Statistics reveal that referral marketing is four times more effective than cold calling, yet many companies do not have a strategy promoting or encouraging referral marketing. When you reach out to a potential purchaser based on an introduction from someone you both know, your call will become “warm”. Think about this: When you are ready to buy a service or product, do you prefer to start a search online, look in the Yellow Pages, or receive a recommendation from a friend or someone you trust? You prefer the recommendation because you prefer not to buy “cold”. Here are some significant points to learn to be effective at referral marketing:
Learn to network. Learning how to network efficiently is a great way to build your business. By taking the time to meet with other business people and discovering how you can assist them and they can help you, you can develop associations that will provide great rewards for you in the future.
Learn to increase relationships. The key to true business networking is the organization of a mutally advantageous relationship, and that’s an incredibly rare event at the typical shake-hands-and-exchange-your-business-card events that are touted as business networking “opportunities”.
Making connections and retaining relationships with the businesses who support you during your career can be the key to success for most individuals. By successfully building a network of colleagues, business associates and more, you are making certain that whenever you need a new buyer, a new job, or to develop your competencies further, you can call upon your network to assist you.
Do quality work. Appreciate your clients require and exceed their expectations. Find ways to help them be more successful or efficient, do a better job or just make life less difficult for them in general.
Take a personal interest in people. Learn about your client’s interests, issues, possibilities and ask what projects or tasks they are working on. Get to know their company and help them get to be on familiar terms with you and your company so you are seen as a resource and strategic partner.
Value is key here. In order to ensure quality participation, there has to be accountability in a group. One of the advantages of a good network is that many of the members are friends. One of the weaknesses of a good network is…that many of the members are friends. Friends don’t like to hold friends accountable. However, when you are networking for referrals and business possibilities, you simply have to appreciate that there is a place for the friendship – and a separate place for the business interaction.
Be competent and engaged. Maintain and enrich your technical competence and abilities. Keep abreast of new developments that will impact your clients and enable you to serve them better. Make it easy for them to give you supplementary work or refer you to other consumers because of your status for doing value work.
The higher the amount of people in your network engaged in these actions, the more likely the entire group will be producing more referrals. The reason for this is a shared vision of accomplishment and a shared implementation of that vision.
Get client feedback. Research reveals that disgruntled and unhappy consumers don’t make a complaint they just take their business elsewhere. If you don’t intentionally get feedback and input, you will not know whether they are pleased with your service or not. If you don’t know you can’t progress – ask!
A feature is what the product does and benefits tell people the value that the end user gets from using the product or service. It is this value which your fellow word of mouth marketers are interested in, it is this that they can easily talk about to others, always bear in mind word of mouth marketing is about words coming out of other peoples mouths!!
Learn to get referrals. The best time to ask for referrals and build your network is when your client has expressed satisfaction or appreciation for your service or effort. The worth of the referral can vary from a “low” to “high”. You can upgrade or strengthen the referral by having the individual referring you call the person they are referring you to. Better yet, have your contact introduce you directly via a face-to-face meeting. Ask them to arrange a luncheon meeting and you pick up the tab.
The purpose of business networking is to increase business revenue – one way or another. The thickening of the bottom line can be immediately apparent, as in developing a relationship with a new client, or develop over time, as in learning a new business skill.
The best business networking groups operate as exchanges of business information, ideas, and support. The most significant skill for effective business networking is listening; focusing on how you can help the person you are listening to rather than on how he or she can help you is the first step to establishing a mutally valuable relationship.
Master the basics. Once you understand the fundamentals of networking and with some practice, you too can become effective at referral marketing.
Salespeople can and do achieve something without ever building a network, but these salespeople are probably working ten times harder to generate sales than their colleagues who do carry out good networking. A solid business network will bring you leads… help you set up meetings with otherwise unreachable people… and even give you a few shoulders to cry on when things aren’t going well.
Industry conventions are a perfect place to meet and greet probable contacts. Every attendee who isn’t a salesperson from a rival business is a potential customer. Even the other salespeople can be helpful contacts, as many will be from businesses whose products complement yours, rather than openly competing with you.
Be visible online
The Internet offers tremendous possibilities to set up networks. LinkedIn is a business-centric networking site that’s intended to make it easy for you to get in touch with potential resources. It also hosts training materials and mentoring groups. Other well-known social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, are also ideal places to look for new connections.
Keeps us Updated – Social media has changed the way information is exchanged. Social media sites like blogs and social news sites are a fine way to keep up with topics of our interest. We can also discuss about issues on forums with other people, and thus share their knowledge. Through social networking sites, we can also send updates about our life to others. News travels much more rapidly on social media than through any other medium. Whether it is an update on a friend’s wellbeing, or an important issue in the society, social media lets us catch up with news, which we may have missed on the traditional medium.
Social Media for Marketing – Using social media for online marketing is one of the things, which are much in use today. It is one of the most successful ways of reaching customers. Through social media, marketers can create entire pages about a product through which consumers can interact with the marketers. This not only benefits the marketer, as they can reach enormous number of customers through social media, but it also benefits the consumers as they get extra information about the establishment and the product. Also, social media marketing is affordable, and there is no time-delay in communicating with the consumers.