Let me guess.
Your number one marketing channel is “word of mouth”?
We get it.
These are highly qualified leads that cost you nothing in advertising. If you’re bootstrapping your business, you need every win you can get without pouring more money into it.
Referrals are the heartbeat of relational marketing, and relationships are what we do here at Naamly.
So we aren’t here to tell you that you need to be “spending more on advertising” or that this isn’t a good “long-term strategy”.
But this popular marketing channel does have its drawbacks.
- It’s limited: Your referral opportunities are limited by the size of your community.
- It’s unpredictable: Most businesses are waiting for these leads to find their way to you.
Don’t get discouraged. Both of these problems are fixable.
If you develop a sound referral strategy that you and your team can lean on, then you start taking control over your referrals which leads to predictable results, which leads to growth, which increases your limits of word-of-mouth marketing.
So how do you develop a sound referral strategy?
Glad you asked!
No need to make this complicated, let’s focus on the 20% that will deliver you 80% of the results and that really comes down to two things… 1. Identifying & manufacturing ideal situations 2. Asking.
We are going to focus this article on point one.
Let’s get started.
Identifying & manufacturing ideal situations
We’ve identified three ideal times to ask for referrals that we’ve seen have great results.
- Client Success: We are all in business to make our clients successful. With that success comes even more opportunities for your business. Think about how many clients you’ve had cross an important milestone, hit a goal, or maybe set a new PR? Now think about how many of those times you asked them for a referral. There’s simply not a better time to get a referral from a client than when they’ve just experienced success working with you.
- Bring A Friend Events: Chances are you’ve dabbled in this before, but we think it works kicking this up a notch. Make this into a raffle or contest and give your members opportunities to win prizes. But most importantly, make sure there’s a killer deal in it for the friend. People like to be the person with the “hook up”, so you want to make an extra effort to make the referee look great.
- Point of Sale (POS): The moment someone buys from you they are as excited as they’re going to be until they hit their goal. But simply asking them for a referral just because they signed up isn’t very effective. Instead, we recommend asking them to invite a friend to their first session. People love to do things with other people and this will ease tensions, give you an opportunity to turn every sale into two, and give them extra accountability and support outside of your gym.
Well, there you have it. Three ways you can start taking control over your word-of-mouth marketing right now!