I have a dear friend who has been in business for 22 years and relies solely on excellent customer service and referrals to grow his business. He treats every prospect with the utmost respect. He does absolutely no advertising for his business because he delivers an outstanding product. And, he stands behind his product and his people. He has quadrupled his sales in the last decade through referral marketing. Referral marketing can improve both top and bottom line growth for a business. Here are four reasons to include it in your marketing plan.
Referral marketing can improve both top and bottom line growth for a business. #viralmarketing Click To TweetCommon ground brings like minded people together
At a time in the United States when everyone is talking about the benefits of diversity—diversity of race, gender, education, sexual orientation, even diversity of thoughts—it is still true that birds of a feather flock together. Suburbanites meet with other suburbanites for happy hour cocktails. Parents of young children share babysitting referrals. Tweens share their favorite apps through iPhone texts. Yes, in this very diverse world, it is the common ground that brings us together.
That common ground presents chances for sharing experiences. This represents tremendous opportunity for businesses. Businesses can get more referrals from existing customers by making it easy to share product choices, purchases and preferences with their friends, family and colleagues. Whether your target is business owners, stay-at-home moms or downtown condo owners, a solid referral marketing plan can help you reach the birds of a feather in your target market. Reaching prospects similar to your current customers is a more costly undertaking outside of referral marketing, so create opportunities and reasons for your customers to share your product within their network.
Customers with product experiences are your best advocates
On Facebook, it is easy to be an advocate for anything. Just click the Like button and you are an advocate. Or perhaps you can change your profile picture to support a cause. Advocacy? Not really. The problem with this form of “advocacy” is that it requires no action and no experience. However, when you endorse a product or cause with which you have had an experience, you change the platform for your advocacy. You become a believable and trusted source. That’s what makes referral marketing so powerful. Customers are your best advocates because they have experience with your product. They can give a first-hand account of what the product does and does not do.
A positive experienced endorsement is more powerful than a negative non-experience. Consider, for example, if a neighbor tells you that they won’t use a new local car wash because they heard another neighbor had their car damaged there. But, the next day, you hear from another neighbor that they took their car to the same local car wash and got the car detailed for a fraction of what they expected to pay and the car looked new again. Hmmm…positive referrals will give you cause to pause and consider the hearsay of the negative experience. Maybe you will try that new car wash. The fact is there is no better advocate for your business than a customer willing to share a positive testimony.
Referrals don’t require a large advertising budget
As a business leader, you understand how difficult and expensive it can be to reach your target audience. Where to find your target customer can be daunting given the myriad of choices—email, video streaming platforms, social media sites, television, SEO, search marketing, and on and on. There are a multitude of channels and media outlets on which to spend your marketing budget. By the time you identify the right customer through the right channel, your acquisition cost may leave little margin for profit. You can balance your acquisition cost in these channels with a referral marketing plan, which effectively allows you to extend the acquisition cost of a single customer to, potentially, multiple customers.
Steady referrals requires good product and service
A necessary prerequisite of a referral marketing plan is good product and good customer service. This may seem obvious but it also is a catalyst to help a business focus on building and sustaining a good experience for the customer. A strong referral program requires a culture of creating a better—not a good enough—experience for the customer. Remember my friend with the 22 year old business. While he has never spent much time studying the competition, he does hear about their work occasionally. It usually happens when he is correcting the blunders of his competitor. Referral marketing cannot happen in a vacuum. It is done in real-time, in the context of whatever market competition exists for you, which demands an excellent customer experience.
Referral marketing is an essential component of every marketing plan. It will help you identify qualified prospects, because, indeed, birds of a feather flock together. Referral marketing can help you identify your loyal customers willing to declare their allegiance. It does not require a huge marketing investment but it will force the development of a superior customer experience.
A referral marketing program is a must for every business.