Hi Alex, I while back I had asked about giving existing subscription members a free month, as a thank for something - typically for referring someone. At the time, you said it could not easily be done. I have also seen a few other posts indicating that several people would like this feature as well. So my current "workaround" is to go into the members payment screen and manually push out their due/end date by one month. I then send them a thank you email informing them of what I have done. Here's a thought on how this could potentially be implemented more effectively in amemberpro though. Create a new payment plugin (based on the "free plugin") called "referral plugin" (or something like that). This plugin would not be available on any screens where a customer would sign up or renew. To use it, the Admin would 1) select the member 2) add a payment and 3) select the "referral" plugin for the payment method. Yes, this is still manual...but it has the benefit of showing up in the member history portion of member.php. Also, since different amember customers would likely have different names that they would like to show up as the "payment method," you could have a config.inc.php file in the referral payment plugin directory with a variable name the can be defined as whatever value the customer wants. Does this make sense?
I think a referral add-on or mod to this software is one of the most wanted things for amember lately. I remember talking to you Alex about this a while back, and you said you where looking at adding it in sometime? I think it would be easiest this way: On the signup.php page, have another box there around the email address area or something that says: "Username of person who refered you here" ____________________ Then when that new user pays, the username who was put in the referal box automatically gets an amount of free time on their memberships that we can specify in the admin area, and then an email is sent to them as well letting them know. Seems to me this would be a sort of smaller side project that could be wipped up in a short time? I would also be willing to commision this work... (Pay extra) because i think it would really help to bring in new members...
Deejay, now, it is better to use third-party affiliate program like "Ultimate Affiliate" or "iDevAff". It will handle this situation better.
That might be great for "affiliate" programs, but I dont want an affiliate program. I will not be paying cash for affiliates... I only want to give free membership time to existing users for referals. These are two very different things. I wanted a REFERAL add in... Not affiliates... Just a small mod in to the amember software... One field in the signup form that takes a username and adds time to that username. As much time as I specify in the admin panel under general settings. So if a new user puts in "Dave" in the referal username in the "What user refered you?" field, then it adds a week of free time to Dave's account. (Or however much time i put in the general settings on the adminCP) This is a lot different than a referal package that credits money to users, and this mod I think is small enough and simple enough to be a small extra perk in the amember software. I think i may have said this already, but I feel this would be such a valuable add in, and it would bring in lots more extra people to our sites... I would be willing to commision the programming of this, because it would be so great to have. Not only that, but I have kind of been hoping and waiting for this for about a year now... I hope we can work something out here Alex... All your clients could benefit from this. Mike
I think this is a fantastic idea! I'll be the first to buy the plugin. My biggest assest is happy members and they love to brag about my site to newcomers. if they could get a membership reward for bringing in new members, I would benefit beyond the cost of the plugin. Again, this is a very good idea. Tom
I was doing more thinking on how this could work best today... I think it would have to be a check box on the PRODUCTS pages... Like when you add a new product, or edit it, there would be a check box to ask if you wanted to use the referal option... Then under that checkbox would be a box where you could type in the amount of time that would be given to the refering user. (Like the amount of time you set up for each accound, days, weeks, months etc) Then when a new user comes to sign up, the referal box will show up on the signup page, the new user types in the username of the person who refered them, and the amount of time you put in the product page would be automatically added to their account. It would be awesome if a email was also sent to the admin and the user who got the free time because of their referal, to let them know that spreading the word, paid off for them. (Maybe make the email sending optional with another checkbox on the product pages?) Again, Alex, it sounds like a few of us would be willing to pay you to get this into the program... I know I could really use this, because I KNOW it would work awesome on my site. Deej
I already received requests for such an add-on. It is possible, but will not work with most recurring plugins, because recurring payments already sheduled. I hope it is clear. If not, I will try to explain better.
We dont use re-occuring payments or accounts on my site anyways, so this mod would work for me no problem then How long ya think it would take to mod this in? Like I said above, having a setting in the products setup or edit page, where you can say yes or no to running the referal... Then a box where we specify the time given to the reffering user... Then on the signup.php page there would then be a box shown where the new user enters in the refering user's login name (username) and then that user gets the free time we specified... This will be awesome.
As the "admin," I would prefer to "approve" the referral rather than just have the referring member credited without my knowledge. But if this is implemeted on the product config page, then I suppose a manual/auto approval choice could be implemented as well. Also, I suspect in most cases that the "new" member will not enter the "referring member username" correctly and so a little followup work may be required on my (the admin) end - to track down the referrer. A potential workaround to the incorrect name entry might be to link this up with the "check for unique" function used on the signup page?
I dont know about you... But if a new user cant type in the exact username someone gives them to type in, then im not sure i want a user that stupid on my site anyways... A user who refers someone will tell that new user the exact username, and tell them to copy past it to the signup. Very simple... If they dont type it in right, they dont get the free time.. easy... Now one thing though, we should make sure the cAsE doesnt matter because people mix up cAsE aLl ThE tImE. Deej
Coupon option? What about using the "Coupon" option as a referral? Would that work? Instead of putting in a coupon code, a user could type in the name of the referring party. I haven't tried the coupons yet, so I don't know if it's feasible or not...Just a thought.
Actually, Alex has already emailed me saying he is already starting on this mod the way I have described it above... Dont confuse him! lol hahaha Eagerly awaiting this one... Deej
Great! That's good to hear. I could definitely use a feature like that to encourage current members to bring their friends to the site.
Following up this thread... Is there a plugin like this available? Will it work with recurring subscriptions?
This plugin is available for $40 (named "recommend", and available for purchase by support request). It will not work correctly for recurring billing.