Reference Marketing for your online store

Referral Marketing is nothing more than word of mouth advertising. It refers to people who have acquired a product based exclusively on this decision in the opinion or influence of another person. Generally people trust the opinion of other people in their environment or who respect, which includes family, friends, influencers and celebrities . This makes sense, since it is very common for people to seek advice about movies, restaurants or books from their friends and family, trusting their opinion. It is about sharing experiences, and consumers are always interested in sharing theirs with respect to the brands or products they choose.

The power of reference marketing

1. Accuracy

The reference marketing tends to be specific, since people know more about their friends or people in their environment. In this case, the message regarding the brand or the product spreads more effectively than in other marketing channels.

2. Trust

When we talk about word of mouth advertising, we talk about another perception of the message . We are not talking about the speech of a salesman looking to increase your commission, but someone you trust giving your opinion and recommending a product from your experience. People almost always trust the people in their environment, over other types of recommendations and sales speeches. Not only through friends or family can spread a word of mouth; People also rely on testimonials or reviews from clients and opinion leaders (such as influencers or bloggers).

3. Scope

Currently, social networks have exponentially increased the reach of references of each consumer. With any type of publication on social networks, a common consumer can now quickly reach hundreds or thousands of friends who trust their opinions, which is why in recent years there has been a great growth of referral marketing, and the same has become a central issue within the strategy of brands.

Implement a reference marketing strategy

1. Excellent customer service

To start, evaluate your customers’ shopping experience from their perspective. Do this objectively, and improve all aspects that may make your brand is not recommended for your customers.

2. Quality of the products

If you want them to recommend your products, it is essential to have a recommended product. The quality of the same should be according to or higher than expected within the field and in relation to its price.

3. Google Analytics

This tool has a section dedicated to references , which can help you identify sites that refer your brand. Knowing these sites, you can exploit all kinds of strategies to maximize these references.

4. Packaging

Add the packaging to the shopping experience of your customers. You can generate the first good impression with a good packaging that adds to your product.

5. References program

Giving your customers rewards for the referrals you make can be a great incentive. You can do this from your site, offering a discount coupon or gift card for inviting friends to participate, or also making raffles on social networks that invite customers to share your content in exchange for participation. Use the reference marketing to add customers in your online store , and start selling more today!

How to use a reference marketing strategy to boost the growth of your business

The reference marketing has been consolidated as one of the best ways to increase sales and generate conversions. One of its main components, the references, is commonly used to promote a product or service, in a given environment, at an almost imperceptible cost.How many times, before buying something, have you looked for information or comments from people who acquired it before?The opinion of your customers, if your shopping experience was pleasant and successful, can be a clear incentive to buy your products or services. For this, it is important to create a referral marketing strategy that makes it easier for your clients to recommend you. Next, I’m going to show you a list of actions related to reference marketing that will allow you to position your business at a low cost.

Importance of reference marketing

Customer comments work as a kind of word of mouth advertising that allows you to remember the presence of your brand in the environment. Why are references important for the positioning of your brand?They are precise: the comments that your clients make about your products or services facilitate the decision making to other people interested in your brand.They are viral: in these times, thanks to the accessibility of social networks and technology, you can make a reference (either in person or in a digital medium) and expect a direct and immediate response from the environment.They generate confidence: in the sale, in addition to the product or service itself, the discourse you use is very important. This is where the references come into play. Remember that people almost always trust more in the opinion of other people nearby, than in those advertising or generic recommendations. References do not only arise between close people or friends (although they usually work better if you already have a feeling of mutual trust in advance). There are other sources of references to which you can take a look and stop to think how to take advantage of them to position your brand: ● News (media) ● Customer reviews posted online ● Opinion of market leaders (bloggers) ● More developed testimonies, with specific points to deal with

Why create a referral marketing strategy?

In a matter of seconds, a simple publication on Facebook, a tweet or a photo on Instagram, can invite the consumer to know brands with which in his life he had met. This type of reach is one of the main reasons why I recommend you include a reference marketing strategy in your marketing plan.

How to create a reference marketing strategy?

You do not need to be a marketer to carry out these types of strategies. If you still have no idea how to do it, I share some steps to fulfill:

Offers a memorable customer service

It is not just about offering excellent products, you should also focus your efforts on the client receiving genuine attention (buy or not) and be a topic that can talk to other people. Any campaign of reference should be clear about this aspect, so start by evaluating how you are serving each of your clients, by what means they are communicating with you and if you think you can improve this step.

Make product descriptions clear and easy to remember

They may buy your product, or not, but for reference marketing, the simple fact that the customer remembers what you are selling is transcendental. In this way, they will always be able to reference you if a conversation arises in a conversation related to your product or service.

Make your shopping experience shareable

If you are looking for a WOW factor that relates to your online or physical store, consider that the shopping experience may be the option. In addition, you will get a greater benefit if you facilitate the client to share this with their environment. You can make the shopping experience sharable, for example, by including social media sharing buttons on your website. You could even put WhatsApp shares, through which you can send a message to the person you want indicating that you have just made a purchase.Implement a section of testimonials / success stories on your websiteSurely you have some other star customer who would love to share your shopping experience on your website. Do not hesitate to ask for a comment about it and include it in a visible section where any visitor can take a look.

Contact blogs / people with influence in your market niche

If you get a person with influence to share your products with your followers or simply mention your brand, you are facing a gold mine that you can not miss. For this, create campaigns in social networks and approach the profiles of those who you consider to be ambassadors of your brand. You can make an outreach campaign to blogs where you can request to share an article related to your brand, in exchange for some reward.These are just some actions that you can implement so that the reference marketing strategy works for your brand.Surely you can find other ideas to share, so I look forward to your comments.Remember: The opinion of a person can generate twice the traffic and recommendations, so take this issue seriously and put it in motion.

Referral Marketing: Transform Your Customers Into Sellers

Ensuring the satisfaction and loyalty of your customers is not an easy task. Whatever your industry, it requires you to deliver value by meeting the buyer’s expectations of price, deadline, and treatment. If your business is to offer a personalized service, such as Outbound Marketing consulting , you must be close to the customer, always caring and attentive. But it takes time and experience . On the other hand, if you own a social network or e-commerce, you have to ensure the features, offers and user interface appropriate for your target audience and persona … Taking sleep from your design team and product. With so much work to win the customer, it’s scary that many companies, when they can, do not know how to take advantage of it. If it is so difficult to win customers, why do not you use the ones you earned to increase your sales ? Want to know how? Using Referral Marketing! Referral m arketing helps you turn your customers into sellers. It is a new organic vehicle that, in addition to having a great reach at low cost, prints an excellent image of your brand to anyone who hears about. After all, would you jump bungee jumping at “Radical Agency X” if your friend had not lived to tell you about how good the experience was? Or, would you hire a consultancy like Outbound Marketing to revolutionize your sales if you did not see cases of so many satisfied customers that it is excellent service? I do not think so, right …

After all, what is referral marketing?

Referral marketing, better known as word of mouth, is a marketing strategy to lower your cost of customer acquisition (CAC) and increase the reach of your brand. All this through the word of trust of its clients and ex-clients. Do you know that bakery of your Zé that is always on the tip of the tongue of the residents of the neighborhood? Most sales come from loyal customers and their friends, who rely much more on service than they have heard of.Imagine a customer speaking well of your business like this, in the ears of a potential customer?Haha haYour Zé does not know how many sales he generates per repurchase or indication of customers. It only encourages the customer to recommend the brand and offers quality service. That is, it generates new customers with the best thing they have ever achieved: the love of the clientele.You may also be interested in: Service Design: How Design Helps Sell a ServiceReferral marketing starts from the old word of mouth practice that your Zé bakery uses to last for decades. The difference is that it applies with planning and control to the digital medium, using social networks and email as vehicles. This is a technique that is on the rise in the US, with cases like the Ambassador , startup that facilitates the implementation of the strategy. They received $ 5 million in investment and have as one of the customers the giant SendGrid emails .

Why is not referral marketing established on Tupinikin soil?

Referral marketing is not easy to apply. It requires the general satisfaction of customers, creating an attractive incentive that does not harm the company’s financial health, control all interactions and metrics … Therefore, it is not any company that fits this strategy in the short term. In addition, the Brazilian trend is still content marketing , which will be in focus for a few more years. But make no mistake, this model brings excellent results, and is coming to stay. It’s yet another tool for marketers to boost their sales. By following the 3 basics below, you’ll be able to create an outbound marketing team from your customers.

Word of mouth marketing

Referral marketing comes in three basic steps :

Charming ( delight )

First of all, your customer should be delighted with your brand to recommend it to friends. To do this, measure satisfaction, provide exceptional support and care, and formulate action plans for continuous improvement.The goal is to leave the customer that way when talking about your product!

Incentive

Now that your customer is passionate about your brand, product or service, you should give him a little push to get him out there telling you about it. An unsatisfied customer tends to make a lot more noise than a satisfied one. But with due incentive, you can reverse this scenario. This incentive can take place in a variety of ways, from a discount on your services, to a toast, from a bonus service to an extra consultancy. However, it should be thought according to the persona of your business , the Lifetime Value and the margin available for sacrifice. If your customer will return $ 5,000 in lifetime profits with you then maybe an incentive of $ 500 can make sense. Plan according to your company.

Control

With the right satisfaction and encouragement, your client will recommend your brand, but without proper control your strategy may lose effectiveness. For this, know exactly how many clients each ambassador brings on average, what is the average ticket of the nominees, etc. Also, try to do a costumer development, get close to your customers and understand how they see your referral program, to make the necessary adjustments. If you have very large customer traffic or your business logic does not allow you to do this monitoring manually, it is advisable to use tools that run your auto-indicating program.Read also: Marketing tools that we use and recommend

Conclusion

As much as this is a difficult process to institute, its gain is undeniable. The conversion rate of indicated customers is higher, as is your average ticket. In addition, if you engage the new customer right from the start in your referral program, your churn in the case of monthly services or your repurchase rate are also better. So if your customers like your company, do not miss out on that opportunity. Learn how to increase word of mouth for your business and use benchmarking best practices and turn your customers into sellers and see your CAC dropping and ROI going up.*This post was written by Henrique Cavalieri, a marketing specialist at Ditiz , a company that helps you increase your sales with software to leverage the word-of-mouth marketing of your e-commerce. Visit their website and learn more about referral marketing! (I.e. And, if you do not understand the terms used in this article, download our ebook and learn all the jargon. Just click the image below, beauty?

How Referral Marketing Works – Top 5 Benefits

The idea behind will refer to marketing s is INSTANCE is quite simple: find consumers (or other corporate businesswill rivers) you enjoy your product or service and who are willing and recomend you it does to other consumers (customers, friends, acquaintances or even in groups of the various social networks). Simply put, it is poss í vel be said that it is the communication is the word. Known also by Boca-a-Boca The truth is that refer marketing is INSTANCE helps turn your customers into salespeople (or brand ambassadors), through it ‘s a link org â single with O optimum results at very low costs. Al is m all, this kind of ” advertising ” conveys an idea of excel is INSTANCE to your brand and products or services that your company sells.So andWhat arethe5 main advantages of refer marketingisINSTANCE?Well, the truth is that there are several advantages to this form of communication. However, many companies are not sure what they are . So I’ll leave you the five main advantages to using the refer is TRENDS to leverage your neg O heats. Reduction of CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): fewer trips, shorter closing time, etc …; Increased sales: clearly, what is the percentage of your business that comes by reference ?; Increased brand awareness: team to promote your business; Increased confidence in the services provided (or products sold): If we refer to it is because we trust !; Free advertising: we do not have to pay commissions, subsistence or ordered! Since v is s will be some advantages associated to this type of communication, which am is audio / long term can transform its neg O cesium very profitably. So I ask: Do business by reference correspond to more than 70% of your business?If your answer is yes, then I ask you a new question: Do you have any strategy to substantially increase your business by reference? If your answer is no, then I can help you !!! And do not miss one of the next posts in my blog, where I will share with you the 5 best practices for you to develop your Marketing by Reference!

Communication strategy and the power of reference marketing

Referral marketing has always been a necessary way to sell services or products. Along with the communication strategy has always been the only way to achieve publicize the services of companies to win new customers and grow business. In the last 25 years marketing methods have changed. Advertising is not the same. And it can not be the same because simply the consumer has evolved and been transformed. To the point that many times knows more than the commercial itself. You get much more informed and value many more things: notoriety, brand image, way of selling, the implication of the brand … etc. Hence the importance of the communication strategy. The arrival of the Internet has been a real revolution. We have seen how each year has changed the different ways in which brands try to approach their customers. Most of the time excessively invasive. Pop Ups, pop-ups, banners, sidebars, top, in between, frightening email marketing campaigns that fill your mailbox …. However something has happened with advertising in recent years. A new turn driven by marketing trends, Google standards, the so-called User Experience, adBlockers … It is forcing brands to change their way of advertising. And in this change the communication strategy plays a fundamental role. Communication through the press and communication through our own channels: websites, blogs, social networks, emails.This is how we come to reference online marketingIn the last two years, there has been a new change. Google has introduced changes to the positioning standards giving more value to the user experience. Interest, value of references, visits, location close to the product or service . But what is the reference marketing? Starting from the base that the marketing concept means to sell. It is viral or word of mouth marketing. That is to say as its own name indicates of references.Referral Marketing consists in directing traffic to your website through references from other sources. Press, blogs, social networks and other online portals.The communication strategy based on press releases and the relationship with the media allows to place backlinks in the means of communication and online portals. The more power these sources have, the more value your reference will have. In other words, if a web page of an online information medium such as El Mundo or El País places a link to your website in a news item, it will generate an incalculable value (everything can be measured in Marketing). And how to achieve a link in web pages of this level? Easy: Communicating. Working communication with journalists, sending effective press releases of interest to these media . But remember how important is in positioning a backlink in a national or local online media if your strategy involves strengthening the brand of your company in a specific city. This is due to the latest changes in the algorithms of Google in favor of the user experience where locally local information in your search engine prevails.Why is reference marketing important?The reason for this reference value is simple, we have always relied on word of mouth when selecting products and services. All professionals agree that the best way to grow is usually this. Someone recommends someone a restaurant, dentist, school, party room, workshop or worker. And who better than a means of communication to recommend your business? Encouraging presence in the media helps in this task, creates notoriety. The authority of the media in this sense is very high since the most powerful websites are those of the media or specialized forums. They are the ones that generate the most traffic, the ones with the highest audience and the ones that count the most for search engines and users. For this reason, they are the ones to get to, it can be as simple as it is complicated as you approach. The communication, the power of the press release or the communication strategy focused on the generation of backlinks (as I mentioned in this post ) takes on a special value that until a few years ago was only an added value of communication services. It has always been thought of going out on TV or in the paper supplement Yo dona, newspaper El País or Cinco Días. This undoubtedly has power. But nowadays the generation of references, of backlinks, in the media is key in any communication and marketing strategy. It has become an objective. And so, in PR strategy or communication can be an essential tool for your brand. But the reference marketing is not just backlinks. The communication strategy should not focus only in this regard. And this is where companies often give no value to another effect. A news item published in a portal without a backlink can become a great success if users of social networks begin to share it or put the link of it in other places. That’s when it goes viral.Reports suggest that last year more than 35% of the traffic to web pages was produced from social media and not so much by searches in other search engines.Bet on viral newsTo get your news to become viral in social networks there are many formulas. It is not a mathematical formula and requires the prior complicity of the media and the journalist who agrees to publish it but knowing that it will be easier for you to prepare it for that purpose. ● Use curious, attractive infographics with content ● Create viral, quality videos that clearly show the content of the news ● Search for real testimonies for your news ● The presence of a celebrity or celebrity always helps However, not everything ends with the viral news in the referred marketing. We are talking about notoriety. That the clients recommend you. To do this from the company you must create campaigns that complement the recommendation strategy. The communication gives you the opportunity of notoriety but the strategy does not end once you have come out in the media as we discussed in this post . There is a parallel work that must be done to give continuity to that success of having a presence in the media.Actions to continue viralizingOne of the main and most direct ways to get customers or sales of products is to get someone respected influential (media, journalist, bologger, celebrity, sportsman etc) whose opinion is valued and which comes to say that it is absolutely necessary to have this new thing or service. You must locate these people, blogs, forums and channels that have the largest number of followers of your market or sector. For example, is your company focused on women? Propose a biweekly opinion column in the forum inFeminine. Another proposal that you can ask yourself is that of the product or service tests. Offer that journalist, blogger or celebritie the possibility of carrying out a complete test of the product or service and ask that he / she share it. Of course, you should check that both the product and the service that you are going to exhibit meets is of quality. Otherwise you can generate an opposite effect and a bad review can be devastating.conclusionToday brands and companies in general, no matter the sector or type of business (ecommerce, products, services or experiences) are subject to a consumer who knows how to investigate and has at hand the greatest research tool never created: Internet. I never tire of repeating that the war is on the Internet. Notoriety, references, testimonials, opinions, content, added value, attraction, positioning, marketing campaigns, web design, user experience … There are many factors that can make a customer decant for your business. But the most important thing is that today any company has access to sufficient tools and services to meet these needs of your company. Marketing is necessary to survive. Communication is essential to be heard.