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The Business Of Referrals

Lynne Saarte

October 20, 2008

It is kind of sad that the single best form of marketing is partially out of your hands.

What I am referring to is referrals. This stands as the best way to ensure that another customer is going to give you a try. When someone refers me to a store I walk into that place open to them and willing to give them a chance. All it takes is a single referral to get me to check a place out.

This goes beyond you telling a person your company is good. I expect a store is going to do that. A great referral instead has the added support of the fact that I know the person telling me about the place, and I trust their judgment. I know that if they think someplace is good, I will not be disappointed.

You cannot buy that kind of publicity, but you can reward it, which is exactly what you need to be doing to make sure you get as many referrals as you can.

Reward people who to tell their friends about you. Set up a reward system that gives them something for free each time they refer someone else. It might be a special saving or it might be some other kind of unique reward.

One example can be used around the end of the year. A lot of companies take advantage of calendar printing to use as a marketing device by handing out free calendars to their customers. What you can do is make a special calendar that offers different deals on each month, and other good savings.

Through the month of December and January you hand one of these out to anyone who refers someone to your store. You give them yearlong savings for their efforts, along with improving your image by supporting the customers who support you.

Calendar printing is obviously just one example of the ways you can reward people. Each company will likely have different effective methods of rewarding their customers for the referrals they generate.

What you do is not as important as the fact that you need to do something.

These kinds of rewards also encourage more people to refer customers to you. The better your rewards are the more people you will have out there promoting your company by telling their friends about you. Given that this will probably be the best marketing you could hope for, why not do everything you can to get the most referrals possible?

It is not very difficult to start up any of this. All it takes is a little thought and a little effort to reward your customers who refer new customers to you. Go to the extra effort to provide your loyal customers with a reward for granting you extra business. They helped you, so it is only fair that you help them right back.


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