I’ve reported previously about Mumby Insurance Brokers’ pizza referral program, which the Waterloo-Ontario company announced with some loudness in an employee’s?email signature line. Although I didn’t have clearance to publish that email signature then, let’s take a closer look at it now, especially in line with some follow-up communication from?Anthea?Mumby.
Here’s another variant of the email signature line — this time, with the pizza offer, sent to me by a different Mumby employee.
I asked Aretha Mumby about the effectiveness of the company’s pizza program.?She initially responded with these observations:
As we celebrate our 40th year in business this year, we appreciate that so many of our clients refer us to their coworkers, friends, and family. Therefore, we are improving on the customer referral program that we started in 2014 by sending a free pizza voucher to any client who sends us a referral, plus instantly entering them in a monthly draw for a $100 Amazon gift card, and a quarterly prize of a big screen TV.
Many families enjoy ?Friday Night Pizza? after a busy week at work, and so since we are in the family protection business, we hope that the pizza we will be sending clients will be a great way to contribute to that special family time on Friday evenings. The monthly winner of the Amazon gift card may decide to use it for a few new books for their family (a personal favorite is? ?The Read Aloud Handbook?), and of course the quarterly winners of the big screen TV may enjoy some time as a family watching their favorite programs and sports. Along with our free monthly client educational newsletters and our service commitments, we hope our clients find our referral program to be one of the many ways we offer ?more.
Fair enough, but I had hoped for some specifics — like lead conversion rates. However, Mumby demurred, with this follow-up comment:
I can’t share specific numbers or data. What I can advise is that this is one of many ways we recognize the value of our client relationships. Our website has more information about the other ways we bring value to our clients such as our service commitments, newsletter, community and charitable involvement and much more.
You can see a few things, however, if you look behind the lines here.
- An enhanced referral marketing program need not be expensive, but you can build in some rather simple incentives — including an immediate gratification “instant win” like free pizza. Notably, the “experience of a lifetime” can be easily purchased from third-party vendors such as trythat.ca.
- The email signature line can be much more than a simple point of contact. You have room for plenty of give-type marketing. Sure, it may be in-your-face for a professional business marketing to other companies to offer free pizza and other incentives (and it may be a truly touchy and risky thing to do if primarily serve government employees where you may need to contend with anti-corruption rules), but you can certainly include social media points of contact and references to your eletter, or charitable giving initiatives.
- Finally, and perhaps the most important take-away, you can combine several elements including social media, structured referral systems, community and association involvement, and client responsiveness into one package — and the entire initiative can be relatively easily managed, and measured.
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