I had the pleasure of hosting a session at MADfest alongside Grant Warnock, CMO of Bike Club—a brilliant brand doing incredible things in the DTC space.
Together, we walked through a real-world blueprint of how Bike Club turned referral into a powerhouse for authentic, profitable acquisition—and how they’re now unlocking the next phase of growth by activating micro-influencers from within their own customer base.
In this session, I wanted to show that trusted acquisition isn’t just a buzzword. It's a real, proven growth strategy that starts with your existing customers—the very people who already love your brand and are ready to advocate for it.
Here’s what you’ll take away:
- Why the key to profitable growth is already in your customer base.
- How to spot and activate your highest-potential micro-influencers.
- What trusted acquisition looks like in action and how to get started now.
Here’s the full recap…
Set the Scene: Word-of-Mouth Magic
💬 TB: “Word of mouth is the ORIGINAL influence.”
To open the session, I framed the entire conversation around something fundamentally human.
“I’ve spent the last 13 years building a business around the most effective form of marketing there is: word of mouth.”
“There’s some magic that happens when someone tells you about something good.
"Firstly there’s relevance: they’ve thought about YOU as someone to whom their recommendation is likely to mean something. If they know you well then they’ve filtered it. They know it could resonate with you.
"This is personalisation happening for real. We can dream about doing this stuff online but humans can personalise it to perfection!
"Secondly there’s trust: trust because of the relationship you have with them. You instinctively trust that if it’s good enough for them, it’ll be good enough for you.
"Because of this trust, when customers convert from word of mouth they come to your brand predisposed to liking it, trusting it and understanding it.
"They spend more and stay longer. They’re not like other customers.”
And while trust in advertising keeps declining, one thing remains reliable:
“Consumers trust recommendations from friends and family. Ask them in surveys and consumers always put recommendations top of the most trusted list.
"Hidden amongst the customers who’ll refer you to one or two friends are the super-referrers: the ambassadors and the micro-influencers.
“92% of customers say they trust a micro-influencer over a celebrity influencer.”
Why? Because micro-influencers blend authenticity with niche expertise:
“Micro-influencers have a niche following—people who have a connection to the content they produce. Their content gives them relevance in the lives of their audience.
"And their authenticity and knowledge in a specific niche makes them trusted by their followers.”
Meet Bike Club: The Circular DTC Brand Turning Riders into Referrers
Next, I introduced Grant Warnock, CMO of Bike Club.
💬 GW: “I’m proud to be part of Bike Club—a circular economy business which offers premium kids' bikes for a monthly subscription. Bike Club is the second-largest subscription bike business in the world after Swapfiets, with over 70,000 members in the UK and Germany.”
Before working with Mention Me, the team tried building a programme in-house—and encountered a familiar pain point.
“Probably a familiar story to some of you here. Having been burned by a few failed agency partnerships, my view had become very much ‘build and run in-house’ and, theoretically I had the tech muscle to do this…
“However, for referrals this didn’t quite work. You start with one spreadsheet—then one spreadsheet with twenty tabs, the dreaded monthly reconciliation and team trying to get someone else doing it (‘who’s new!’) and eventually you say ‘let’s automate it’ and… well, that way madness lies.”
Referral That Scales (and Works)
Grant had used Mention Me during his time at Nutmeg and knew exactly what it could unlock.
💬 GW: “So I am sure everyone would agree that when a business is in high-growth mode—you need every channel cooking—you cannot be leaving conversion opportunities on the table.”
“If you are lucky enough to have a DTC value proposition that is appealing enough to create genuine word of mouth… something your customer genuinely want to impress their friends and family with… then it’s not really ‘why referral?’—it’s ‘how to do it right.’
“Also in my experience it’s the one marketing channel the board understands (they have lots of friends and like the vouchers) and they will be all over you if you don’t get it up and running!”
From Referrers to Micro-Influencers: Tapping Authentic Voices
Bike Club began to see their members not just as customers—but content creators.
💬 GW: “At Bike Club, we are creating treasured family cycling memories every day—so as you can imagine, both referral (through MM) and UGC content have been key marketing levers.”
But conventional influencer marketing didn’t deliver.
“We quickly judged that the bigger influencers didn’t represent value for money for us—we simply don’t have the budget to pay high five figures for a handful of posts, and personally I think that market is over-valued.”
The team tried an influencer marketplace—but hit another wall:
“We turned to one of the influencer marketplace platforms where you can post a ‘job’ and micro-influencers bid, hoping to streamline the process—but it just didn’t work.
"It might be fine for the latest Gen Z meme product, but we’re trying to create lasting family memories, and so the authenticity—dare I say it—the journey, is important.”
Bike Club wanted real customer stories—like this one:
“Ideally, we would love to see a child receive their bike… then learn to ride… get confident… and then head for the hills!”
(At this point in the session, they showed heartfelt UGC snapshots from families—the kind of moments that speak louder than any ad.)
But pulling all those moments together wasn’t easy either.
“Now with a smaller marketing team, the logistics of invites, content etc again became a headache.”
And just when they needed it, something clicked…
A New Solution: Super Referrers, Meet UGC
💬 GW: “And in a weird parallel—and at risk of sounding like an influencer for MM—I promise I am authentic—MM arrived at the scene with a super-referrer/UGC combo.”
“I think we may have been first to sign—not sure—certainly wasn’t a long internal debate.”
It combined the logic of referral, the magic of community influence, and a streamlined engine for discovery and activation—without needing more platform clutter or agency layers.
Looking Ahead: Trust as a Long-Term Growth Lever
💬 GW: “Future state, promised land? Doubling down on trusted acquisition through referral and micro-influencers.”
💬 TB: “If you take NOTHING else away from this session, then I’d like you to remember that your customer base ALREADY contains your best ambassadors, micro-influencers, and referrers.”
With the right tools—like Mention Me’s AI-first micro-influencer platform—you can find, activate, reward and scale these voices.
No spreadsheets. No guesswork. Just breakout growth powered by trust.
Are you ready to join savvy marketers like Grant? Book a demo today and start driving profitable, authentic growth from your customer base.
Thanks for reading!
Tim
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