Are you currently offering your clients an incentive for referring someone to you? If you have customers who already know, like and trust your company, use that to your advantage by asking them to refer their friends, family, and colleagues to your company. Remember, people like to do business with companies that a trusted friend or family member has referred them to, so it is almost guaranteed business for you.
If you don’t already have a referral program, here are three ways to start a referral program.
1. Offer a Referral Incentive– You can offer the referrer a discount on your services or products for each referral that you receive that turns into business for you, or you can offer a visa gift card or a store gift card like Target, Starbucks, etc. Offering an incentive encourages people to actively refer business to you.
2. Create an easy way to submit a referral– For tracking purposes, I would suggested creating an online referral form where people can easily send you a referral online. A great free tool that you can use to create a referral form and track it is Wufoo. You could also have people call or email you directly to submit a referral, but you have to be sure that you have a way to track a referral that is submitted via phone or by email.
3. Promote your referral program. Just like anything else in your business, you have to promote it in order for people to know about it. You should promote your referral program on all of your communication pieces to your customers (i.e. your business card, your enewsletter, your brochures, your website, your blog, etc.)
Do you have a referral program? If so, what techniques do you use to encourage referrals?