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Recommendation or Referral Only Marketing

Posted on 18th August 2020 at 14:22

We hear a lot from businesses especially trades, that they don’t need to bother with marketing as they get enough work from recommendations.

Recommendations and referrals are the best form of lead generation that any business can receive.

Trust in Recommendations

As individuals if someone we know and trust, recommends a business to us, we are more likely to go straight to that business for the service or product that we are looking for. In some instances, depending on how trusted the person is that has made the recommendation, we may not even look around for alternative quotes. This is the reason that recommendations and referrals are so powerful and worthwhile.

We would all rather have a recommendation of a company for services or products that we are looking for and, in some instances, we will even turn to Social Media asking for recommendations.

How can you get more recommendations?

The easiest way is to ask your existing customers, if they would mind recommending you to their contacts. This may sound obvious, surely if they rated your services, they would automatically pass your details on to people that they know.

It’s true they will, but only if it comes up in a conversation, they won’t automatically think about whether they know anyone that may be looking for a business like yours.

Refer a friend Scheme

There are a couple of things that you could do, the first one is to ask your customers if they know anyone that might be interested in your services and if they do, ask if they would mind passing on your details.

Although this approach can seem very daunting for some business owners, another approach is to introduce a refer a friend scheme. There are several ways that you can communicate this to your customers, from small postcards to emails.

If you do introduce a refer a friend scheme ensure that the terms and conditions for qualifying are clear, you really don’t want to upset a customer or previous customer.

The Art of Reviews

Another way to help with recommendations is ensure that you have reviews on your social media pages or Google My Business page, because when potential customers are researching your business, they will want to see positive reviews.

People don’t trust reviews on a website, as they could be made up, unlike reviews on Social Media and Google, where you have to have a profile to leave a review.

Reviews will also help with other marketing activities, so these are always worth asking for.

Strategic Partnership Referrals

Strategic Partnerships are also a great way of obtaining referrals. Most businesses have a similar client base to other businesses, that can help cross refer their clients. As an example, we don’t build new websites, so we have a relationship with a local website company.

If any of our clients needs a new website, then we refer them to our recommended website company (we handle the whole process for them). We know and trust the company so are happy to use them, in turn they know and trust us, so they refer their clients that require marketing services. It is a mutually beneficial strategic partnership.

It is the same with home improvement trades, as an example a plumber is likely to have an electrician that they refer to on a regular basis or use their services.

Let's discuss your marketing strategy

Although recommendation only marketing can be highly effective, should you be considering other forms of marketing also?

If you would like to discuss a marketing strategy that would work alongside recommendation marketing, or how you to build strategic partnerships, please contact us or call 01604 698948.

Let’s have a coffee and a no obligation chat.