Top 5 Tips For Marketers To Drive Up Your Referrals

Referrals make one of the most important factors that drive up the sales and goodwill for any retailers. Studies show that 20-50% customers rely on word of mouth publicity while choosing promotional products and services. Customers find the reviews of users who might have used the services of retailers more useful in making their purchased decisions, which traditional marketing might not be able to do always!

But how can retailers set off word of mouth publicity? Here are some smart tips that you will find useful.

Offer products and services that are truly special
When you have something extraordinary to offer to your customers, they will surely be encouraged to talk about your products and services. Use premium quality products and tell your customers how your products are better than the best. Exceptional products and quality will make the customer your brand advocates and will spread your brand message faster than billboards. A healthy way to promote your message will be to prompt your customers do it on their own with unique products and stellar service.

Remind your customers
There is no harm in leaving a little reminder to your customers in and around your stores to get people discuss your brand naturally. For instance if you are an apparel retailer you can encourage your customers to share their snapshots in the stores with their friends. You can even stick decals and stickers on the dressing room mirrors encouraging your customers to ask their friends how they look in the new outfit. It will make a clever way to engage your customers with your brand.

How about sending a gift postcard with the product delivery to thank your customers? Request them to post the snaps of their kids with their wearing the apparels products on the company’s Facebook page. This will get the people talking about the brand and will drive up your goodwill.

Loyalty Gifts
You can even announce loyalty gifts or referral points to your existing customers for spreading the word. They won’t say no! Reach out to customers who are more likely to make referrals for maximum impact. Run a campaign among these customers to encourage referrals.

Targeting the influencer segment in your customers will ensure faster and better results than reaching out to everyone. It will be a smart idea to keep an eye on the other influencing factors that will sway the buying decisions of the customers. Apart from friends or relatives, whom your customers turn up to while choosing brands? It could be bloggers or online products experts.

Getting connected with these individuals will help you to spread your brand.
Getting connected to the middle-level influencers is another brilliant option. They will feel proud to be contacted by brands and will be more than willing to do an online product review for you in lieu of free products. This approach is helpful for businesses that have a great social presence.

Make sure not to leave out influencers who only mention your products frequently. It may be that they like your products but they cannot afford to purchase them regularly. You can influence this segment by sending out a few free products for having talked about your products. This will inspire them to repeat this more often.

Build communities, open forums
Build customer communities and open forums, host events, get togethers and more. This will not just help in spreading the word but will also help you to add more such like minded individuals into these platforms.

By holding fun events or informative classes, you can gather people. They will find these useful and will be happy to talk about your brand even after the event and next time they may even drop in with a few of their friends. This is the subtlest possible way to set off word of mouth publicity.

Another smart tip will be to encourage bloggers and subject matter experts to write posts on your products. For instance if you sell fitness items, you can rope in a few fitness experts to write posts on fitness tips and product recommendations.

Last but not least, employee motivation will make a great factor in increasing word of mouth publicity. A happy team will also go a long way in driving up the word of mouth publicity. Ensure that your employees stay well engaged and motivated and your customers will have yet another reason to recommend your brand to their friends.

So, are you looking to use influencer marketing to boost word of mouth? Find the relevant influencers among your audience and encourage them to spread your word. You will be surprised to see how word of mouth publicity- the oldest form of marketing known to mankind will bring back business to you.

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