What Referral Marketing is and how it can help my business

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One of the strategies that is often not valued enough in the world of online marketing is referral marketing. Although it is one of those simple techniques that require very little investment, it does not mean that it could not be highly effective.
The good thing about this strategy is that it is not a certain way of obtaining customers, it is not only about trying it and seeing if it works. It is more about securing the customers in a more effective and fast way, backing on the most loyal clients and their positive opinions.

What is referral marketing?

Referral Marketing is an art to promote a company and sell the products through references and recommendations. This way, the customers have got the leading role in the process, since they are the ones who will take care of sharing their experience about a purchase or service and make their friends and family be involved.
In the digital marketing slang it is known as “word-of-mouth”. This method is used quite often, the customers trust more in the companies that have been recommended by their friends. In order to implement it, it is not necessary to cross the fingers and wait until the customer will be struck by the idea of sharing his/her opinion, you have to motivate them.

Why the referral marketing is important.

One of the reasons why recommendations are so important and useful is because people are sociable by nature, many of them socialize in order to share their ideas, but most of all, their opinions. We are talking about a completely instinctive desire to make sure that their loved ones have got the same agreeable experience as themselves.
However, it is also important to mention that bad experiences are a part of this process, this way by having a well-developed referral marketing strategy you can follow up the negative opinions of some clients. It helps to minimize the brand crisis on the Internet and take care of all the customers. These strategies can also be a part of the inbound marketing funnel or of the Flywheel, and will help you to optimize the conversion and delight the clients. Other advantages of this technique are the following ones:
– The clients that leave their opinions are the most valuable ones, they are constantly ready to interact with the brand, they establish a long time relationship.
– The company will also be able to calculate the satisfaction level more precisely.
– The customers that make recommendations are more prone to interact with the users that adjust to the customer profile.
– It is possible to decrease considerably the investment in other strategies.

Implementing referral marketing is a strategy

Luckily, when a company decides to implement a strategy that includes referral marketing, it is possible that they already have a little bit of work done. Those customers that should be chosen for the future promotion offers surely already have a certain level of loyalty with the brand.
It is enough to give them this small push that will make them wish to become a part of the micro influencers team of the brand. Some of the strategies that can help you with that are listed below:

Excellent customer service

It is one of the most obvious strategies, a good customer service could be this detail that will make a difference. Thus, it is necessary to optimize the whole customer service so that the clients share their experience even without realizing it. Some automatization may be necessary for that.
The idea is that the customers are attended 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This way, no matter when they make a query, they will always have an immediate response. It is not necessary to contract new employees to work different turns, the help of a chatbot should be enough.

Purchase experience to share

The aim of this strategy is to make the purchasing experience so fascinating that the customer wants to share it instantly. But, how can it be achieved? Making the product attractive visually. It is about transforming an ordinary product into something so completely unique that the customers cannot resist the urge to share it.
It is not necessary to change the aspect of the product, but add a little something that will give it some personality. For example, some clothing brands tend to give a lot of importance to the packaging of the orders, this makes the clients want to share a photo on Instagram when they receive the package or even make a video of unboxing.

Use highly viral content

Viral content is the perfect opportunity to get good references on the Internet. Memes, for example, are emotional and very effective viral content. Something that brought unexpected fame to some companies. However, you can also use some extravagant idea to impress the public.
Your business can get support from Google Trends to discover all these new tendencies that people are talking about now. This way, you can take advantage of a lot of ideas for your brand to get more visibility.

Create a referral program

Finally, you can make use of a referral program. It is a very basic strategy where the business motivates its clients to bring friends that want to be a part of the experience. There could be a financial compensation or some kind of a discount for the products or services. For example, if a customer gets 3 friends interested in purchasing, he/she receives a 25% discount for some product.
Similarly, there are many options that can adjust to the needs and aims of your company, you only need to choose.

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