There is no secret, the best way to get referrals is to straight up ask for them.
Oh, by the way, if you, a friend or family member needs marketing or advertising help, OEPMA is here to help and we welcome your referrals.
See that easy.
But you’ve been doing that and you’ve seen some referrals coming in, but you want to take it to the next level.
Begin tracking your referrals and creating a positive association with every referral you get.
The simple and most cost effective way to do this is through e-mail or phone call. For every referral you get, simply shoot a simple e-mail or call the person who sent the referral and thank them.
Some of you may be reading this and think, well no yeah, that’s just common courtesy. You’d be surprised at the number of businesses who don’t take this simple step.
Taking it a step further, if you have the referrers address, get out the business note card (your business does have blank notecards with your logo on it doesn’t it?) and pen and write a personal thank you note.
You may think snail mail is something of the past in this type of situation, but everyone loves receiving hyper personalized mailings. There’s just something different about holding something that you know the sender took time out of their day to write and sign.
For those of you who are ready to really start imprinting that positive association, send a small gift.
You can get creative with this one, but it could be as small as a ink pen and as large as a box of steaks depending on your industry and how much profit you are making off the referral.
For those licensed professionals out there, make sure to check your ethical rules on these types of matters! It’s very important.
These actions are rooted in behavioral science. Very Pavlovian if you will. The people send a referral and get positive reinforcement. Therefore when the situation arises again, they remember the stimulus (e-mail, note card, gift) and act accordingly.
While you may know all of this, like many things in marketing the effectiveness of it all comes from running the process like a well oiled machine. Organize the process and complete it. Doing it every now and then when you feel like it or have the resources might get you something, but it isn’t going to take it to the next level.
