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Referral Marketing: 8 Tips For Building A Powerful Referral Channel
Introduction: Referral Marketing
What is Referral Marketing? It is a process of promoting products or services to customers significantly through referrals. In other words, it's a tactic that makes use of recommendations and word of mouth to grow a business's customer based on the networks of its existing customers. Referral marketing is very beneficial in developing any business. Here, in this article, we are going to talk about 8 tips for building a powerful referral channel. Let's begin!
1) Identify Audiences
At first, what you need to do is to specify your quality audiences. What kind of help do they need from your company? Look for them who want to receive your product or service. Again, identify the clients who have already taken your products. Create a list consisting of their names, emails, contact numbers, and locations. It is going to help you in the future while you would be looking for people to ask them for referrals.
2) Choose The Perfect Time And Schedule Exit Interview
When your clients are convinced and tell you about their satisfaction with your products or service, ask for a referral this is the time. You can ask them questions about if your products/services have met their expectations. If you get a positive signal, then this is a perfect time. Grab this opportunity to ask them for a referral.
When you conduct your exit interview with your clients, this is the time when you are going to ask them for the feedback. You may also ask them what worked and what didn't. You can ask them one of the most important questions during an interview that may help you with getting more referrals. This is about to ask them about their experience with your company. If they reply that they are satisfied enough, ask them if they mind recommending you to any of their friends. If they say "Yes", know from them who are in their mind, or who they think would be a good fit for your company to receive service. That simple strategy could pay off big for you.
3) Promote Your Program
Place your referral program in the newsletter or on the banners. This should be such a place where usually the customers look often. Keep in mind that you should promote your program at that time when you can expect a high number of new leads. It could be any specific day, month, or season.
4) Create A Dedicated Webpage
You have to create a dedicated page for your referral program on your website. Now what you need to make sure that it is highly visible and on the online site. You should explain well all the processes, information, terms, and conditions of your referral program. Don't make it complicated. Be super clear in your cost of acquisition. Give the people a good idea about how it is going to work, when and how they will get paid.
You may also use a system making a single form that someone can use to refer a friend that contains their name, email, location, and some details about the client who they are referring to you. But, make sure that this page must be a dedicated page and use it strictly for referrals.
5) Make A Big Deal Of Referrals You Get
Don't just send your customers a thank you email for sending the referrals. If you want to get more referrals, reward people. We can consider it the key. Express your gratitude towards them by shooting a video where you can leave a thank you message for them. After then forward it to them. You may send them flowers or cookies. But, don't send them these items at home.
6) Give VIP Status To People Who Refer
Give a VIP status or tag to anyone who has referred any new client to your company. Make them better seats, or give them interview time according to their preferences. You may also give them a reserved parking lot system. Also, make some special offers and some discounts of valuable things to them before anyone else. Getting an upgraded status is very motivating to a lot of people. It makes them more encourage to send new referrals to your business company. So, you want to make sure you leverage that.
7) Certification And Awards
Give credentials, medals, or awards to those people who send referrals to you. People are more likely to share some good news. If you give them special recognition, they would love to share them with their friends, colleagues, and family members. They cal also share this achievement through social media platforms and brag about your services. When they would tell them the reason behind it, other people too will come to you and your company as well.
8) Make Charitable Donations
You can make a charitable donation on your client's name. The amount can be from one dollar to the thousands or many more on behalf of your clients' names. It varies from client to client. Yet, do this. As the charity is so diverse, you can tie the business to the charity that makes sense for them. For instance- you can donate money to an orphanage shelter on your customer's behalf and give them a certificate saying we have done for you! People will be happy as this work you are doing besides your main business is helping to make the world a better place. Now, the chances of your client sharing that certificate of gratitude on social networking platforms are also very high. No doubt, this will generate a whole bunch of referral leads for your business.
Conclusion
If you want to launch your business, there are a lot of ways to do it, such as- Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Blogs, Websites, Google ads, etc. But, you also know that lot of these traffic sources can be quite expensive or not easy to get. It can be unpredictable. That is why "Referral Marketing" is so effective. It does not rely on anything. It is based on the direct communications of human beings. So, why are we waiting? We should follow the above steps and get more leads soon!
