So if Evernote really wanted to give out cash, they could've done that whenever users only successfully referred others to pay for the premium service.īut that doesn't quite fit into the natural Evernote user behavior– people tend to use the free app as long as it served their needs, and upgrade only when they need to– not because somebody sent them cash or discounts! Premium service (where applicable) is also a great way to reward loyal advocates (PayPal only got away with it because they were a payments platform, and regular eCommerce companies achieve success by tying the cash rewards to the referred purchase.) Giving away cash would definitely net them loads of users, but it might be unnecessarily costly and attract opportunists. A substantial percentage of users upgrade to Premium by themselves as long as they use Evernote heavily enoughĬash and/or discounts aren't always the best referral rewards.Most users are perfectly satisfied with the Evernote's Free version.There are two points very important to grasp with regards to Evernote's business: So, why a points system for Evernote's referral program? Only when you understand that will you be able to pick the right referral rewards for your business. What do they want? How does the service help them? Lesson: Every business needs to figure out precisely why their customers use their service. The Shopify refer a friend program has 22 different program examples you can steal (today).In eCommerce, Greats (footwear) does the same, among many others. Airbnb's referral program gave discounts on future usage of its service.In the eCommerce world, DapperTime (watches) and Leesa (mattresses) do the same. The PayPal referral program, on the other hand, literally gave out cash rewards.If you find the storage usage, referring friends makes it even more useful. Dropbox, for instance, famously gave our free extra storage to its users.Contrast this with other successful referral program examples: This is a very significant decision with strong referral incentives and distinguishes Evernote from many other web apps.

What is evernote pogram