The Value of Referral Marketing: Strategies in Attaining Your Referral Campaign
It’s hard to easily trust claims of many brands that you haven’t used yet, you will still need proof and assurance of the claims being said is true. And the best way to make your trust issues go away is through referral marketing, which simply means word-of-mouth marketing. It is when someone is recommending you products that they have used and influenced you to also purchase because of the good result or experience they had with the products they can guarantee you that it will be worth it.
It is already proven that referral marketing is one of the best strategies in marketing that will surely boost your sales and prolong conversations that will help you build a bond with your customer. It is guaranteed a powerful marketing strategy because it’s easier to trust claims, opinions and recommendations from people you know especially from family members and friends because you know they just want what’s best for you which also means they would recommend you products that will do good for you. And even to those famous people or influencers that you idolize, you can see that they have a huge impact on the products that you purchase. Here you can see the value of Referral Marketing and on the positive effects it leads your business.
Get to know more about Referral Marketing
This marketing strategy means persuading your current or frequent customer in referring and encouraging new potential customers to purchase from your products, with an incentive in exchange. This is what you call promotional strategy, you spread positive feedback of your experience from that product, some may refer naturally, but there are also businesses that uses referral programs to help them spread the word of their product.
The referral marketing is genuinely effective because most of us get recommendations and advices from people close to our hearts, and the people close to us are the most influential people in our life. We also easily believe in some famous stars that we idolize on the recommendations they say on TV, like the beauty products they use or the dress they wear etc. And once we tried those recommendations, and experience the same things they also did and feel like you had an exceptional result, it is when you feel the need to also spread your positive experience and also influence others that might need help.
Stated below will be the three important and main reason on why referral marketing is successful and powerful, there will also be examples shown. It will also provide you with seven step-by-step processes on how to create a strong referral marketing to improve and help your business.
Core reasons in Referral Marketing being Powerful and Successful
There are reasons that will come in to our mind on why we think that Referral Marketing is powerful and successful, one is because of the spread of mouth. But aside from that reason, there is more because referral marketing had been unbeatable and has remained top 1 in all marketing strategies.
Get ready to know the core reasons on why Referral Marketing remains top 1:
1. Be particular on who to target
It is best to sort your target customer on the bases of their multiple interests and previous purchase, daily activities in order for you to not waste money. This kind of strategy is used by Facebook Ads, it is best to apply laser targeting or flex targeting approach and create a great and credible message that could influence your target customer.
Spread of word or word-of-mouth is definitely more popular and effective because you know who your target customer is, it is someone who is close to you or someone you know. Being able to know your target means you know how to earn their trust and persuade them. This would lead to spread a very positive feedback and description of your brand, this is proven and guaranteed effective than other marketing strategies.
2.It's easier to believe when trust is built
The doubts are what keeps someone from believing what others say, we tend to disregard strangers giving us recommendations because it’s the fact that we don’t know the person and the trust isn’t there. Once we know the person and the trust is already built, there are no longer issues or doubts on the claims that person is saying. You can be easily convinced on purchasing something once you know or is close with the person that convinces you. You can never really confirm one’s claim about the products when there is no trust. But it doesn’t mean only your family or people close to you are the people you can only trust, it can also be your favorite influencer that you seem to admire and trust.
It is proven by time and to various studies that it is easier to believe in people’s experiences and opinion on a product, because the authenticity of a person is found on the way one person expresses about one’s experiences on the product and good it can do for you. The opposite happens to advertisements and sales pitches of the brand itself because they offer only claims and not legit experiences of the products.
There are plenty of studies supporting how referral marketing is most successful and used study among the rest.
But keep in mind that referral marketing doesn’t only mean a word-of-mouth type of way. Newspapers articles are also referral marketing, because it can publish experiences of a person and other recommendations can also be seen in some articles.
When you refer it doesn’t mean that your target are only your family and friends, as what I have said there is a wider circle to this. Listed below are the most known types of referral channels that most of us use as targets.
- Your Family and Friends
- Any News Publications
- Online Reviews and Feedbacks
- The Impact of Your Idols or Influencers Opinions and Recommendations
- Plenty of Testimonies
3. Good and Bad Impacts of Reach in Referral Marketing
Before there wasn’t that much of resources to be used to expand your reach in making your brand known. There still weren’t any popular social media applications, and limited technologies, unlike what we have now. Before you still have to meet with your friends in person in order to talk about something, there was not much access of any gadgets. But now you can just easily take pictures, write articles click and post and there it is already upload where millions of people could see your post, you can even build a strong public figure and quire plenty of followers or subscribers.
Being able to have a wider reach now in referral marketing has good and bad impacts because you can just easily make someone’s brand popular or destroy its image with just one click. May easily believes with shared post especially when it has become viral or trending. Many popular social media applications like Facebook, Instagram or twitter will help you spread the message or post right away. You can either acquire loyal followers, or friends. It has become bigger in the span of 10 years also because of the growing technology and social media apps we can easily spread topics, recommendations in just one click.
The Correct Implementation and Use of Referral Marketing
You can’t just easily throw out random steps or process on your referral marketing, you must plan it out well. It’s not that difficult but it requires your time and effort in order for you to have a effective successful plan. Stated below are 7 strategies you can apply in your online store:
1. Give out your best in providing service to your customer
Aside from being able to let your customers meet the expectations they want from your products. Giving out your best in entertaining and providing your customer the service they deserve is also one of the main reasons on why people refer your store/brand. If you assist them and guide them in a polite and well-mannered way throughout their shopping experience, they would obviously feel happy and well respected, in return they would shop again to your store and also recommend your brand to other people they know.
You should evaluate your service performance by asking feedbacks and opinions from your customers so that you can weigh everything and give a fair result and judgement.
2. Always check in your analytics
Referrals are everywhere, you might just not recognize or just disregard it thinking it’s not that important. Now Google Analytics has something new to offer, it bows has a section only intended for referrals in order for you to select sites that are referring people or possible customer to you. This is not only intended for visitors but also for potential customers, to clarify and give a wider information of which websites is best for you.
Finally, you have an added information on what strategies to use and to check on your analytics, you can start reaching out to other websites to create a plan on boosting your traffic and sales with success.
You might want to focus on:
- Hiring a guest in your blog post
- Create referral program to attain huge profits with your co-workers
- Add more people mentioned in your post
3. Make your product packaging unique and beautiful for social media
People now a days would not miss the chance of posting the products they purchased on social media, or what they call the unboxing of products. In order for you to impress those customers of yours, make sure to have a unique, beautiful and presentable packaging that would amaze the customer while opening the box or product. This would create a high-class effect and would be worth it to be shared in any of your social media accounts.
Many people want to share and impress people on the products they purchased, so make sure that your product packaging is instagrammable and is satisfying while unboxing to make other people feel like they want to purchase from you and experience that kind of unboxing from your products.
There are also many videos uploaded on YouTube about unboxing products from different brands. This is definitely also one of the great ways to easily share your whole product unboxing experience. Make sure that your customer would feel appreciated and happy that they purchased from your products while they are opening it. Add some cute cards with a thank you message, and some cute touches that would make it look more beautiful.
4. Make your brand open for public for an easier referral
Make sure of your brand’s website is open for public and could be easily shared by people to spread the word of how you brand work wonders. Make sure that your brand could be easily shared and referred. Start mentioning well known people, tag them for others to see and for others to easily share your post on any social media application.
You just have to add your website to the main navigation and it will easily just spread like wild fire in the internet afterwards, like on Facebook or on Twitter.
Always keep in mind to build an easier way of sharing your products through social media and through word of mouth. You can also use strategies like adding sharing badges to each product page to make it easily known.
5. Create your own referral program
Some customers may have something good to say about your products, but maybe they are just too shy or they think it would just take up time to share their positive feedbacks and experience through social media. All they need is a little push or incentives for them to get them to share your brand in their social media accounts and of course to their close family and friends.
6. Choose your target influencers well
Popular influencers of vloggers/bloggers are very good at influencing people on a lot of things, because those who follow and idolize them believe on what they say and follow what they think is best. Choose those influencers who are close to your target market, in order for you to reach plenty of potential customer and for you to boost your sales and traffic. For example, if your business is about beauty products choose an influencer who is a beauty vlogger/blogger because their fans would definitely want to purchase products that the influencers would promote.
7. Include your product reviews
Make sure you would include product reviews on your website, because reviews are also part of your referral marketing. Potential customers, would always check on the review section to see if there are a lot of people who would recommend your products and see people’s experiences when they are already using your products. Reviews would encourage them to purchase from your products because it would set aside all the doubts they have in mind.
Make sure to implement referral marketing in your business
Referral marketing is guaranteed to help your business sales and traffic go up; it is a very powerful strategy that a business should acquire. It would make your brand become known to many in just split of seconds either by word of mouth or through social media post. This kind of marketing strategy is less time consuming and less hassle because all you have to do is share your positive experiences with a specific product to everyone.
