DMD Skin Sciences: Using Referrals to Build a New Brand in The Crowded Skincare Market
Referral program top line results
- PHP 900,000 (about US$18,000) added in six months through referral sales
- 3% of all transactions were referral sales - new revenue generated from referrals
- 3,600+ social media posts shared about the referral program
"ReferralCandy was the perfect partner to help us to facilitate referrals in our community."
Ena Quitain
COO, DMD Skin Sciences
About DMD Skin Sciences
DMD Skin Sciences is a skincare brand created by dermatologist Dr. Mike Dellariarte. He wanted to create a line of products that could solve patients’ skincare complaints in the comfort of their own homes.
The challenge: Building a new brand in a competitive market
In 2020, before Dr. Mike’s new clinic could open, the Covid-19 pandemic struck and the Philippines went into lockdown.
The team had hoped to use the new clinic to launch the DMD Skin Sciences brand and gather new patients as customers. This was no longer possible. New patients were also hesitant about seeking consultations through video calls.
The team decided to pivot to selling the products direct-to-customer. This meant launching the DMD Skin Sciences brand online and building the brand from scratch in a competitive industry.
“The skincare market is saturated and very competitive,” explained Ena Quitain, COO of DMD Skin Sciences. “And every month, new skincare brands are popping up.”
The solution: Scaling manual referrals to grow the brand
After a few months, Ena noticed a new trend.
“New customers would message us to arrange for a consult because their friend referred our clinic,” shared Ena. “We realized that our patients were sharing positive experiences in Facebook groups, and recommending DMD Skin Sciences to their friends.”
Ena saw referrals as a way to grow the brand and reach more customers. She wanted a tool that could help incentivize sharing behavior and reward customers for sharing. She also wanted a way to measure the effectiveness of referral sales, and so decided to try using ReferralCandy.
"The referrals were there -- we wanted a tool to supercharge the referral process."
Ena Quitain
COO, DMD Skin Sciences
The results: Sales and shares with ReferralCandy
Ena set up a simple referral program with ReferralCandy. Customers could give their friends 10% off their first purchase, and be rewarded with a discount code for 10% off their next purchase.
In just 6 months, DMD Skin Sciences achieved amazing results with their referral program:
- PHP 900,000 added in just 6 months (approximately US$18,000) through referral sales
- 3% of all transactions were referral sales (higher than the industry standard of 2.35%).
- 3,600+ social media posts shared about the referral program — that’s almost 600 shares per month.
Ena was proud of how referrals helped to build the brand.
"As a team, we’re proud that our growth is primarily driven by word of mouth, and we didn’t have to rely on paid ads."
Ena Quitain
COO, DMD Skin Sciences
3 key factors for DMD Skin Science’s referral success
Ena shared the three factors that led to the success of DMD Skin Sciences’ referral program:
- Authentic referrals
- Effective post-purchase referral emails
- Ease of use for Ena and her customers
1. Authentic referrals
For Ena, referrals were an authentic way to market the brand.
“We’re not doing any paid ad campaigns, and we’re also not doing any influencer marketing. We believe our best influencers are our current customers.
“We were surprised that so many of our patients were influencers or content creators. They didn’t ask us for special deals; they paid for the products themselves, liked it, and created content about us.”
“People really respond when our customers share pictures of their progress on social media. It gives them hope that they can solve their skincare problems as well.
“If they saw it was an ad or a paid endorsement, they would not trust it so much.” Ena was pleasantly surprised when one of their customers turned out to be a famous local influencer. “We were shocked; he had 22,000 followers and he posted the referral link to his profile and Instagram stories.”
“Our customers have become our influencers and brand advocates, and it’s really authentic because we didn’t have to ask.”
2. Effective post-purchase referral emails
Ena also highlighted how ReferralCandy’s automated post-purchase emails helped encourage more referrals.
“We communicate with our patients mostly through email. Our patients understand that our emails contain important information.” In other words, their customers open and read emails from DMD Skin Sciences carefully.
Knowing this, Ena realized the best way to remind their customers about their referral program is through emails.
Ena set up automated post-purchase emails through ReferralCandy to regularly remind their customers about the referral program. She discovered it was the most effective way to motivate their customers to join the referral program.
Furthermore, setting up the emails was a breeze.
“It was easy for our team to set up the post-purchase emails to be sent automatically to the customers to remind them.”
3. Ease of use for Ena and her customers
For Ena, the success of a referral program is a combination of several things: the quality of the product, the brand promise, and most importantly the customer experience.
"What we like most about our partnership with ReferralCandy is the ease of use for both patients and us."
Ena Quitain
COO, DMD Skin Sciences
“ReferralCandy is an awesome experience for us [at DMD Skin Sciences], and it trickles down to the customers. They’re very happy with how easy it is to use, share, and redeem the rewards.
“I’m really glad we found ReferralCandy; you’re the perfect partner to facilitate all the referral behavior in our community.”
