The New York Times states that 65% of new business comes from referrals. This means that on an average two thirds of consumers make purchases because someone recommended the particular product or service. Referral marketing has remarkable potential; it is observed that people are four times more likely to make a purchase when referred by a friend. Preparing a strategy for referral marketing and using it properly enables professionals to tap into the power of consumer recommendations to achieve exceptional results.

So, what is referral marketing?

Ever heard of word of mouth strategy?

Word of mouth is a marketing strategy that occurs when one person tells another person about a business and so on. It is basically a free advertising triggered by customer experiences. It is perhaps the oldest and most trusted marketing strategy. Referral marketing produces the same effect as word of mouth but unlike word of mouth it is initiated and directed by a business.

Referral marketing is a process where customers are encouraged and significantly increase referrals through word of mouth. It is a marketing tactic that makes use of recommendations and word of mouth to grow customer base through the networks of existing customers of a business. This can be accomplished by encouraging and rewarding existing customers and other contacts to recommend products and services to potential customers and B2B brands both online and offline.

Due to technologies now a days businesses can track customer behavior online and make marketing strategies based on it. Online Referral marketing can increase brand awareness, referrals and also revenue. It focuses on interactions between customers. The internet provides a various outlets such as company’s website or social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Google and Instagram to customers to share their experience, opinions and favourite products. It is beneficial if the marketing plan of a company integrates referral strategy in it. Companies can track user traffic to offer referrals to online customers. Referral marketing helps your unique business ideas in becoming successful.

Study shows that Customers who are referred by others are more profitable and remain loyal to the company than normal customers. Referred customers have greater contribution margin, greater retention rate and are more valuable both in short-run and long-run.

Referral programs generally provide two types of rewards:-

Current customers are given incentives such as cash, prizes, discounts, shopping vouchers or redeemable points.
Referrers can benefit from existing customers through increased visibility or recognition, or by special treatment.

Good referral marketing and business strategy can make a difference and lead your business towards success. You need to have a referral marketing strategy because: –

Sales through word of mouth strategy are five times more than through paid advertisement.
Customers acquired through referrals spend twice more and make twice as many referrals themselves.
The conversion rate through referrals are 30 better and have 16 percent higher retention rate than leads acquired through other channels.
People usually prefer word of mouth if they plan to purchase based on single information.
Referral marketing is cost-effective, powerful and trusted.

Customers who are happy and have a good experience with a brand, product or service frequently share it with others. Recommendations and referrals are useful if you want to stand out from the crowd. Satisfied customers through referrals can be easily turned into convincing cheerleaders. It is powerful selling point to others if your customers are happy with your product and are getting good return on investment on the money spent on the product.

A properly organized referral program helps businesses get new and loyal customers at a very low cost. Referral programs incentivize happy customers to share their feelings in exchange for a small gift. But the programs are not just about sharing feelings. The referral programs also generate substantial and tangible return on investment. The referral programs not only bring in new customers but they bring good loyal customers. A few advantages of referral marketing for business are: –

Customers obtained through referrals are better matched. They are more likely to interact with people similar to themselves.
The referrers are existing customers who understand the purpose of marketing and the need for potential clients. They can measure a good fit between the two. The well matched customers can help to produce more profits at a lower cost.
The value and contribution acquired through referred customers are more than those from non-referred customers.
Customer satisfaction can be defined through referral programs. If many customers are willing to act as referrers this means that the company’s customer satisfaction is high.
Referral programs also enable businesses to establish long term relations with customers. The company can know the expectations of customers and raise the effectiveness of marketing programs. Referral programs can also be used a tool for retaining customers.

Seeing the benefits you all must now be wondering how to create a good referral program for your unique business ideas?

We at Evolvers have listed down some of the best ways to create a successful referral program for your business: –

Keep it simple: – Your customers must be able to quickly understand what you want them refer and what are the incentives provided for referrals. The explanation should be concise but should contain all the necessary terms and conditions.
Display a clear and enticing call to action: – Effective call to actions easily catches the customer’s eyes, incites customers to refer and share the incentive. The CTA must be easy to find. It can be put on top of the referral page.
Offer valuable cost effective incentives that tie right back to your business: – Consider incentives for both referrer and the friend (double- sided incentive) and cumulative incentives like offering store credits, service credits, gift cards and discount. One can also consider offering free products or services but only after many successful referrals.

You can also convert the experience into a game by point system wherein a customer has to obtain certain number of point through referrals in order to receive a benefit or any other exclusive perk. Charitable donation can also work as a referral incentive. For example, with every referral the company will donate certain amount to a NGO.

Remember never to underestimate the intrinsic reward of friends helping friends.

Make social sharing efficient and easy for customers: – Your customers should able to share your referral program easily on social media. Integrating social sharing to the referral program increases the impact.
Seamless integration: – Even the most loyal customers would not want to participate if the sign up for the referral program and then find that there are five more steps that they have to complete before collecting their reward.
Promote your program: – Creating a referral program is not just enough. You need to spread the word out about the program for customers to know about it and participate in it. One way to do this is by triggered or time based email campaigns.
Use your business position to your advantage: – Your business also has a unique personality. Inject your personality into your referral program. Consider using feel good messages that focuses on helping friends and your business. The messages can include friendship or community focused images.

You can also emphasize on being a part of a community in your referral program messaging.

Thus Referral Marketing is important. It is a cost effective marketing strategy which has a greater reach and higher conversion rate. Its helps build strong customer relationship and loyal customers.

Referral programs are effective because people trust word of mouth more than any other source of information. A referral program simplifies the recommendation process and makes it more official. Your customers can share your business with friends and family at just the click of a button.

If you want to know more about referral marketing strategies and other marketing strategies then you can contact theEvolvers Experts. The evolvers team focuses on addressing the needs of business and helps them to grow. Click Here to learn more.

Are you planning to launch a new brand in the market? Well, it’s not that easy to start everything from scratch and make it run in the market.

There must be some popular brands that people have already invested in, and you have to make sure that you stand out different from them to run it successfully.

As people are interested in knowing what the brand has to offer, what’s so special about them and most importantly, what distinguishes them from other competitor brands?

The simple answer to this question is LAUNCH! Yes, you have to ensure that there’s an awesome launch of your new brand. And, for that, you definitely need to spend some time in planning o how to make it an exciting launch! Planning and strategizing for launch is essential for the grand opening of your new brand to go off without any snag.

Hence, listed below are Seven great Tips For A New Startup that you need to know if you are into launching a new brand in the market.

Tip 1 – Define your Target Market

Before you proceed with the new brand launch, you have to understand what is the target market or target audience of your brand. Without identification of ‘target audience,’ you just cannot pitch the right audience who are already invested in your competitors’ brand.

Make a segment, which is very clear in demographics and interests, and then target that audience with the launch of your new brand. Initially, you have to understand you cannot target everyone. Because then, you will end up under the category of ‘not so relevant.’

Therefore, you have to start with the two key demographics at first, and after that, you can expand your target market from there onwards. Just think critically while selecting the demographics; ask questions like, who are they? What do they expect? What will they like? Is your brand fulfilling such requirements? And, so on!

Tip 2 – Take enough time to Launch

Launching a new brand in the market is a tough nut to crack. And undeniably, people take a lot of time in planning and setting approach on how to launch it exceptionally. Let’s just assume wedding and branding, both are same. The way we require almost a year to plan and execute a wedding, in the same manner, launching a new brand equally takes a lot of time, at least not less than 8 to 12 months.

In the meanwhile, your entire team should be involved in creating hype for the new launch to ensure that things are moving in order. To take an example, Ted Baker launched the brand of men’s and women’s clothing using COUNTDOWN TIMER! Yes, the countdown was set on the website for 30 days. Isn’t it a great idea to create a hype among the audience of your brand?

Therefore, take some time before you go ahead and launch your brand because that will be the only period when you can let your creative ideas out!

Tip 3 – Brand is Everything!

Once you are done with the brand name of your business, logo creation and website designing, then you need to focus on the branding too. As you will be taking enough time to launch your new brand in the market, therefore, you need to focus on the branding part within that time frame only. Branding as in, how you will begin the communication? How will you showcase your brand on different platforms? What will be the strategy for branding the new launch? How you will make people recognize your brand? These are some of the significant questions that you need to introspect on!

Branding is nowadays majorly done on social media platforms. And through, business cards and email marketing as well. You have to make sure that your brand is consistent on all platforms, and you are connected with the audience that is directly related to your business or brand that you are willing to launch anytime soon.

For instance – Airbnb, did a rebranding where they changed the signature logo colour from blue to red and orange gradient. Basically, they are playing on the basis of colour combination. It is a brand ‘reputation and recognition’ factor, most importantly!

Hence, you have to build your brand first because that’s the only thing through which your brand will get recognition. For that, there’s a lot of significance about Logo colour! Yeah, colour matters to the audience, and according to a survey conducted by Color Matters, almost 80% of audience recognize the brand through its colour and boost the brand recognition extensively! So, put colours every platform possible.

Tip 4 – Try to Build Anticipation

To make your brand launch exciting one, you just cannot miss out on your audience, right? An ideal brand launch is done exceptionally when you build anticipation among the audience or people relevant to your brand. Make it a little mystery, build positive anticipation and give minor details about the product or service you are planning to launch in the market.

Adding to it, you can give some hints, yeah, some subtle hints that you can share it on social media to invoke their excitement. Otherwise, you can go with the short videos that include countdown times up to the date of the launch of your brand. It is absolutely one of the most engaging ways to let your customer think for at least once what’s the fuss is all about.

For instance, Apple uses video to interact with the audience and giving them subtle hints about its new product launch, which also includes, revealing enough information that pique the interest of the fans and followers!

So, building anticipation among the audience is very much essential for the brand to launch their new products or services in the market. Let’s stick to that only!

Tip 5 – Get in touch with Influencers

Social media platforms are undeniably great from the marketing perspective, especially when it comes to launching new products or services. Rather than following the age-old social media tactics, if you have a budget to invest, then it is highly recommended to go for Influencer Marketing!

Why is it so? Well, to generate the sales and results you desire, influencers, or trusted brand advocates from the specific industry can help you to do that. So, to begin with, you can either DM them on their social media accounts or simply email them regarding the product or service promotion. Of course, they won’t accept the offer in the first go, but you have to give them the product to share their review or tell something unique about your services to them to review it on their page. Secondly, if they liked the product or service you are offering to the audience, then they will put a review that you can share it on your different platforms.

To create the buzz about your new brand, Influencer marketing is definitely a great idea to implement as it will help you to generate profits afterwards. Therefore, plan your strategies for branding as well!

Tip 6 – Make Sure your Team is Excited

Even if you are into launching a new brand in the market, it is essential that your team should be excited about it. You have to ensure that your team members are aware of the product and its key features, try to excite them with its USP. And for that, you have to sit with the team members and have a positive discussion about it. To answer the queries of your customers, your team members should be proficient enough to deal with them and their queries in a positive manner.

Therefore, before the launch of your new brand in the market, go for team discussions and planning, which will further excite them to give their best shot!

Tip 7 – Stick to your Schedule

The final tip for all those who are into launching a new brand in the market, i.e. stick to your plan! If you will lose sight or focus from your plans and schedules, then it will definitely hamper the brand launch.

Create small schedules and ensure that the tasks are completed on time, and every team member is accountable for their specific role. Review the tasks and figure out things on that basis.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, Launching A New Brand in the market is definitely not easy peasy but not that hard or scary! With a strategic brand launch in the market, you can make an impactful impression on the people or audience. For the Best Entrepreneur Ideas, to make your brand launch a successful one, get in touch with the professional and experienced experts at Evolvers.