In a previous post, I talked about referral marketing as one of the most effective forms of marketing that startups can benefit from. I thought of throwing more light on the benefits of referral marketing. That is why I decided to share with you these 5 great Referral Marketing Tactics that will bring growth to your business.
1. Put your focus first on developing a good product or service
This is should be your number one referral marketing tactics. I have taken a lot of time to develop my content writing business. When I started content writing, I spent more than 6 months in developing my writing skills. This does not mean I have stopped. I am still in the process of developing this skill. I look at each job I do for a client as a means to learn something new.
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If your services or product is not really solving the clients’ needs, then you may not benefit from word-of-mouth. It may even turn against you. Online testimonials are one of the best referral marketing tactics today. A good testimonial from a satisfied client will reach others in a matter of minutes. On the other hand, a bad one is like bad news. We all know how fast bad news travels.
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2. Go personal
Once your product or service is good, then you can go personal. Going personal is knowing who your customer is. You need to know their names, remember their purchasing habits, know their status, starting a conversation with them and even greeting them as if you had none them for a long time.
Showing this will mean you care about their wellbeing. It will make them feel special and welcome. Very few people will want to keep their comfort to themselves. They will want to share it with everyone they know. This is what a satisfied customer will do.
3. Be proactive and ask for referrals
Don’t expect the good testimonials to just come to you. Everybody is busy and people’s minds are crowded with other things. Even if your clients are happy with their purchasing experience from you, they may not think to send a testimonial to you unless you ask. Why should you be afraid of asking? If you know you did a good job and the customer was happy, they will not mind helping you with recommendation or testimonial.
In the case where a customer shares with you in a conversation online on Facebook, text messages telling you something positive about your product or service, make sure you put it in your records. You can take a screenshot, print, snap pictures of it, save the links or whatever you think you can do. This can be posted subsequently and will make you never to run out of testimonials when the need arises.
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4. Make use of the testimonials effectively
It’s now time for you to make use of the compelling testimonials in your testimony bank. You can feature them on strategic positions on your website/blog as well as you can share them on social media. Don’t forget that majority of the consumers that use the Internet today will carry out online research before deciding to purchase a product or service.
5. Help the customers spread the word more
This is the fun part of it. If your customers know they can get a benefit of any kind by referring your business or brand to others, they will enjoy being a referral for you.
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You could even ask questions from your customers like “what feature of the product or service did you enjoy most?”
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You can start an email campaign where you will encourage your past customers to forward the message to others.
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If your business has a blog, make sure your posts have a share button on it.
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Don’t forget about giving out incentives. You can incentivize your customers to refer your products or service and get something in return. It could be a discount in the next purchase, a referral commission or even a referral of their own product or service.
There are many more referral marketing tactics that you can use to generate sales and bring in new customers for your business. The above 5 is what I have used and have benefited from. If you start now, I bet you will start receiving messages with amazing words from new clients telling you they have “heard about your product or service and would like to buy it also”.
Did you learn anything from this post? Don’t forget to share it with others so that they can benefit also. You may also leave a comment below if you have benefited from client referral.