Ignite the power of referrals in your business

We all know we should be doing everything we can to encourage referrals, but how many of us bother? With referred customers offering the best return on investment and the highest spend, it's not a strategy you can ignore.

The power of the referral

In most companies, a whopping 80 per cent of business leads come directly through referrals and references so if you don't already have a referral marketing campaign in place, you're missing a trick.

What's more, Nielson reports that customers are four times more likely to buy when referred by a friend and, on average, they also spend about 13.2 per cent more than regular customers. 

Motivating your existing customers

Having read about all the benefits, you might assume the hardest part of building your strategy will be persuading your customers to make referrals. But recruiting your customers might not be as hard as you think, the Hinge Research Institute found that 69 per cent of customers were willing to make referrals to their existing provider, and 72 per cent said that the reason they didn't make more was simply because no one asked them to.

Customer referral quick wins

Your Bloomtools consultant can help you come up with a solid referrals campaign, especially using your Bloomtools Email Marketing product offers some excellent quick wins, such as:

• Creating a referrers group in your database. Every time a customer creates a lead, add them to the group and set up a trigger campaign that will reward them with a thank you email, an unexpected gift or special offer. This is a great way to guarantee repeat referrals.
• The next time you create a customer feedback form to help you evolve your business, be sure to include a question that will encourage new referrals.
• Optimising your emails by including a button to your referral programme so that your customers can see the benefits for themselves. Don’t be shy to also add within the content of your emails a suggestion like “if you know of anyone else that will gain value from this, please feel comfortable to help them out by sending this onto them…" The power of suggestion is irreplaceable.
• When you send out an invitation to a seminar or workshop, encourage your customers to invite their friends as a gift.

Get in touch with your local Bloomtools consultant and stop letting precious referral opportunities slip through your fingers.