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Referrals happen, thank goodness, but for too many, they happen randomly, almost accidentally.
One of the keys to tapping the systematic generation of referrals is to identify and address the customer touch points that add up to lead a customer to the logical and emotional decision that your organization is referable.
I say this often, but it’s worth repeating - every person, place and thing in your business that comes into contact with a prospect or a customer is performing a marketing function. Your organization’s referability is being decided by the sum total of those contacts.
It’s so important to figure out the critical stages involved in developing a customer and then fill the gaps in every contact - by fill I mean, make sure that every contact is a marketing contact - and that includes things like delivery, customer service, even billing.
The 7 Stages and logical touch points along this customer referral life cycle look something like this.
- Know - Your ads, article, and referred leads
- Like - Your web site, reception, and email newsletter
- Trust - Your marketing kit, white papers, and sales presentations
- Trial - Webinars, evaluations, and nurturing activities
- Core - Fulfillment, new customer kit, delivery, and financial arrangements
- Repeat - Post customer survey, cross sell presentations, and quarterly events
- Refer - Results reviews, partner introductions, peer 2 peer webinars, and community building
I suggest creating a diagram consisting of the stages above and mapping out every touch point you have or should have before you ever start dreaming about a world flooded with referrals.
Comments
This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at Feb 29, 08 | 6:24 am and is filed under Referral Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Hey John;
Good point about white papers being documents that help solicit trust.
Because they often contain educational material they can help in the know stage as well.
Mike
I was with a client yesterday who needs to read this post!!! Good stuff John!
-Randy
I was at a workshop this morning where the topic was marketing and the speaker emphasized one of the points you made, John. Everything your business does that comes in contact with your potential client is part of your marketing effort.
I need to work on improving some of those in my business!
[...] clipped from http://www.ducttapemarketing.com [...]
Hey John,
A good website is a crucial step in earning the client’s trust.
Because it’s a reflection of the time and investment you put into your own work.
-Shama
Hi John,
I think another key factor in increasing referrals or company growth is how a company leverages its existing marketing collateral. For example, let’s say you are submitting a large report to a client that summarizes the months statistics. At the end of the report do you just say thank you? Or do you let the client know about some of your other services and product offerings?
Maybe at the end of your report you can say, by the way, in addition to the web design services that we are currently doing for you, we can also create custom print advertisements. That to me, sounds much better than, “thank you.”
[...] Very few people buy much today without thinking it over. For more on the referral process checkout the 7 stages of a referral generation. I will also be documenting lead generation via the referral process in future [...]
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[...] Janstch, author of Duct Tape Marketing - The Ultimate Guide to Small Business Marketing - had a great post a few days ago about the 7 Stages and logical touch points along this customer referral life cycle. [...]
That’s a good article, most people think sales is a hit or miss proposition, I’m glad you spelled it out by the numbers. We’re looking for people to write for backlinks on our new trade show help community if you are interested. I like your angles and I’m a duct tape fix it guy myself.
Bruce
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