When you are trying to grow your business, referral marketing is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. These are activities that work by creating a source for more business through word-of-mouth.
The better your reputation, the higher quality service or product you provide, and the faster people will refer you to other people who need what you have.
This article will talk about some easy ways to start doing this and how it can be integrated into your daily life to help fuel your business.
Word-of-mouth is an ancient form of communication that we as humans seem to rely heavily upon. Why would someone tell their friends something if they didn’t believe it was good?
We’re living in a culture where everyone has a voice and every person could potentially influence another. This is why it’s so important to develop yours and use it to promote your services and products.
It only makes sense then, that having a strong social media presence is key to developing your referral market. But using all these apps effectively takes time!
There are things like Instagram which don’t require much effort to keep up, but others such as Facebook and Twitter take longer to achieve success with.
That’s not to say there isn’t any growth though, just make sure you’re investing smartly in your platform and targeted content.
Examples of referral marketing
People are constantly sharing information about products and services they use and trust. Product reviews, testimonials, and advertisements often include references to how much this product or service helped them or influenced their decision to purchase it.
Such word-of-mouth advertising is one of the most powerful ways to promote a business. You will probably know some people who are very loyal to a certain brand, but you also likely have friends that find brands poor quality or worse than what else is available.
By adding word-of-mouth sales promotion strategies into your arsenal, you can tap into this rich source of impressions and referrals.
Here are some examples of how you can implement referral marketing into your business.
Product review and testimonial posting
Brand ambassador recruitment
Q&A pages and forums for customers to ask questions about the product or service
Giveaways such as t-shirts or coupons for the product being promoted
Press release distribution via social media sites and other free press announcement websites
Video advertisement creation and publishing through YouTube and other video-hosting websites
Interactive surveys and questionnaires
What makes these promotional tools effective is not only their content but the medium through which they are distributed either directly to the audience or the public.
You can create almost any type of marketing material by taking notes and incorporating new features into existing materials or creating something new.
Ways to improve referral marketing
One of the most powerful ways to boost your business is by offering a reward for someone else doing something great. This reward can be in form of discounts, free items, or even cash!
The easiest way to implement this into your business is through word of mouth. When people talk about you and what you offer, chances are they will share their experiences online using social media sites and forums.
This creates an opportunity for you to reach more potential customers and generate new leads. By investing time into listening to these conversations, you’ll find it easy to create rewards or incentive programs.
There are two main reasons why incentivizing referrals is such a powerful tool. First, when others succeed, we feel happy for them. We feel motivated to do the same thing because they made a success out of our investment, which gives us hope that we could too.
Second, when we see other people successful, we want to try the product/service or get involved with the company to help them succeed.
By creating incentives for referring friends, colleagues, and family members, you’re tapping into both of these motivational forces. It doesn’t matter how much money you have to invest, giving credits or prizes to referrers will pay off in spades.
Offering a word-of-mouth referral program
As mentioned before, word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools in marketing. People are constantly sharing information about you and your business, so be sure to give them credit for it!
By offering a small reward or prize for every person who books a service or product through your company, you’re creating an incentive for people to refer their friends. This rewards system can be done via social media advertising, email promotions, or both.
The more ways there are to offer referrals, the better. It creates consistency, which helps to keep followers engaged with your brand and website.
Referrals are also helpful in generating new customers. When someone you know purchases something related to yours, you can direct them to another page asking if they need help with that product or not.
This is called indirect selling, and it’s very effective when used properly.
Offering a contest or giveaway for word-of-mouth referrals
Running a contest is one of the most effective ways to use social media for your business. A contest is when you have an event that requires entry, with a prize being awarded to someone who entered.
The winner is selected through a process that usually comes down to popularity – how many people like her/him increases their chance of winning!
Running a contest can be tricky, though. You need to make sure it doesn’t violate any laws and that you don’t waste money giving away the prizes if no one enters! That’s why it’s important to plan and test different types of contests to see what works for your business.
You may also want to consider doing a weekly or monthly contest instead of having a once-off event.
Encouraging social media presence
Social media has become one of the biggest ways to promote your business. Companies have their accounts, with all sorts of things they can use them for.
Some stick to sharing fun pictures or videos, while others update about what they do for work. Some pick an area of the site that is more targeted towards their field, like fashion for selling clothes or food tips for recipes.
But the most powerful way to use social media as part of your marketing strategy isn’t necessarily making an effort to be funny or interesting – it’s creating conversations around your products and services.
By bringing people together through conversation, you increase exposure not only for your product but for the person speaking to. This is referred to as word-of-mouth marketing.
It’s a powerful tool that doesn’t cost anything but requires some time to implement into your campaign. Starting early will give your company a leg up on competitors who are not investing in this technique.
Creating a website to improve word-of-mouth referrals
Running a business these days requires more than just telling people about your products and services. These days, word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful tools you have to promote your company.
Referring to other businesses as “like us” or “they are good!” is a great way to gain some exposure for them and praise for their service. It can boost their business too!
People who refer to your business as good will probably become customers later on. They may even tell others how much they like what you offer and why it was worth paying attention to you.
Business owners often forget that word of mouth is a two-way street. Not only do people talk about you, but you can also listen to all sorts of conversations to find out where your company could use an upgrade or improvement.
There are many ways to create referral marketing opportunities for your business. Some of the best include: having a social media presence, producing quality content, offering value, being accessible, and spending money on advertising wisely.
This article will go into detail on three different types of referral marketing you can perform and some examples of each.
Using the right marketing strategies
Between social media, online advertisements, sending emails, creating blogs, and referring to other resources, there are many ways to promote your business!
The key is figuring out what works for you and your business and sticking to it. You will not see great results if you do not use these tools effectively.
There’s an old saying that goes something like this “you get what you ask for” – which means if you keep asking people to do things for your company, then you should expect to receive what they are giving away.
This is called referral marketing or word-of-mouth marketing. People who know about your business and trust your brand will talk about you and spread the word for you. It is one of the most powerful forms of advertising anyone can implement into their business.
Referring to others is cost effective too because you are paying them to advertise for you! And they may even help you with products or services in return for you promoting theirs.
Identifying your target market
When doing referral marketing, one must know their audience! Who are they trying to reach with their product or service? This is important since you will want to make sure that your message matches theirs.
For example, if someone has a fitness site, then it makes sense that they would try to get referrals for more fitness gear or services from other sites and apps that cover that area.
Their targeted audience may be focused on weight lifting, so products like Amazon dozer bags or heavy duffle bags are not going to work well because those items are already available.
You need to find a solution that appeals to them, otherwise, people will choose not to refer you. If yours does not fit their needs, you may lose out on valuable referrals. Make sure to research your competition, and see what tools they use to gain referrals.
Google is an excellent tool for this. You can enter their URL into the field under Tools -> Referer List -> Copy URL.