Our 5 Best Referral Marketing Strategies

Referral marketing is one of the best ways to boost lead generation. Not only do referrals multiply your customer base, studies have shown that word-of-mouth recommendations are trusted more than any other form of advertising.

A strong referral marketing campaign can strengthen existing customer relationships, bring in new leads, and grow your business. So, how do you get started?

In this ultimate guide, we’ll go over everything you need to know about referral marketing, from key fundamentals to some of our best strategies. Let’s dive in.

What is referral marketing?

Referral marketing is a process where you reward your customers for sharing your brand, products, or services with their friends, family, and colleagues.

Whenever someone they refer becomes a new customer, you give your existing customer a referral incentive, as a thanks for bringing in the new business.

Compared to other types of traditional marketing, which are aimed at a general audience, referral marketing leverages your company’s existing customer base – and the trust they’ve built up among their friends – to generate potential new leads

Why does referral marketing matter?

We’ve all heard that word-of-mouth marketing is the “best,” but that’s honestly a relative term. So, when it comes to analyzing if referral marketing really matters, we need to break down the numbers.

• 84% of customers trust recommendations from people they know more than any other form of advertising (Nielsen)

• 74% of consumers say word-of-mouth is a key influence in their purchasing decision. (Review42)

• Referred customers are 37% more likely to stay loyal to your business, compared to customers from other sources. (Extole)

Like what you’ve read so far? Us to. Let’s talk about implementation.

How do we build referral marketing?

Great question. Here are our 6 marketing strategies to take into consideration.

1) Know when and how to ask for referrals

Referrals don’t just happen on their own. Sure, you can get some organic word of mouth just by providing great products or services. But for a steady source you can rely on, you’ll need to ask for referrals.

Lucky for us, LoopSpark is great at helping you set up automations that automatically send to clients based on behaviors & utilization.

2) Go beyond customer expectations

A referral program relies on happy customers. Most customers have come to expect good experiences and friendly customer service. To really stand out, you have to find ways to exceed your customer’s expectations. For example, you can send a surprise gift on their birthday or upgrade their plan for a short period. These small tokens of appreciation are a great way to make your customers happy and encourage them to refer their friends.

3) Tap into social media

We live in a social media crazy world.

The average internet user spends up to 145 minutes on social media every day – that’s almost two and a half hours of daily browsing and sharing.

And a study by Nielsen reveals that 60% of people learn about a specific brand or retailer from a social networking site.
Why not use this to your advantage? Many referral marketing campaigns are shared on social media every single day, and these posts reach many sets of eyes all at once. If you make it easy for existing customers to share your brand on social media, you can increase your chances of being seen by potential customers.

4) Use your emails effectively

Unlike social media platforms, email is a little more personal and reliable. It goes straight to the recipient. So, sending out emails advertising your referral incentives is an effective practice.

Plus, referral marketing fits right into your other existing marketing campaigns. A quick referral message can easily be added into any emails you’re already sending out.

You can add a referral link to a customer’s thank you confirmation email, or place a small banner in your next newsletter. You could also ask for referrals when you ask for reviews.
And of course, a quick link in your email signature or a simple CTA at the bottom of your newsletter can also work really well as a form of referral messaging. It helps remind people about your program, without being too over the top.

5) Make it easy for people to refer

Referral marketing is supposed to be easy. If someone has to complete a huge checklist before they can send a referral (or even to join your program), they likely won’t.

Make things easy for them and integrate referral marketing automation into your program through simple forms with minimal long-entry input fields. You also want to ensure that they can share your brand in as few steps as possible. And include multiple ways for customers to refer their friends (including via email and social media).

What’s the take-home message?

Referrals account for a large percentage of happy, consistent customers in every industry. Focus on making the process of asking for a referral as short and sweet as you can while making sure it’s easy to complete the tech side of life. Once you try to implement a few of these strategies outlined above, you’ll be off to the races in your lead generation efforts and bringing in fresh new faces along the way.