How To Create Referral Marketing Programs
Referral marketing is not a simple concept, especially if you are not very familiar with it. The best way to implement a great program would be to take the time to learn all you can before getting started. Here are some useful tips that will help you create something that is a total success.
Spread The Word
How in the world are people supposed to know that you have a referral program in place if you don’t tell them about it? While placing the information on your site is somewhat useful, you should still try your best to let people know in as many ways as possible.
Methods you can use to spread the word include:
– Placing it in the navigation bar on your site.
– Posting about it on your social media accounts.
– A link in the footer of your email communications.
– Sending out an email blast.
There are many other ways to let people know about your referral program, but these ideas are a great place to start.
Make Sign-Up As Easy As Possible
Whether you believe it or not, there are some people who are intimidated at the thought of filling out long and complicated forms. Even if the process is not as tedious as it seems, there are some people who cower at the thought of filling out things that take more than a few seconds.
When you are creating your sign-up form, make sure that it is as simple as possible. Ideally, there should be no more than 10-15 fields on the form. Making the process easier will prove to be a great benefit. When people are referred to businesses with simple forms, they are far more likely to complete the process and poke around to see what they can find.
Target The Right People
As with any other marketing campaign, it is important that you determine who you are speaking to prior to getting started. If you are selling items that appeal to the baby boomer community, marketing to a crowd that was born in the 1990s would be totally useless. You do not want people to look out of curiosity and walk away without buying anything. The idea is to make as many conversions as possible.
Choose The Right Rewards
Trying to convince people to refer others to your business is a very calculated process. One of the main things you need to worry about is the type of rewards you offer the referrer. You do not want to offer something so valuable that you end up in the hole, yet offering something that is not valuable enough will make some people feel offended.
You should always offer something that the user will feel appreciative of without giving them so much that they will have no reason to become or remain a customer themselves. For example, offering a $1 credit for every referral is wise, but offering $20 per referral means that you will be sitting in the poorhouse sooner than you thought, especially with the ever-growing popularity of social media.
Offer Great Products And Services
If you are having people refer others to you and there is nothing that great about your offerings, they will be highly offended. This will certainly break the chain that you are working to create. Think of it this way: People who like you will refer others. If they like you, they will refer more. The cycle is neverending. This is only possible if you are giving people a reason to stick around.
Products and services that are questionable quality will be difficult to market to others, so you should definitely work on that. For example, if you know that the tax services you offer are grossly overpriced, you may want to make a pricing adjustment before working on having people refer others.
Do Not Set Referral Limits
One simple way to make people dislike you is to limit the number of referrals that they can bring your way. Doing this will make you look like you are a skinflint, and who wants to do business with one of those. People who refer others should get credit for each and every individual they bring your way. It is insane to cap the number so people end up signing up and the person who referred them gets no credit.
Solicit Reviews
Most people think of referrals as an entirely different concept than reviews and that is not the case at all. When people head to sites like Google+ and Yelp to discuss your business, others may see this and head your way. Even though it is considered an indirect referral, you should reward the reviewer if you know who they are.
Another way for you to use reviews to your advantage would be to give people incentives for writing reviews for your business. No, you should not pay someone to lie and say your business is great when they have never been there, but you should certainly ask those who say they were happy with what your business provided them with. Again, offer an incentive that will make it worth their time.
Hire Someone To Help
Regardless of what marketing type it is, there will always be some people out there who are not able to get a firm grasp on the concept. If you are one of these people, your business should not have to suffer. There are marketing agencies out there that specialize in digital communications. Consider hiring one of them if you really need assistance. Keep in mind that this will cost money, but it provide a great ROI, so it is worth a shot.
Offer Great Resources
If you want people to love you so much that they refer others to you, it would be great to have some materials ready for them. Banners, templates and things of that nature can help tremendously. The less people have to work, the happier they will be to help you get more customers. When people are told that there is a referral program, everything they need should be close. They should not have to run around trying to create materials themselves.
Create A Contest
In addition to the incentives you are giving people for referring others, you should consider having a contest. When people see larger prizes being offered in exchange for referring others, they are generally quick to jump on this. If you are worried about spending too much money, you can suspend the regular incentives for a while and focus on the one you are offering as part of the contest. While it should be much larger than normal, you will not have to give one to each person who referred someone, so you will end up saving money in the end.
It is a shame to have a winning product or service and no one knows that it exists. In addition to SEO, mobile marketing, content marketing and blogging, you should be doing all you can to bring referrals your way. The best way to do this is to start a program that rewards others for doing a good amount of the work. These are rather tricky, which is why this guide was created. If you follow all of the advice that you were offered here, you should have no problem creating a program that works well and brings an unlimited amount of new business your way every time that you blink your eyes.