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Referral marketing: How to make acquisition a no-brainer

Reading time 3 minutes
Referral marketing: How to make acquisition a no-brainer

You may have noticed that advertising messages are always particularly effective when they come in the form of recommendations. For example, let's say you're looking for a car repair shop in your area. By chance, one of your friends recently had his car repaired. After the repair, he reported how satisfied he was with the service and the price-performance ratio. Now it's up to you: either make an appointment at the same garage or find another one on your own. What do you do? Possibly, even if unconsciously, recommendation marketing!

Of course, you contact the workshop that your friend raved about. After all, he was well advised there, so it will be no different for you. You rely on the personal recommendation and are grateful for the good tip. Even though you've never been in contact with the garage before, you're sure they'll give you a fair price and give your car a good tune-up. Welcome to classic referral marketing.

What is referral marketing?

No wonder referral marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing: It is a powerful tool to attract new customers with the help of word of mouth, customer testimonials, personal reviews and customer references. Referral marketing is based on customer satisfaction and relies on customers sharing their positive experiences with others. Since we rely heavily on the recommendations of others when making purchasing decisions, satisfied customers are the perfect advertising mediums.

Referral marketing for the self-employed

If you learn to use referral marketing cleverly as a self-employed person or entrepreneur, you can assume that your acquisition will sooner or later become a sure-fire success. That's why we'd like to give you four tips that will guarantee your customers are completely satisfied and will recommend you to others with a clear conscience. Here are our top tips:

One, forget your jargon.

To understand what your customers want, you must first speak their language. Listen carefully or read your emails and messages thoroughly and attentively. Then answer the following questions: How do your customers express themselves? What wordings do they use? Are there terms, search queries or phrases that come up again and again?

As a rule, if you are self-employed or an entrepreneur, you are an expert. You move in your expert bubble and metaphorically throw around verbal technical terms. It's obvious that you're not reaching (potential) customers, but rather talking past them. That's why our expert tip number 1 is: listen carefully to your customers, forget your jargon and express yourself much more simply than before. This is the most important foundation for all other tips.

2. work like a pro

We certainly don't have to explain that your work has to be of high quality so that your customers recommend you to others. But working like a professional doesn't just require excellent solutions and outstanding results - the surrounding area also has to be right. This means, above all, communication and the work process itself. As a self-employed service provider, for example, you should never "go underground" and not answer any calls or e-mails for days on end. As a result, your customers will sometimes start to sweat.

Always imagine how your clients feel when they work with you. Do they feel safe, validated and relaxed because they can rely on you one hundred percent? If not, you should urgently rethink your way of working and become more professional. Basically: Work in a structured and transparent way. Be reliable and convince not only with results, but also with a smooth process. Then you can be sure that your customers will return the favor and recommend you to others.

3. be better than expected

If you want to step it up a notch, then tip number 3 is for you. Because your customers have one primary reason for hiring you: they want to make their lives easier or better. They expect you to add value and they want to get value from your service or product. That's why you should always focus on coming across as positive and solution-oriented. Most importantly, you need to surprise your customers by always delivering that little bit more or that little bit better than expected. Remember the following sentence and turn it into your mindset: You are only satisfied when your customers are completely thrilled!

4. request for recommendations

If you ask, you win - and lots of new customers. So at the end of the collaboration, be sure to ask your satisfied customers if they'd like to Feedback would give and publish positive reviews. Whether it's on Facebook, Google, Proven Expert or a similar channel, it's important to collect enough positive customer testimonials to convince potential new customers before you do. It's even better if your clients have a network where they personally recommend you. In fact, if you've done a great job, that's pretty likely. Because happy customers always come back; and ideally, they bring their friends or colleagues with them.

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Reviewed by Dr. med. Stefan Frädrich

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