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Small
Business, BIG Marketing™
by Will
Dylan ©2004
CHAPTER 7 - WALKING
ADVERTISEMENTS
So you’ve
used the advice contained in this book to gain some
customers. You are proud of your publicity efforts, and
you’ve applied some of my tips to cut your marketing
costs and increase the effectiveness of your overall
marketing plan.
Now what?
You’re not just going to sell your new customers a
product and let them walk away, are you?
Not when
you’re marketing on tight budget! You now have to use
the customer in front of you to build your business, and
you do that with a successful referral program.
Referrals
work. Word of mouth advertising is still the most
powerful form of advertising available. (Most marketing
people who are paid to buy ads and run radio campaigns
would rather you didn’t know that, but it’s TRUE!).
You need to make every customer who buys your product or
service into a walking commercial for your business.
Here’s
how:
Give
them a reason : Offer
your customers a discount on their next purchase if they
refer a new customer to you. A lot of companies do this
already, but amazingly, not many of them publicize it.
If they remember, they mention it to you on your way out
the door.
Well I say
you make damn sure your customer knows before
they leave that you want their business, and you want
them to bring their friends in to buy your product or
service as well.
Think of
your local mechanic. They might have mentioned to you at
some point that if you refer a friend, they’ll give a
small discount next time around. But they could do much
better than that, couldn’t they?
If I owned
a garage (and believe me I never will because I can
barely hold a wrench let alone use one), I’d make sure
that after every transaction I told my customers that if
they refer a client to me, and that client brings their
car in for any kind of repair at all, I’d give them a
free lube oil and filter on their next visit. That’s a
retail value of about $20. It would cost me about $10.
You can’t tell me that if you were in the auto repair
business you wouldn’t buy a new customer for $10!?!
Just give
your customer a reason to make the referral. Deliver
good service, charge a fair price, and make it worth
their while to send a friend your way. (By the way, the
referral program also helps to bring the original
customer back in to get their free oil change, so it’s
really like getting 2 follow up visits from just one
referral.)
Continue Chapter 7 >>
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