How To Leverage Your Business Into High Profits With Easy-To-Use Referral Marketing Strategies And Systems

Referral marketing is one of the most effective techniques for creating steady streams of prospects and clients.

Anyone who has been in business for any length of time has learned to appreciate the value of getting referrals due to these important reasons:

• Referral-generated customers are the most cost-efficient, profitable, and the most loyal source of new business you could ever dream of acquiring.
• Referral-generated customers buy quicker, negotiate less, buy larger quantities, and refer more business to you.
• You can easily set up referral systems that are fool-proof strategies for skyrocketing your profits upward… and onward!

The philosophy of referrals

Your referral systems leverage all of your marketing tactics by getting others to spread the word about your company and your great products. So why would you ever deploy capital on advertising, or trade shows, or any other marketing technique, until first you have in place at least one (or preferably several) referral marketing systems?

I’m am not suggesting that your business can – or even should – move to being a 100% referral-generated enterprise – although many businesses have. They have benefited spectacularly from referral marketing, and so should you.

What I am suggesting is that you can find at least one (but preferably 5 or more) easy to use referral systems that will each generate a 5%, 10%, 20% (or more) increase in customers, sales, and profits for you.

Referral Marketing Success Stories

• A real estate professional went from being a struggling agent to number 46 nationally with RE/MAX by setting up referral systems.
• A voice mail company gets 40-50% of new business comes from referrals – about 150 new subscribers are acquired each day with just one referral marketing system.
• A mortgage professional who was “burned out” by her hectic schedule now gets 80% of business coming automatically from referrals. This increased her income substantially, and allowed her to reduce her work schedule to 4 1/2 days a week.
• A financial planner gets 65-70% of his new business from referrals and now only spends 10% of his time on the phone trying to get appointments.
• A computer software company now gets 35% of new business from referrals and made an extra $200,000 from just one direct mail piece sent to his list of referral prospects.
• A newly-opened skin care business launched into high profitability and perpetual referrals with just one innovative referral marketing system.

The above examples are impressive, and the fact is, any type of businesses or professional practice can use referral marketing to drastically increase their leads, clients, and profits for little or no extra marketing cost.

Referral Marketing Tips

Increasing clientele and customers with referrals is a simple process, but it is amazing how few companies realize the upside potential.

This is because very few understand how referral marketing works. For example, many people think that generating referrals means asking their clients these intrusive questions:

• “Do you have anyone to recommend to me?”
• “Whom do you know that could use my product?”

These questions will NOT convince anyone to refer ANY business to you.

The following is a list of general tips on how a referral marketing system works:

• Position yourself as unique in your industry
• “Wow!” your clients with an excellent product or service
• Actively trade referrals with your contact and clients
• Make referrals a condition of doing business
• Offer your clients discounts on your products/services for referrals
• Give incentives for referring business to you

Conclusion

If you wish to leverage your business into increased profits and sales, as well as reduce the amount of money and time wasted on not-so-profitable tasks such as cold calling and prospecting, then referral marketing is almost always the first place to start for any business or professional practice.

About the Author
Matt Hockin, Interactive Marketing, Inc. For detailed case studies of the referral success strategies above (and many more), plus specific information about how YOU can set up innovative, yet easy-to-use referral marketing systems, visit our free consultation page: http://www.publicityadvisor.com/consultation.html