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Giving your customers the opportunity to refer your friends, colleagues and family to your brand is critical to any successful customer acquisition and retention strategy.

 This is because word of mouth can be any businesses most effective way to drive growth. By turning your satisfied customers into fans and advocates for your company, you can acquire new customers at a lower cost than any other customer acquisition strategy.

 We all know this, so why don’t we all have an efficient customer referral engine running? Mostly because we are often too embarrassed to ask customers for a referral, we consider it tacky or because it isn’t typically as high profile (expensive) as other forms of lead generation, it gets put to the bottom of the pile.

 This is silly as everyone can benefit from a word of mouth strategy – and at a much lower cost per acquisition than ANY other form of marketing. Here are our top tips for creating a word of mouth referral programme.

1. Choose the moment to ask for a referral

Timing is everything when seeking referrals from your customers. When is a customer likely to be most satisfied? Generally at the point of gratification which could be immediately after ordering or straight after delivery (or both). By checking the level of customer satisfaction (Net Promoter Score) prior to asking to refer then you can be doubly sure that your customer is happy before asking them to refer your business to family or friends.

 Customers who give your company a high rating have effectively told you that they are open to promoting your brand – the perfect time to ask for a referral. When you see a high rating, redirect that customer to a landing page that explains your referral program, and invites them to refer their friends. Try something like:

 “Wow, you are making us blush! Thanks for the great rating.

We’d love for you to share your experience with your friends.

In return for bringing us a new customer, we’ll give you a hotel break for 2 and one for your friend. You can earn unlimited rewards every day.

2. Use the right incentives

By offering an exclusive reward for their friend, your customer feels there is an extra reason to share plus if you also reward the customer for a successful referral, that recognition gets the brain to release a dose of dopamine (the reward hormone) which is one of the key ways our brain develops new habits. Non cash rewards also create opportunities for your customers to share – by providing unusual, lifestyle rewards, your customers are able to share the reward experience with friends and family and therefore find other opportunities to refer your business.

3. Make word of mouth referrals easy

Have prominent share buttons and QR codes to make it easy to share wherever they are – also create copy and paste links – most customers are un happy about sharing their friends data but happy to send them a link by text, email or messenger. 

4. Boost confidence

Make sure the landing pages are secure (https) and feature as much as possible that boosts confidence in your brand – like reviews.

 Make your referral programme prominent – if you seem to hide it then people will suspect it is a scam. Likewise have clear details about the rewards and any terms and conditions that may be applicable. 

5. Build the pyramid

Referred customers are 4 times more likely to refer others AND have experienced your rewards so can advocate with a clear knowledge.

 Target your referred customers, increase your marketing activity through the emails, retargeting/remarketing emails they receive.  

6. Remind people who have referred customers in the past to refer again

Customers who have referral your business before are most likely to refer again -they just need reminding. 

7. Engage with your fans using their favourite social media platforms

 By talking to your customers, answering questions and helping to solve problems using your products and services you can become a trusted advisor whom they will want to share. 

8. Turn reviewers into referrers and vice versa

If you receive a positive review then invite the reviewer to join your referral programme as they are already 90% of the way there. Likewise, invite your referrers to give you reviews on Trust Pilot, Google My Business etc as a good review from a wide range of customers will dramatically increase both the trust and reach of your brand. 

9. Involve your team

The more that your team can ask customers to share you with their friends and family, the more likely that customers will do so - but here is a twist - your team can also be a great source of referrals so why not invite them to join the programme too?

10. Build or use an automated referral system

The main reason for companies not actively requesting referrals is that it’s too much hassle. Whether to give the customer the correct referral code, to track a referral or to trigger an award, the more manual the system, the more likely it will be forgotten or fail. An automated system can make each stage simple and automated – so it will work every time for every stage in the process and be easy to use for everyone. 

Conclusion

By setting up a word of mouth referral programme, you will access the lowest cost-per-acquisition marketing methods available to any business and enjoy sustainable growth