offering ‘25% off’ their next purchase whenever they referred a friend.
On providing their name and address, they were sent an email with their code for ‘25% off’. Anyone using the referral link they shared on email, Facebook, X, Pinterest, or WhatsApp would gain the same discount in return.
A common benefit of tech partners like Soreto is their ability to provide different solutions for expanding the scope of a campaign once the first results are in. After generating some initial success with the Hero placement and identifying opportunities to engage visitors through pre-purchase targeting, Soreto presented two new solutions:
1. Boost landing page
Roman wanted to get more targeted with how they promoted the offer. Email was suggested as a way of engaging different audiences, particularly those that hadn’t purchased for a while.
Hosted by Soreto, a static ‘Boost’ landing page created a place for customers to redeem and share the 25% offer without having to make a purchase. Soreto then created a ‘Refer-A-Friend’ banner that linked out to the page and could be dropped into specific Roman email campaigns.
2. Reach pre-purchase placement
As existing customers often represent the best brand champions, Soreto wanted to highlight the referral campaign in places they were most likely to be found.
Similar to how an overlay appeared on the order confirmation page, Roman targeted customers in the account management area of their site. After logging in, customers saw the ‘25% off’ overlay and were encouraged to share the offer with their connections.
Both solutions were fast-tracked thanks to Soreto’s availability on the Awin MasterTag - a single piece of Javascript that allows for seamless integration with the platform’s premium tech partners.
Better still, they could be launched through Awin’s one-click activation, enabling implementation with zero development work at the click of a button.
Soreto also ensured Roman and their customers were satisfied with the programme by taking care of several finer details, including:
- Simple sharing: Customers only needed to supply their email and a first name to start engaging with the promotion.
- Multiple sharing options: Users could pick the right platform for their friends thanks to instant sharing on email, Facebook, X, Pinterest, and WhatsApp.
- Native design: The boost placement was hosted by Soreto to make it easier for Roman to implement. Much like the pre-purchase and Hero activity, it was designed to fit natively with Roman’s experience, rather than positioned as a third-party offer.
Results
The new additions had an immediate impact on sales, revenue, engagement, and even the value of customers driven by Roman’s referral programme.
Looking at the year prior to the solutions going live, the highlights included:
- Generating an 88% increase in revenue and 75% improvement in sales attributed to referral programme.
- Resonating more frequently with customers, demonstrated by a 30% increase in social shares and a 130% increase in clicks.
- Producing more valuable customers generating 16% more AOV.
These improvements show the extent to which brands can benefit from launching tech partners and lining up additional solutions to elevate their performance.
