Dropbox grew 3900% with a simple referral program. Here’s how!
Numbers are important
Dropbox’s referral program is possibly one of the most famous cases of referral marketing done right.
Almost a decade later, it’s still used in numerous case studies showcasing how referral programs can contribute to a company’s growth engine- or even be the engine itself.
Let’s have a quick dive into Dropbox’s metric history:
• September 2008: 100K registered users
• December 2009: 4M registered users
• September 2017: 10B evaluation + 1B revenue.
What happened between 2008 and 2010? Well, Dropbox managed to double its user base every 3 months, resulting in their users sending 2.8M invites in April 2010.
People, we’re talking about a 3900% growth in 15 months!
OK, enough with numbers. Let’s get straight to the chase: how did they do it?
Obviously, it’s not all due to the referral program; they gathered a ton of feedback, they constantly improved their product and they kinda put a battle in order for VC’s to trust their money to them.
It was part of the onboarding process
Onboarding users can be such a pain. When people go on to start using a software or service, they expect they’ll have to fill out some details.
I don’t know about you, but when the onboarding process of a product I’m dying to use is easy, a smile carves my face.
Dropbox knew this and not only made the whole onboarding a six-step piece of cake, but they integrated their referral program in it as a final step
Just like saying ‘thank you’ by offering more of the product.
People had a clear view of the benefits
According to Dropbox’s founder/CEO Drew Houston, Dropbox’s referral program got inspired by Paypal refer-a-friend program.
Paypal rewarded referrals with cash (as this is what their business was about), so Dropbox had to use their product’s main value in their rewarding system.
