Dec 27

Getting your share of Referrals?

If you’re doing good work, have products that people enjoy, and provide a service and experience that exceeds expectation, chances are, your business is benefiting from word of mouth referrals. While this occasional lead generation windfall may be great, there are things you can do to shine a light on referral generation and generate significantly more referrals. Below are five foundational approaches that can help you keep referral top of mind. There’s no reason you can’t employ two or three of these approaches at the same time. Offer 100% refund The idea of a 100% refund is pretty compelling. In reality all you are doing is offering a reward for people who refer. The idea is to tell a customer that they can receive 25% refund for each customer they refer up to 100%. This way you turn giving referrals into a game and get the added benefit of a creative marketing message. Partner with a non-profit There are so many not for profit agencies that need and deserve support from businesses. From an organization standpoint, partnering with a local agency is a great thing to do on many levels. One way to take this up a notch is to run a campaign for a new product launch or special promotion in which you donate a percentage of new sales to your chosen partner. This is a great way to incentivize anyone that wants to help your non-profit partner to make referrals to your campaign. Co-brand your content If you’ve created a series of tip sheets, how to articles or other useful information to use in your own lead generation efforts – the accountant: 10 little known ways to cut your taxes in half – consider reaching out to strategic partners and offering to let them use your free report. Let them add their logo and contact information and send it to their customers and prospects. In many cases partners will readily accept the offer of educational content that’s already a proven winner. Buy one get one free If you are promoting a new product or service, one of the best ways to get the word out is to allow people who buy today to make a gift of an additional product or service to a friend. This is a particularly powerful tactic when promoting a starter or lower cost item that can produce upsells and future business from those who receive the free version. Win-win workshops Many businesses have taken the free report concept mentioned above and turned it into the free 10 ways to avoid XYZ seminar. If you’ve created a compelling, non sales oriented workshop you can get in front of prospects by offering to present this workshop to a strategic partner’s customers. To really ramp this idea up, offer to do the workshop for two non-competing partners. This way they both get to offer great content for their customers and get to meet and greet each other’s customers. They both see it as a marketing opportunity and you get ushered in and referred as the expert. It’s a win for all. Source: American Express/Open Forum: Author - John Jantsch