Over 80 percent of online shoppers in the United States claim that the purchasing decisions they make are heavily influenced by their friend’s social media posts.
Are you trying to figure out a way to create an online buzz about your business? One of the best ways to do this is by starting a referral program.
Drumming up more attention for your business with the help of your customers is the basically referral marketing 101. Incentivizing the referral process will allow you to keep your customers engaged and will increase the number of quality sales leads you receive.
Before beginning a referral marketing campaign, check out this list of common mistakes to avoid.
Providing Incentives That Don’t Match Your Demographic
One of the most important parts of any referral marketing campaign are the incentives being offered. If these incentives fail to entice your customers to act, your marketing campaign will be dead in the water.
Instead of hastily putting together a referral program, you have to plot out every detail to ensure success. Offering incentives that are more in line with what your demographic likes is important. If you are stumped about what to offer as an incentive, nothing quite beats offering cold hard cash for great leads.
Complicating Your Referral Program can Backfire
Some business owners get a bit overzealous when designing their referral marketing program and make it very complicated. The harder it is for a customer to figure out, the less successful this program will be. You need to work on over-simplifying the referral and incentive process before offering this program to your audience. The time you invest into refining the details of your program will pay off in the long run.
Don’t Assume Your Customer Base is Too Small For a Referral Program
Another mistake you should avoid is thinking your customer base is too small to institute a referral program. Regardless of how large your existing audience is, offering a referral program is a wonderful idea.
The only way you can grow your business is by getting creative with your marketing strategies. A referral program will provide motivation to your audience. All it takes is the right person to share details about your program online for it to go viral. Having this mass exposure will allow you to generate a buzz while growing your business substantially.
Neglecting to do Research
Prior to offering a referral program to your customers, you need to iron out all of the details. Thinking about when and where your customers will be sharing information about your products and services is vital. Generally, you will need to establish a dialogue with your audience online before asking them to recommend you to their friends and family.
If you want to take your referral program to the next level, offering incentives to the general public is a good idea. Some business severely limit their potential by only offering these services to their existing customers. Instead of holding yourself back, you need to tell the world about what you have to offer.
Trying to handle the creation and implementation of a referral program alone can be quite difficult. Hiring well-trained referral marketing professionals to help out is well worth the money you pay them.
