AwoRewards - your superior promo package for Virtuemart, Hikashop, Redshop

Referrals

Refer a friend is a very popular promotion and one that can expand your customer base significantly. AwoRewards brings you flexibility and gives you options, so you can tailor Refer a friend promotions to suit your needs and your customer base whether your store runs on Virtuemart, Hikashop, or Redshop.

Firstly, I’d like to talk about the type of rewards available. In general, you can reward sponsor, friend, or both with either points or instant coupons/gift cards.

Instant coupons can be any coupon that can be created in AwoCoupon. Now, those of you who have AwoCoupon know that the possibilities are enormous. Anything from money off, percentage off, free shipping, free gifts, buy one get one free, 2 for 3, to gift cards and more. You can limit these coupons by specific conditions, such as minimum order total, number of uses, time frame of validity, or exclude products on special. Instant coupons are generated automatically and sent to customers via email. You can customize the looks of the coupon using profiles capability within AwoCoupon.

Points can be awarded instead of instant coupons. The store administrator sets up in the backend how many points will be awarded and what action triggers the award. Once the trigger event has been completed the points are deposited in the customers’ account. The payout can be set to automatic or to be requested by customer from their account. The amount can be limited to a minimum payout. There are 2 methods of paying out the points. One or both can be enabled by the admin in the backend. One option is to get paid with a gift card; other is to get paid via Paypal. The admin will set the conversion ratio in the backend and it can be different for payment with gift card and different for payment with Paypal transfer. So, for example, you run your Virtuemart, Hikashop, or Redshop store and you want to motivate your customer to choose a gift card option (as it will bring you new sales), you will set your ratios to pay out 1.25 EUR for every 1 point, while having 1 EUR for every 1 point if paying out by Paypal.

Trigger events are actions taken by sponsors and/or friends which, when completed, cause the points or instant coupons to be automatically delivered. These events can be friend’s registration, order completion, or a product review.

Secondly, I’d like to point out a very handy personal short url feature. When a sponsor emails a url to a friend, or posts it on their Facebook wall, instead of having a lengthy url a short url can be used instead (must be enabled by the administrator).  AwoRewards has implemented Google's shortner api to create a link for the sponsor that is easier to share.

Thirdly, it is very easy for your customers to refer their friends thanks to functionality which enables them to download all their contacts from their gmail account or yahoo account. No need to manually add tens of email address. But of course, for those customers who don’t have these email accounts there is always an option to add email addresses manually, or import them using a text file. If the customer is a gmail and/or yahoo account holder, and they download all their contacts, for referrals they have the option to un/select which email addresses they want the invitation to be sent to.

Speaking about the invitation, the store administrator can set up the invitation text; however they can also enable the customer to add a personal message for their friends.

Social media promotions

Favorites of this era! Facebook and Twitter are great for spreading the word about exciting promotions as well as sharing where you bought that trendy new jumper, or latest gadget or new crayons for your toddler. AwoRewards makes it really easy to set up social media promotions – Facebook and Twitter - no matter if you are using Virtuemart, Hikashop, or Redshop.

In the case of Facebook, you have two variants – Like our Facebook fan page (Like us on Facebook) & Post a message about us on your wall (message is predefined by admin). You can motivate your customers by providing incentives such as:

• Like our Facebook fan page and earn 500 points
• Post a note about us on your Facebook wall and get 15% off your next order plus free shipping

In the case of Twitter, you have again two variants – Tweet about us & Follow us on Twitter. You can motivate your customer in the same way as with the Facebook promotions, for example:

• Follow us on Twitter and get a free *product*
• Tweet about us and get 20% off your next 3 orders (minimum spend applies)

You can, of course, reward with points or instant coupons/gift cards. These can be anything that can be created in AwoCoupon - money off, percentage off, free shipping, free gifts, buy one get one free, 2 for 3, etc. For more information on how the points mechanism works please read Points section in the Referrals tab.

Visually, you have two options on how to display the Facebook and Twitter promotions to attract existing and potential customers to them.

1. Joomla module manager – when you set up Twitter or Facebook promotion in AwoRewards, you are presented with an option to create it as a module too. This option refers to the modules/components that your home page is made of. Utilizing this function, you can visually display your promotion on any webpage in any module position you like! If a customer clicks on it to take advantage of the offer, they will be prompted to sign in/register, so that the points can be deposited in their customer account, or the instant coupon can be emailed to their registered email address. This also prevents the customers from using the promotions multiple times. If the customer already took on the promotion it will disappear once they are logged in.
2. Promotions page - admin can create a promotions page on their website. The “Promotions” page then displays all the current promotions related to Facebook and Twitter. If the customer already took advantage of the specific promotion it will be grayed out - disabled.

As you can see, social media promotions are easy and very flexible with AwoRewards whether you run Virtuemart, Hikashop, or Redshop. How to get customers to like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter is no longer a headache! Reward your customers for posting messages about you on their Facebook wall and tweeting about you on Twitter!

Other email based promotions

There is a bucket full of other rewarding promotions you can create using AwoRewards. Here are some of them:

Product review

People love to read reviews before they decide to purchase online. But how do you your customers to leave those important product reviews and leave a positive foot print online for others to find when they search for such products? AwoRewards lets you set up rewards – points or instant coupons/giftcards – for product reviews. Admin can set up whether only the first product review or every product review by the same customer qualifies to trigger the reward.

Registration

Similar to “Refer friends” promotions, you can extend the rewards to all new customers. How about “Register with us by the end of the month and get free shipping on all your orders for the rest of the year”. Sounds like I want to shop in your store!

Cashback

Very rewarding promotion. Similar to earning cashback as part of the “Refer a friend” promotion, just make it available to all customers. You can reward them with 5% cashback on their every order, or cap it at first order only. Or how about every second order? If giving cash back to your customers is not suitable for your line of business, you can award them points instead. Then the admin sets the conversion rate and can make it different depending on payout – gift card or Paypal transfer.

Loyalty rewards

If your business is surrounded by tough competition, you really have to put an effort to keep your customers and rewarding them for being loyal to you. Nothing says thank you better then extra 2000 bonus points once they spend $200 in your shop across all their orders. Or $20 gift card with their 10th order to show you appreciate their continuous business?