Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth marketing or referrals, is one of the best and the cheapest forms of marketing, which many people fail to ask for, nor do they build this into their marketing strategy.  Even if you are too shy to ask for a referral there are other ways to get a referral without directly having to ask for one.

You can make it known that you offer a referral fee or set up an affiliate program to help you.  You can join up with others in a complimentary field and cross-refer clients to each other.

You may decide to only offer your closest colleagues or clients your referral program so that you can easily keep track of those manually.  A referral system doesn’t have to be monetary, you can offer gift cards or complimentary products and/or services of your own.

Do you make it clear what types of referrals you are looking?  This may be by educating your referral partners about who your ideal referral would be, in other words, who your ideal client is and who would benefit most from your products and/or services.

Is it male or female or does it not matter?

What age are they?

Where do they hangout?  Is it online?  If so, where?

What hobbies do they have?

What is their lifestyle like?

What income bracket are they in?

More importantly, what is their biggest struggle or frustration and how can you solve it for them?

Remember to always ask others who their ideal referral is.  This is just smart business sense as you don’t want to recommend a friend or colleage to someone who can’t help them, nor do you want your friend or colleague to have someone that is not their ideal client be referred to them.

By working smartly together, we can each build up a strong referral network and build an endless stream of ideal referrals to grow our businesses together!