Use Referral Marketing To Find New Sales Leads
Friday, March 5th, 2010Let your satisfied customers help you find new clients and increase your sales by means of referral marketing.
When it comes to your company’s marketing techniques, referral marketing is a powerful alternative to other traditional efforts. Usually, marketing requires that you invest a lot of money and think of new and creative ways to attract new customers. Referral marketing, on the other hand, allows your former and current customers to bring in new clients. This works well because your professional clients are much more likely to trust other real people who have dealt with your business than your ads. This makes referral marketing a great way to find new customers.
Having your satisfied customers put your company’s banner ad on their websites is a great way to use referral marketing. These ads allow visitors to get to your site with just one click. Then they can peruse the information, products, and services you have on your site. When this generates a sale, you should typically compensate the company whose website carries your ad. You can also work out an uncompensated referral program with businesses that sell products and services that complement yours. Affiliate programs are a formal example of this same concept.
You can also take the direct approach and ask your satisfied customers for referrals. When you receive leads to other companies in this manner, they are considered to be warm since there is a good potential for making a sale. When you make a sale from a referral you received from a customer, be sure to thank them with a note and perhaps a gift, depending on the size of the sale you were able to make.
For your business, referral marketing is one of the most lucrative ways to market. Your sales will greatly increase with less effort and expense on your part, when you start to use your own customers to generate leads. Rewarding your customers for their leads is a small price to pay for referrals that are already pre-disposed to buying your service or product.
Referral marketing programs are effective because they work with word of mouth. Your customers let other businesses know about your company and help you contact them. It is much easier to make sales this way than if you had a cold lead. This strategy lets your company benefit as your customers find new leads for you.
Ray Perry is an Internet marketing executive with more than 25 years of experience. He is the Chief Marketing Officer at Market Blazer, a small business marketing company and authorized Duct Tape Marketing coach. You can get more information about referral marketing at www.MarketBlazer.com.
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