zferral.com

Does your platform allow and track referrers to get commissions off of any referrers they may sign up (1 degree, 2 degree, etc...). I know referrers look for that when choosing products to promote.

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:46:58 -0400

Yes, absolutely. Give it a try, we have a 30 day free trial! http://zferral.com

zferral.com: Lean Marketing for Your Business

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:26:00 -0400

[Jointly written by Jeff Epstein & Pete Michaud for the Lean Startup Challenge - Please vote for us! ]

Pete once replaced a SharePoint installation that had cost over $100,000 with Fogbugz. It turned out that the only difference between SharePoint and Fogbugz for us was that the team actually used Fogbugz.

Lean is doing less when you could do more.

Lean is doing just enough to overcome the million challenges that your startup faces (and the million more that will crop up tomorrow) so that you can build a core offering that absolutely kills it.

Lean looks different for each founding team because skillsets differ, but no matter what your core strengths are, lean is being smart with your money and especially your time.

zferral.com is taking on Appsumo’s Lean Challenge because we embody lean. Our company runs lean, and our service lets our customers run lean too.

Appsumo SXSW Lean Bundle = Viagra For Lean Startups

The SXSW Lean Bundle is awesome because it gives you access to free or nearly free services that enable you focus on your making core offering strong and outsourcing the bullshit that makes your business flaccid.

Why spend time writing a buggy recurring billing module (that will inevitably break 30 seconds before a big promotion), when you could drop in Chargify and call it a day?

Why risk your company’s critical e-mails falling into the void when you could trust Postmark to get it right?

Why spend a fortune on bloated accounting software that doesn’t integrate with jack squat, when you can use LessAccounting?

You know an affiliate or referral program would expand your customer base, but the task of implementing it keeps slipping to the “next” release? Just plug zferral in to your site or app, and watch the new customers roll in.

We Practice What We Preach (zferral Is Lean Baby)

zferral doesn’t just help you stay lean by providing drop-in custom affiliate programs, it also runs lean. We use:

SnapEngage – We dropped SnapEngage onto our sales website and now we proactively chat on a daily basis with customers engaged in the sales process. Jeff is a huge SnapEngage evangelist and you can find him on our chat nearly 24/7.
PostMark – We were sending e-mail out blind until we started using PostMark. Now we can track metrics about sales volume and engagement from companies and affiliates. It’s a must have.
BatchBook – All my customers and business contacts used to be one dropped iphone away from being lost forever, and we had to keep track of what was going on with all of them in our heads. With BatchBook we have everything backed up, always available, and fully tracked. Our service is integrated with them too.
KissMetrics enabled us to get real feedback and determine we had achieved Product/Market fit.
We are looking forward to diving into Trada, Ginzametrics, Infochimps & Twilio in the coming months too.

But wait, that’s not all!

We’ve spent less than $100 on advertising. We keep marketing lean by integrating with other awesome apps which brings the customers to us. And, of course, we have a referral program that works while we’re sleeping.
Our team works remotely, using collaboration tools like github and Skype to organize our schedules and workload.
We are listed on the following all-star websites as integration partners: Chargify, Highrise, MailChimp, Shopify, FreshBooks, CapsuleCRM, and Wufoo.

Where does zferral Fit In?

zferral enables companies to easily create, track and manage referral programs (also called affiliate programs). Referral programs engage your brand ambassadors, existing customers + outside companies, bloggers, and sales people to promote (and sell) your product or service for you. Those other people get paid when they send you a paying customer, so you never pay a penny until you make a sale. Only paying for sales in the bank is way lean. Sweet!

You decide what you want to happen (e.g. you want to make a sale), and you decide what you’ll pay (e.g. 20% of the sale), then your virtual army does the rest, leaving you to focus on your awesome product.

The best part is that affiliate marketing is like an escalator. Escalators can never break—they can only become stairs. Affiliate marketing can’t break either. It can only become free backlinks, facebook posts, e-mail and word of mouth recommendations. Nice.

We Want To Win The Lean Startup Challenge!

zferral is finally ready for some investment. Winning the Lean Startup Challenge would provide some rocket fuel. Intentionally vague stats:

Paying Customers: Over 100 (but under 1000) a month.
Monthly Revenue: Over $1,000 (but under $10,000) a month.

We have even worked with some of these Lean companies:

Chargify built an integration with us—recurring affiliate commissions in about 5 minutes!
LessAccounting is integrating their Affiliate Platform with zferral.
Postmark, Pandaform, FeeFighters & BatchBook all have accounts on zferral.

Plus some of the companies who have entered the lean startup challenge, including coinwhale and nelbee.

Other Reasons We Should Win The Lean Startup Challenge?

Jeff founded FundedByNight to create opportunities for startups to compete and earn a 100k investment.
Jeff is a curator for StartupDigest (Michigan Edition).
Jeff is going to be on a Founder’s Panel for the Michigan Lean Startup Conference.

zferral is lean and mean, and it’s all possible because of the awesome applications that allow us to outsource everything but the core of our business.

Chargify Changelog: zferral integration

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:03:59 -0500

Chargify Changelog: zferral integration:

chargify-changelog:

One of the long-standing most requested features on our feature request forum has been referral tracking. We were always hesitant to build this into Chargify because it was outside of our realm of expertise. After all, we’re always urging companies to focus on what makes their product unique,…

Using Performance Marketing: Best Practices for Your First Affiliate, Referral or Partner Program (Part I)

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:58:23 -0500

Starting an affiliate or referral program on your website can be quite easy using our simple referral software. Still, many companies are concerned with the ‘best practices’ to most effectively operate their affiliate and referral programs. Hopefully, this post will serve as a primer to at least get you thinking about some important aspects of your program.

Customer Metrics

There are several points to consider when starting an affiliate, referral or reseller program, starting with customer metrics:

What is your current customer acquisition cost (CAC)?
What is your lifetime customer value (LTV)?
What is important / or will motivate your customers?

Know Your CAC & LTV

In order to know what you are willing to pay for a new customer, it is critical to understand what your cost of acquiring them.

You then need to have an idea of your lifetime customer value. This may be tough to nail down for startups. Obviously, the LTV > CAC.

Read this for some great insight on CAC & LTV: http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/…

Know Your Customers

If you understand your customers you can customize incentives that will motivate them to promote your product. This is the brilliance of Drew Houston’s Dropbox model.

Promote Your Program

Just like any other part of your business, you do need to work on your affiliate program. You should, at a minimum, do the following:

Directly chat with your biggest advocates, and customer-influencers.
Put a link and landing page + video to explain your program
Advertise your program via social media & monthly newsletter

Your affiliate prorgam is not a magic solution to growing your business.

In the end of the day, you still need a great product. An affiliate or referral program is just one tool that a company can use to efficiently increase their customers and grow their business.

Stay tuned for the Part II.

About zferral: zferral.com helps you scale your business…efficiently. zferral enables you to create, track & manage custom affiliate and referral programs from a single dashboard. Try it for free, and pay-as-you-grow.

We Acquired Cloudomatic, Added Advisors & Partnered with Chargify

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 07:55:06 -0500

We are excited to announce we acquired simple partnership software Cloudomatic(flow) and the assets of the entire Cloudomatic Properties from Jason Baptiste and Andres Barreto, the current founders of OnSwipe.

The more we spoke with these two brilliant guys, the more we all agreed an acquisition made perfect sense: Jason and Andres were busy disrupting tablet content while zferral was gaining momentum and looking to expand.

In fact, it was such a good fit that we decided to take Jason and Andres on as advisors to zferral. Aside from their extensive startup experience, this duo is ultra-passionate about startups and technology. Their advice and guidance will be welcome!

Anyway, here’s a snippet from our Press Release — enjoy!

zferral Acquires Cloudomatic, Integrates With Chargify, And Sees Massive Growth

DETROIT, MICHIGAN. zferral, llc (zferral.com) has acquired the assets of Cloudomatic, including the much anticipated partnership software application: Cloudomatic(flow)

zferral.com is a web-based platform for companies to easily create, track & manage customized affiliate & referral programs.

zferral is quickly becoming a known player in the affiliate and referral space: “There is a huge pain point for web app and SaaS companies when it comes to distribution, there is no doubt that referral and affiliate systems are by far one of the most efficient customer acquisition strategies, we are very excited to see how zferral’s growth is taking this to next level, making it very easy for any SaaS company to get up and running with their referral program” says Andres Barreto, Cloudomatic Co-Founder.

Jeff Epstein, the founder and CEO of zferral.com agrees, “flow & zferral were attacking the same problem. It was a natural fit.”

In addition, Barreto and co-founder Jason Baptiste will join zferral in an advisory role. “Having Andres and Jason as advisors was the icing on the cake. These guys are thought leaders and superstars in the making,” says Epstein.

The acquisition will add hundreds of customers to the thousands already using zferral.

zferral Partners with Chargify to Integrate their Applications

Chargify has integrated with zferral allowing their customers to easily create affiliate and referral programs for recurring payment applications within minutes.

“Chargify answers the need that more and more businesses have these days… to make recurring billing of their customers a snap! Zferral does the same for affiliate management and payments. It’s a great combination for small and medium-sized businesses” says Lance Walley, the CEO of Chargify.

Barreto too, acknowledges the value of this combination; “The partnership of Chargify and zferral is incredibly valuable as it solves the two main obstacles for SaaS companies; monetization and distribution.”

Epstein agrees, “The primary function of web-based applications is to enable small and medium sized business to utilize Enterprise quality software without employing an IT department. This integration eliminates the time and effort required to operate a referral program.”

Introducing Our Own "zvangelist" Community

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:30:00 -0500

When you are building a software product to increase referrals, you begin to understand the value of a community.

I have personally searched through several web applications to effectively build a community of “zvangelists” for zferral. (Our users and ambassadors of our software are lovingly called zvangelists). Finally, I am happy to say we have created a place where our current and future zvangelists can interact in a meaningful way.

Thanks to the elegant craftsmanship of a good friend @Stulogy — he has created Kroud: a simple way to get a branded FAQ page + community for your website.

The zferral Kroud is up and running, we have already added several FAQ’s and advice on best practices. We would really love all your feedback and support. Visit the community today!

The latest from our blog [infographic]

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 10:06:24 -0400

The latest from our blog [infographic]

Wufoo + zferral: Add Affiliates via Wufoo Form!

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 13:31:00 -0400

We have recently integrated zferral with an awesome company you have probably heard of: Wufoo. In case you have been in a cave, Wufoo is an online form builder. They make forms easy, fast and fun!

Anyway, our integration is super simple, and enables you to easily create a Wufoo form to sign up affiliates in your zferral account!

Here is our integration video, if you would prefer step-by-step instructions just scroll down a bit:

Here are the step-by-step instructions to easily integrate zferral and Wufoo.

Create accounts at both zferral and Wufoo
Create your Wufoo form with the following fields (in order):

First Name*
Last Name*
Email Address*

[Optional Fields]
Address
City
State
Zip
Once created in Wufoo, click on the “code” button
Click on the API (top right) to access your API Key (copy this)
Login to zferral, go to the “My Account” tab and click “Integrations”
Find the Wufoo box and click “Enable”
Enter your Wufoo unique URL, paste your API key and choose the form
Click “save” and you are ready to rock!

When Freemium Isn't Free: In Defense of the Bootstrapper in the Chargify Fiasco.

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:32:00 -0400

Much has been written about the decision by Chargify to eliminate their freemium model and drastically raise their prices. For some background, see this TechCrunch article, or one from Inc. Nearly everyone who has heard about this fiasco agrees the situation was handled poorly, my intent is not to pile on, rather to explain why the uproar was justified and an important lesson to the SaaS industry.

Let me add that Chargify is certainly not the first company to do this and they won’t be the last. So when I saw David Hauser’s post, “How to Break the Trust of Your Customers in Just One Day: Lessons Learned from a Major Mistake.” I assumed there would be a heartfelt apology and some interesting lessons. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Quite frankly, as a customer currently under the ‘free’ plan, I was insulted.

The bottom line is that David failed to understand 3 important aspects of his business, all of which lead to the massive uproar:

Chargify Was Never Freemium For Users
Trust is Imperative for an Integrated & Recurring Web Application
Chargify Blames Their Customers for Their Miscalculations

CHARGIFY WAS NEVER FREEMIUM FOR USERS

Chargify falsely assumes their product was FREE for customers: this is not true. It is true that Chargify received $0, yet, nearly all companies using Chargify pay a significant price in development, testing, integration & time.

At zferral, we spent several weeks of development time testing and integrating our application with Chargify. In salary alone, this cost was in the thousands…

[added] However, the key takeaway here is to show that we were literally binding our app (via API) to this product. The point was not to complain about the costs — rather, it was to prove we were invested in Chargify’s success. The only way I could ever see us leaving was if we totally lost trust….

TRUST IS IMPERATIVE FOR AN INTEGRATED & RECURRING WEB APPLICATION

Trust can be defined as, “having confidence in an expected outcome.” In business, most consumers trust the business will operate in a fair and consistent manner.

With your material change in pricing (without Grandfathering) you effectively eliminated your pricing model. It is clear you can change at a moments notice…

The new plan is actually:

“You pay THIS amount per month, until we feel like RAISING it.”

This is inherently unpredictable (also unfair) and therefore, cannot be trusted.

Here’s the kicker: Chargify is not a CRM, where you can easily port your contacts from one app to another. As I mentioned above, the customer has already “invested” their time and resources into Chargify.

The trust for an application that requires custom integration and has a recurring billing model requires an order of magnitude MORE TRUST than a simple web application that can be easily canceled and switched.

Who would tie themselves into an agreement where you can get price gouged at any time? Would you lease a car from a company that can raise the prices at any time? I hope not!

CHARGIFY BLAMES THEIR CUSTOMERS FOR THEIR MISCALCULATIONS

Apparently, nearly 99% of Chargify customers were on the free plan. Clearly, their business model is not to have the top 1% subsidize the other 99%. This was a miscalculation or their end. However, this was their conclusion:

Free customers go out of business or never launch

Really? Aside from being factually incorrect, how about “our internal assumptions were miscalculated and we should have done a better job of weeding out those who are not seriously considering our product.”

But wait, there’s more:

Free customers have the time to complain
There is a big difference between bootstrapping a business, which I have done a number of times, and trying to test a hobby to see if it is viable as a business.

Those customers that were working on a hobby business, or just something they were not investing in significantly, seemed to have the time to tweet all day long, post multiple negative comments on every possible channel available, and shout the loudest.

This is not to say we did not get valid complaints from great customers—boy, did we ever—but their complaints were well considered, included real information and were mostly in private forums.

This whole paragraph is a crock. Maybe David misunderstood that the Bootstrappers had the most to lose in your new pricing scheme, hence the uproar! It appears larger customers were mostly unaffected — change their price and I guarantee you will hear complaints…

Perhaps, David is confusing “complaining” via twitter with researching the competition. I took the time for ~~my hobby~~ errr, my startup to tweet the Chargify competitors CheddarGetter, Recurly & Spreedly. I loudly asked them if they would Grandfather my account if I switch, which given the circumstances, is a fair question. I received nearly instant communication from them stating they would.

Communication…CHECK. Fairness….CHECK. Trust….CHECK.

In the end of the day, I am making this point as both a consumer and CEO. As a consumer, with a company that relies on other 3rd party applications, I do not want to see the industry become the Wild West — where prices are only good for 30 days at a time…

As a CEO, I want my current and future customers to know where I stand. I can guarantee, that any customer of zferral.com will always be grandfathered into the pricing scheme on the day they signed up — if we ever raise prices.

It is a bit sad that I have to publicly declare this, however, I now think it is necessary.

Watch this video to see how easy it is to integrate zferral and...

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:40:33 -0400

Watch this video to see how easy it is to integrate zferral and FreshBooks. Automatically record your affiliate and referral commissions as expenses your FreshBooks account!

Startup Conferences & Events: How to Maximize Effectiveness of Your Event

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:52:30 -0400

Early last week, I had the pleasure of presenting my custom referral engine at the COMPETE startup competition during the midVentures Launch conference. Being my first true experience — with a table — I realized those who had done this before (most, several times) were much more prepared. That being said, here is some practical advice to be more prepared at your next conference.

Pre-Event Preparation: Purchase Conference Materials

If you are attending a conference you need a few items. This may be common sense, you would be surprised…

Business Cards (several hundred)
Table Decoration
Displays, Giveaways, etc.

Not all of these items are necessary, it is important to make a decent impression. We purchased a pretty sweet custom table cover, it cost $180.00 from Promo Force and was well worth it.

I was fine here. Has a small scare with business cards (thought I may run out - went through about 200) yet I had plenty in reserve. The table cover was also key and well worth it.

Study the Players

What? You need to study? Absolutely! First of all, you need to study your pitch and delivery if you plan on making a splash (competing or not). Second, you should formulate a gameplan for the people you want to talk to and what you can offer them. You should also start following them on twitter or read their latest blog posts.

I did rather well. I knew most of the faces and the names of the people I wanted to meet. Did not get a chance to chat with all of them, but I was prepared and somewhat knowledgeable about them (or their businesses).

Get Business Done Before You Leave

There is nothing worse than missing quality networking time to work on your slides or product. This is especially true when there is an ‘after-party’ or some event which includes alcohol. If you have to work while on the road, you are missing some great opportunities — get it done BEFORE!

I failed. I was swamped. Partially because I chose to drive (5 hours) which is probably the longest stretch I have had away from a laptop (while awake) in a while. I put off my pitch and slides (if I was chosen) until I got there. It was stupid. I regret it. Lesson learned.

Event Day: Introduce Yourself to the Organizers

Sure, this may be a bit intimidating, they are generally running around and seem to be talking to everyone. Make sure you get in there and meet them though. The earlier the better! Besides being well connected, they are generally already pretty damn successful and want to help people in your position.

I think was average here. I chatted with Geoff, who was awesome and (was a fan of @zferral) so it was easy to keep chatting with him. To me, he was the most receptive so maybe that was also the reason I didn’t really get to chat with the rest of the guys as much.

One way to make sure you get some intro time is to show up a few minutes early when they have a bit of down time. If things look hectic, they are — give them their space to get everything running smoothly!

Introduce Yourself to the Other Tables

I had planned to introduce myself to each table (most are potential customers of zferral) which was a great idea. Unfortunately, my internet was not working and I got caught up troubleshooting until a bit after people started to arrive.

I did hope to meet each and every company at #mVLAUNCH, my effort backfired when many of the companies did not stay til the end.

Meet the Right People

Here is where your gameplan should pay off. Make sure you seek out and connect with the people who you have identified. This may be sponsors, investors, companies or other founders who are in attendance.

I was less concerned about the investors, I was glad to connect with a few people who I have traded emails with: @Sunir and @Statsmix among others. There were several I did not meet, and could not locate or find time. Probably could have done better here..

Post Event: Thank the Organizers

Make sure to thank everyone for putting in all the time. An email or note is definitely appreciated.

I saw a VC who took an entire day to judge the competition, I saw him on the way out and just told him “Hey, I know you are super busy, it means a lot to us startups to have someone like you here helping us.” He was surprised and I believe, definitely moved by the gesture.

Follow Up Emails:

Be sure to follow up with your contacts and just let them know you still remember them and the important items you spoke about. Keep the conversation going…

Definitely still going through all the cards and following up as we speak!

Stay Connected!

Keep an open dialogue and keep networking. It’s great to meet all these new people, so be sure to follow them on twitter and connect with them on LinkedIn!

If you are reading this and I have not connected feel free to contact me! @Jeff_Epstein or @zferral

Overall I had a blast! I want to thank everyone at MidVentures again, it was a great event and met a ton of awesome people! I am absolutely looking forward to attending more events, and will gladly travel back to the Windy City for the next conference.

The Anatomy of a Referral: Leveraging Social Media to Grow Your Business

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 08:41:16 -0400

I just read this article by @econsultancy which claims that word-of-mouth referrals are an “offline” phenomenon. While this may be true now, they are grossly underestimating the value of real word-of-mouth engagement via social media.

Consider this conclusion (below)….

In short, status updates and tweets hardly represent the one-to-one interactions that serve as the foundation of effective word-of-mouth.”

Of course! Neither status updates nor regular tweets constitute actual word-of-mouth. I suppose you can technically count a ‘status update’ as ‘word-of-mouth.’ Yet, in the real world, a ‘status update’ is like wearing a t-shirt. You are posting something (on your chest or via facebook / twitter) for everyone to see. There is no engagement or direct contact required. To compare wearing a t-shirt to having a face-to-face conversation is like comparing apples to papayas.

I had an encounter yesterday (Friday 9/24) that serves as a great real life example. Here is a recap of the events (or search via my @jeff_epstein twitter stream….)

Time 6:28 am (EST)

Time 7:28 am

Time 7:34 am

NOTE: the extent of my and @zburt’s relationship is that we both post on HackerNews and we have traded 2 short emails in the past month…

Time 11:08 am

Over the course of a Friday morning, I referred a product that I was planning on using (Elegant Banners) to a person who I casually (and only virtually) knew @zburt.

In short, referrals via social media absolutely work. The issue is those looking to be referred need to know how to ask! Zack was clear with his approach, he was looking to get sweet banners for Awesomeness Reminders — his brilliant (and obviously awesome) website.

Once people start becoming more knowledgeable about how to use twitter to ask questions — the ‘effectiveness’ of word-of-mouth referrals online will surely increase.

How to set up an affiliate program for your web app or SaaS...

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:33:00 -0400

How to set up an affiliate program for your web app or SaaS product in about 2 minutes with zferral.com

New Awesome Updates from zferral: An Even More Custom Affiliate and Referral Program!

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:17:00 -0400

It has been a crazy few weeks here, I want to thank you for your support. The positive feedback and overall traction has been pretty incredible, far surpassing our expectations (and they were high!)…..

Anyway, check out these awesome new features:

Our API Documentation is Live

It is now possible to seamlessly integrate our “incentive engine” right into your HTML & CSS. Our API documentation is located here: http://zferral.com/api-docs.

We are rapidly expanding our library (RoR coming soon) so if you have any questions please email techsupport@zferral.com.

We created Single Sign-On (SSO)

Even if you choose to skip the API integration, you can now allow users to move between your site and your affiliate panel without having to sign in twice! The documentation and integration can be found here: http://zferral.com/api-docs/affsson.

Join Our Affiliate Program and Earn Cash

Check out our affiliate program at http://partners.zferral.com. You can place a few banner ads on your site or personal blog and make some coin!

Don’t Be A Stranger

Get in touch with us! Call, write or hunt me down on twitter @jeff_epstein or @zferral.

What else is going on?

We are still burning the midnight oil to provide you with the most custom affiliate and referral solutions. We have some exciting integrations and a few more pretty awesome features planned for the next few weeks.

As always, please email me personally with any questions or comments — I love connecting with you all, and it’s great to hear about your businesses.

Startup Marketing: Getting Your Startup Noticed and Covered by Blogs

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:11:00 -0400

Before you can hope to scale your business through customer referrals and affiliate programs, you need to launch your product and get it noticed! Getting your startup noticed is tough; getting your startup covered is even more difficult. We launched our custom affiliate software about 30 days ago and have since been covered by about a dozen bloggers and have been tweeted about by the one-and-only @scobleizer.

I do not claim to be an expert by any means, many companies have received more coverage than we have. Regardless, zferral has received a wealth of publicity lately, and many have asked how. I started with the two best articles available on startup marketing:

Start Here:

First, read startup marketing advice by @Balsamiq, then head over to @Marshallk’s article on launch promotion. After you sort through these, here are a few more nuggets of advice:

Get Reviewed:

The best place to get some good old-fashioned crowdsourced feedback is on HackerNews. If you have low self-esteem, beware: you may crack under the critical eye of the HN members. That being said, the HN community will do a great job of quickly and efficiently testing the following: features; UI; security; SEO; design; and overall usefulness of your app.

Use Twitter:

Use twitter to start the discussion and utilize email to continue the conversation.. The best part about Twitter is how many functions it serves, including the following:

Learn about the bloggers: You should follow all the industry bloggers to get a feel for their interests and personality. Use this information to craft an email about your company that will speak to their audience.

Meet new customers: Search streams to find people who would benefit from your product. Reach out to them (do not spam!)

Join the discussion: Speak up and be heard. Try not to focus solely on your product, rather, communicate the service it provides in its industry as a whole.

Make sure to re-tweet these bloggers and help them get more eyeballs on their other stories.

Join HARO:

Sign up for the HARO (Help A Reporter Out) newsletter. Take five minutes to read the overviews and send your pitches any time you add value to the inquiry.

Become a Resource for Others:

I am a big believer in Karma and helping others. Altruism not only makes you feel good, but you never know when those you helped may return the favor! Join OnStartups, Quora, HackerNews or the Web Applications Q&A on StackExchange to spend some time interfacing with similarly situated businesses.

I have already found that several clients have joined zferral.com due to postings on the above websites.

Take Some Long shots:

Definitely reach out to some of the rockstars in the tech community. Some will ignore you, some will call you, and some may even meet with you! Be respectful, and remember that these individuals, like yourself, are super-busy.

Here is a shout-out to some of the people who have taken more time than most people to answer emails, calls or chats…

@neilpatel @scobleizer @alex @andrewchen @sandieman @jason @dugsong @asmartbear

Affiliate & Referral Management With Your Website's Look & Feel!

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 10:44:00 -0400

Our custom affiliate and referral programs just became even more custom! Use our open API to fully integrate your affiliate panel into your own CSS / HTML.

Check out this example of the zferral custom referral program.

By integrating our software into your website, you get the best of both worlds!

A custom affiliate and referral solution
Your “look & feel”
Our tracking and management
Your campaigns, ads and analytic information for your affiliates.

Feel free to reach out to techsupport@zferral.com if you have any questions about integrating with us!

Our Latest Release: Integrate Your Custom Affiliate or Referral Programs via API

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:59:00 -0400

We have released our latest version of our custom affiliate and referral software, and we have to say its a rather large update!

Without further adieu, here is the latest info:

Our API is now Open:

Check out our API documentation — from here, you can integrate campaigns, affiliates, commissions, analytics and marketing directly into your website. If you fully-integrate with our API, your affiliates need not visit your affiliate panel.

A sample integration and sandbox environment will be available soon!

We Have a Support Area: We are adding articles to make your integrations easier. We have added some articles regarding tracking via Paypal integrations. Please visit the support area and let us know what articles would be helpful.

We were tweeted by @Scobleizer: Last Thursday we noticed a huge spike in traffic and noticed the following tweet by Robert Scoble:

“If you’re looking for a company that helps you create, manage and track custom affiliate and referral programs @zferral is for you.” (via @Scobleizer)

Vote for zferral on KillerStartups!

Check out our coverage on KillerStartups.com, with the title:

zferral.com - creating affiliate and referral programs. Don’t forget to vote for zferral!

As always, feel free to contact me directly with any questions or comments.

Jeff Epstein, Founder

jeff@zferral.com :: @jeff_epstein :: @zferral

We've Been Busy @ zferral.com

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:03:00 -0400

We just wanted to update everyone with some cool and exciting progress we have made! (please hold the applause..)

We Created Non-Monetary Campaigns / Anayltics

Looking to reward customers with “bonus points” or free usage of your product? Simply create a non-monetary campaign. You can create any “currency” such as points, miles or gold stars. We are using non-monetary campaigns to give companies more affiliates in the free plan!

Integration with 3rd Party Applications

We have joined forces with 3 killer apps: Highrise (a CRM) from 37signals; MailChimp (email); and FreshBooks (invoicing & accounting). These integrations will help you manage your affiliates better. For more information on these integrations, click on our 3rd party apps page.

Use Your Own Favicon on Your Affiliate Panel

We also added the ability for you to use a custom favicon for your affiliate panel. Make sure to login to zferral and update your logo, colors, campaigns and favicon!

What else is going on?

Have no fear, we are not going to rest! We are close to opening up our own API, which should be ready in about a week. This will allow for a seamless integration between your site and zferral! We are also working with other 3rd-party applications to create the best possible experience!

As always, please email me personally with any questions or comments — we love to get feedback! Thanks for your patronage, we look forward to making zferral an even better custom incentive engine to help you scale your business…

"Let’s face it, everybody is looking for ways to maximize profit. zferral is probably the easiest..."

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:12:51 -0400

““Let’s face it, everybody is looking for ways to maximize profit. zferral is probably the easiest way that I’ve seen to do this, if you have any sort of product that you’re selling. “”

- Brad McCarty, TheNextWeb

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/07/08/zferrals-customized-referral-program-wants-to-make-you-more-money/

Affiliating the Affiliates: Why Your Company Must Tier Your Affiliate Program

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:12:00 -0400

If you have read this blog, you probably understand why every company should have an affiliate program. (If not, here are 7 reminders)

Even though just having an affiliate program will allow your website to achieve some great benefits, if you want to grow your business and increase your reach you really must set-up a tiered affiliate program.

First, here is a brief explanation of a tiered affiliate program:

Abe signs up to be an affiliate of Vandelay Industries and puts a banner on his blog.
Homer, an aspiring blogger, reads Abe’s blog and signs up for the Vandelay affiliate program as well, using Abe’s link.
Bart clicks the link from Homer’s blog and buys a skateboard from Vandelay.

In a tiered program, Both Homer and Abe would receive a commission from Bart’s purchase. Generally Homer (the direct affiliate) would receive more than Abe. Abe will receive a % of all sales generated by all affiliates that signed up through his link!

why do I need to tier my program?

Great question! The reason why you need a tiered program is because having a tiered affiliate program shifts the incentive for the affiliate.

oh really? how?

Typically, a single-tier affiliate program is used as a way to directly sign up a customer. The incentive for the affiliate is to directly influence a person to sign up using their link.

of course, so what?

Well, in a tiered affiliate program the affiliate’s incentive is shifted to refer other affiliates!

Think about it this way, answer a quick multiple choice question:

Would you rather?

(a) make 100 calls a day and earn a 10% commission
(b) hire 10 people to make 100 calls a day and earn a 3% commission on their sales
(c) all of the above

Okay, hopefully, I have drilled the point home. Affiliates are like anyone else, the harder they work the more money they will make.

Affiliates, like anyone else, have limited bandwidth. If your affiliate program allows the affiliate to earn additional income by having others ‘sell for them’ it makes your program that much more likely to be utilized!

The more affiliates they have working for them the more money they will make. This principle also applies to YOUR site; so maximize the number of quality affiliates in your program by using a multi-tiered affiliate strategy!

About zferral: zferral.com helps you scale your business…efficiently. zferral lets you create custom affiliate and referral programs. Try it for free, and pay-as-you-grow. To apply for a beta invite email us at contact@zferral.com