How to Make Your Business More Referral Friendly
Are you getting as many referrals from your referral marketing? Do your customers send you new business? What about your contacts or other businesses you deal with? If you provide a high quality product or service but are not getting the number of referrals that you would like, then a simple, planned referral program can be a great way of getting more.
Your referral program should include:
- A referral reward
- Simple referral tools
- Plenty of promotion
Referral Marketing Step One: Rewarding Your Referrals
Rewarding the people that send you referrals is not only the right thing to do but it can also encourage more people to do the same. You have a few choices to make when it comes to rewarding referrals:
- The first is the reward itself. In some cases it might be appropriate to use a financial reward – say 10% of the value of the business. This is often a good choice when trying to get referrals from other businesses. If money doesn’t seem appropriate then something of a similar value might – say a meal for two.
- The second choice is what you will reward. In most cases you will want to reward actual new business won. However, it might be a good idea in some cases to reward every referral – with a simple thank you or token gesture – even if it doesn’t turn into new business.
- Finally you need to decide whether you will promote this reward or simply give the reward after the fact. Again, in some cases promoting the reward will increase the number of people who do refer. However, you don’t want it to look like you’re buying referrals. The choice depends on your business.
Referral Marketing Step Two: Creating Referral Tools to Make Referring Easier
You want to make sending you business as easy as possible; so, you should create simple tools to smooth the process. This can be as simple as making sure that every customer has plenty of your business cards to hand out. You could also create a specific gift voucher for them to use or include tools and forms on your website.
Take a mental walk through the process of someone referring business to you. Point out the places where it might be difficult and find ways to make it easier. One of the best tools you can create is a special offer for the person that they refer to you. This will make it easier for them to talk about your business and convince someone to get in touch.
Referral Marketing Step Three: Promoting Your Referral Program
If you’re not getting as many referrals as you would like there’s often a simple explanation – you’re not asking. If people don’t know that you want referrals they may never think to send you any.
So what do people need to know?
First off they need to know that you welcome referrals. Make a point of asking for referrals from satisfied customers and clients. Having a referral program in place will help this but only if you promote it. When you start your program make sure you contact all your customers and professional contacts and let them know about it. After that you can promote it in your newsletters, on your website, in your email signature or even on your invoices. From time to time you might consider a marketing campaign just for your referral program.
Once they know you welcome referrals the next step is to show them the process – i.e. how can they send you a referral and what will happen after that? Before people will be happy to send you their friends, family, colleagues and customers they will want to know that you will look after them.
Finally, use the referral rewards to honestly thank people who have helped you out. If someone has gone to the trouble of sending you new business you need to make sure they know it was appreciated.
Referral Marketing Summary
The first step in any referral program has to be to deliver a great product or service but if you do, a simple plan for encouraging and handling referrals will help you get the most out of the goodwill you create.
What Next?
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