Creating a referral form is an easy way to receive new prospects that are sent over by a trusted source. Using a combination of a simple Act-On form and a basic automated program, you can begin to allow your existing customers and website visitors to refer a prospect that may be interested in your product or service.
Your customers are the best source of leads. Create a form to capture their referrals and build your lists even further.
Get Started
Part of your success with Act-On will be transitioning your prospects through the buyers’ journey. Simply: it's how well you can transition your prospects to the sales team. It’s very important to make sure that your sales team has the proper expectations, and your goals are completely aligned.
Work with the sales team to determine the form fields that are required for the referral so you can ensure you are getting the information sales needs.
Create a new form using the fields you worked with sales on to capture your prospect's information.
- If you have already created a form with the required fields you would like filled in - awesome, move along to step 3.
- If you have not yet created a form, click Content > Forms > New Form to create a new form.
For this form, we will be using two email fields. One field is used for the referral's email address, and one is used for the referrer email.
The Lists & Segments tab within the automated program dashboard includes all lists and segments associated with your program, including your sources, lists you may be updating a step, and lists and segments used to make decisions in your steps. When building out your program steps, these lists and segments will appear for selection.
To add a list or segment:
- Navigate to Automation > Automated Programs.
- Hover over the program you would like to use and click Edit.
- Click Lists & Segments.
- Click the Add List/Segment button and select the desired list or segment.
Contact your new referrals using automation! Use your form submission list as the source list for a program that begins the conversation with your new prospects.
To create an email template:
- Navigate to Content > Email Templates
- Click Actions > New Template
- From the General tab, add a Message Title and a Subject Line, then Select a Sender and Reply To address.
- From the Design tab, select Stationery, add content and adjust the message styling. To learn how, click here.
- From the Review tab:
- Preview your message as HTML, Text, and Mobile
- Validate your message and check your personalization
- Click Save.
Since we are using two email address fields on the referral form we will need to make sure the email addresses are routing correctly.
The Email Address field will be used for the referral email, this will allow Act-On to send the form confirmation to the prospect being referred. For the email address of the user referring to the prospect, we will be using a different standard field name.
- Click Contact > Standard Field Names.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click Add to add an additional email address field which can be called referrer email.
- Click the Save Changes button when you complete adding the fields.
To create a new Automated Program:
- Click Automation > Automated Programs > New
- From the General Settings tab:
- Enter a Name and an optional description for your program.
- Click Add next to Program Source List to select any list or segment that you would like to associate with this program. You can repeat this step to associate multiple lists and/or segments with the program.
- Once the program is running, your source lists will be checked periodically to look for new contacts to enter into the program and will update the contacts Activity History - you can also modify your scoring rules and create segments accordingly.
- From the Program Messages tab:
- Click Add Program Message.
- Choose an existing template, draft, scheduled, or sent message as a starting point for your new message.
- Once the message has been added to the program, hover over it and click Edit to make any changes to the content.
- From the Lists & Segments tab:
- Click the Add List/Segment button and select the desired list or segment.
- Repeat the process as many times as needed.
- From the Program Flow tab:
- Drag the step from the menu on the right side of the page and drop it into the desired location in your program flow.
- Hover over the step and click Edit to give the step a name, and specify its rules and actions.
Measure the Impact
Revenue is directly related to your post-sale marketing efforts too! View the revenue impact of your customer marketing efforts.
To view the Revenue Impact Report:
- Click Reports > Revenue Impact Reports
- On the top left of the report, you can select the date granularity (Quarters or Months) and use the arrows to go previous and next date periods.
You can analyze these reports to review the most effective source.
New Leads Generated Report
Enables you to attribute your CRM Lead Source to the generation of new leads.
New Opportunities Created Report
Enables you to attribute your CRM Lead Source to the conversion of leads into opportunities.
Wins Report
Enables you to attribute your CRM campaigns to the resulting opportunities and wins (either the numerical count or the revenue). The bar chart helps identify which campaign is generating the most opportunities and wins, while the grid will allow you to drill into the campaign for more detail.
Trends Over Time Report
Shows the last year (in quarters or months):
- Opportunities created
- Opportunities won
- Net change in the number of opportunities period over period
- Revenue booked