ShivaniOne of the top ways by which companies generate new leads and business opportunities is referral marketing. It’s because referrals build your trustworthiness and credibility. But the thing is, not all businesses have tapped into the immense power of referrals. For, they don’t have a system in place for generating referrals or know how to get more referrals.
How to get more referrals? – 17+ Useful Ideas and Tips
Brands and businesses are unable to proactively tap into the potential of referrals due to many reasons. Often, they’re uncomfortable asking for it. Here are several tips to help you overcome those.
1. Establish your reputation
When you have a good reputation among your consumers, you won’t have to hesitate when you ask for referrals. So, focus on delivering value. Procure raw materials/products from authentic sources. Also, ensure that your customer service is good. Train your staff to be customer-centric and courteous. This way, they’ll be genuinely impressed with you and spread the word about you.
2. Stay true to your words
Whatever your offering is, let your customers know that you always stay true to your words. Post apt descriptions of your products, services, shipping, returns policy, and more. For instance, if you promise a money-back guarantee, ensure that each buyer gets to know it and deliver what you’ve promised. This will build their trust in your brand and get them to refer to you.
3. Create a shareable experience
Your customers will share with you if you give them a reason to do so. So, ensure that their overall experience with your brand, physical or e-store, and products is good. Understand their needs and pains and address those in your offerings and customer support. Also, delight them by appreciating them genuinely. This will keep your brand on top-of-mind of their minds and kindle customer advocacy.
4. Run a formal referral program
Many times, people who are happy with a brand are happy to refer to it in their circle. Brands can encourage it further by launching a formal referral program. When you have one, people will be motivated to share a link to you. Just make sure that the program’s existence is obvious and visible and that the sharing process is simple.
5. Reward your referrers
Oftentimes, people get more involved in referring to brands when they get something out of it. So, reward your referrers with something that they’d value. It can be money, a discount on their net purchase, free products, feature upgrades, etc. If you wonder how to get more referrals from it, a referral program software like InviteReferrals can help. For, it simplifies the monitoring of referral activities and rewards them.
6. Reward key influencers
Not everyone who participates in your brand ambassador program is referring you around with the same level of enthusiasm. So, look at your referral program analytics to identify key influencers. InviteReferrals simplifies this by listing those top influencers under each referral campaign. Once you spot them, reward them highly. This will influence them to refer you more.
7. Reward the referred as well
One-way rewarding, that is, rewarding the referrer alone, may make him/her appear to be self-seeking. On the other hand, a two-way reward, where both the referrer and the referred are rewarded, gratifies both ends. For instance, offering both of them a 20% discount on their next purchase. So, if affordable, go for two-way rewarding.
8. Create awareness about your referral program
Your customers will take part in your referral program only when they know that it exists. So, other than featuring it prominently on your website, take more effort to create awareness about it. Some of these include featuring it on your social media pages and other marketing collateral, making it visible in your main navigation menu, sharing it through emails, etc.
9. Your message matters
Come up with a well-thought-of message for asking for referrals. Spend some time pondering over it. Think of the approach you’d like when someone asks you for referrals. It would be good if you can relate to how your offering can solve an issue people are facing. You may also begin by being grateful to them for their association with just. Your message should be short, clear, and concise.
10. Personalize user experiences
Target users with the request for joining your referral program in a personalized manner. For this, you’d need to segment users based on their demographics, past purchases, geographic location, and browsing behaviour. A segmentation tool like NotifyVisitors can help you meaningfully categorize your audience and target them rightly across their user journey.
11. The timing matters
You should ask your customers for referrals at the right time. The right time is when a customer is happy with your brand. So, you may ask for it soon after he/she leaves a positive review about your brand, its services, or its products. Asking for it immediately after good customer service is also advisable. So, set up triggers to automate asking post such events.
12. Post valuable content
Keep posting useful, unique, high-quality, and interesting content on your site. This can take different shapes such as blogs, e-books, scholarly articles, press releases, etc. These can attract leads and subsequently convert them into referrals. Other than content, you can also post free tools and resources in your niche. For instance, a digital designing firm can make a logo generator available at their site.
13. Encourage user-generated content
Many studies have confirmed that the vast majority of people trust recommendations and reviews from other people more than they trust brand ads. Your brand can tap into this power of your current customers by encouraging user-generated content (UGC). Ask for and make provisions for them to share their testimonies, reviews, and ratings about your offerings. This will help make new customers make well-informed decisions.
14. Follow up with your referrals quickly
Businesses that run referral programs, direct more efforts towards thinking about how to get more referrals than focusing on making the most of the referrals. It shouldn’t be so. Build a timeline into your brand ambassador program so that you can follow up within a week of getting the referral. Else, the prospect may end up buying from your competitors.
15. Inspire confidence
Customers will refer you only if they’re confident in your competency and credibility. Otherwise, their reputation itself will be at stake. So, project yourself as a professional in your niche as well as in dealing with referrals. You can do so by revealing data showing the high percentage of business you generate from repeat customers.
16. Thank your referrers
Whenever you get a lead through a referrer, express your gratitude to the referrer. This shows your politeness and motivates him to further refer you around. Keep your “thank you” note short, genuine, and simple. Also, include plenty of details about the interaction. For instance, “Dear Mr Rob, we’re grateful to you for referring Mr Kevin, who purchased a sweater from our new arrivals.”
17. Partner with influencers
Influencers in your niche can serve as a goldmine of referral traffic and sales. So, employ influencer marketing. Identify those local influencers who’s following is your potential target market. You can find them on YouTube, popular blogs, Instagram, etc. Now write to them asking if they’d like to review your product. When your product is of good quality, they may agree to do it for a fee, free samples, or social cause.
18. Fine-tune your efforts
It’s vital that you look into the analytics of your referral program. The metrics that you should take into account are the share rate, participation rate, impression rate, and conversion rate. Derive insights from these to refine your referral program and other referral marketing efforts. Keep optimizing those periodically as customer perception and trends keep evolving with time.
Wrapping up…..
Referral marketing is a powerful yet low-cost way to get more business from your existing customer base. We’ve discussed 18 tips and ideas to help businesses that are wondering how to get more referrals. Do put these to use and tap into the huge potential of referrals. We’re sure that you’d benefit from using the InviteReferrals referral program software. You may try it for free!
