Made-to-measure online suiting business Institchu has revealed the biggest driver of its business is word-of-mouth referrals.
Alongside regular marketing channels including paid social, search engine marketing (SEM) and email communications, the business finds most of its customers through word-of-mouth.
Speaking to Ragtrader, co-founder James Wakefield said this knowledge informed the decision to launch an incentive program to encourage more referrals.
"What we found from asking our customers, was that word-of-mouth and referrals has been the biggest driver of business," he said.
"But that was before we actually had any platform or tool to allow customers to refer their friends in an easy manner and to incentivise them and their friends to refer people.
"So what we've done recently, is we've implemented a refer-a-friend program where for every single person our customers refer, they can give them $100 store credit which they can use towards their first purchase.
"In return for every single person that they refer who purchases, they get $100 store credit uncapped.
"That has been hugely successful and is driving that exponential user growth.
"When we look at the customer acquisition cost of that campaign versus other channels, it's been it's been working very, very well," Wakefield said.