Referral marketing
Mobilizing people with the referral card
Hand in hand, around 800 people supported the UNICEF campaign in a human chain. (Photo © UNICEF)
With Swiss Post's referral card, UNICEF mobilized people to spread the word about their campaign and participate in a human chain.
Thousands of people contributed to the campaign run by UNICEF Switzerland, joining together in a protest to combat violence against girls worldwide. They donated to the UNICEF song “Echo” and took part in the human chain in Zurich in December. Hand in hand, they protested against the unnecessary deaths of girls in many parts of the world. The campaign and the occasion, organized by UNICEF Switzerland, were a success. The mobilization of friends and acquaintances succeeded in part thanks to Swiss Post's referral card.
“Dear Godfather, Please help us so that no more girls have to die just because they are girls. Love from Lena”. The referral card from UNICEF Switzerland, handwritten by Lena and distributed free of charge, is persuasive: her godfather is touched, he downloads the UNICEF song and wants to join the human chain with his goddaughter. Like Max, many other recipients regard the personal recommendation as particularly authentic and credible. “To publicize the campaign and mobilize people, we sent 200,000 mailings with an enclosed referral card. The distribution of the card helped to ensure that over a thousand people donated to the UNICEF song and that around 800 people took part in the human chain”, says Elisabeth Karagiannis, Head of Communication at UNICEF Switzerland.
The physical counterpart to the “Like” button
The referral card is a postcard to be sent on to others. Companies send them to their customers, while NPOs such as UNICEF Switzerland send them to their members. The recipients in turn forward the card to their friends and acquaintances. The referral card can be seen as a physical counterpart to the “Like” button on social networks such as Facebook.
Thanks to the dynamic data matrix code in the postal prepayment impression, every single card can be identified. This allows the customer to keep track of how many cards were actually sent on and only pay the postage for those cards.