Questions? Feedback? powered by Olark live chat software
Feb 28 2013
posted by
Leave a Comment

Using Facebook Graph Search To Help Your Business

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from David Tully– Enjoy!

In a blog post after the release of their new “Graph Search” application, Facebook encouraged business’s to “continue to invest” in their pages and keep them up to date so as they will show higher up in search results in Facebook’s new feature.

What it looks like they are trying is to get a larger slice of the market in regards to customer review sites such as Yelp and other websites like Groupon, while only really dipping their toes into the water in terms of a full-blown search engine like Google.

Facebook Graph Search

At the moment, Graph search results are based on Facebook people, pages, groups, pages and apps while Bing will supply a list of suggested searches on its search engine. Facebook used the example of a search term “sushi restaurants that my friends have been to in Los Angeles” which shows the type of small businesses that could take advantage of the new application. To attract business you will need:

A good social media presence

As I have already mentioned, if you don’t have a popular, active Facebook page, the likelihood that your page will show up in Facebook Graph Search results is much lower. Increasing your social media presence and increasing activity on your page through special offers, coupons and competitions is highly recommended, boosting your reputation and profile.

To encourage recommendations and reviews

Once you have a thriving Facebook page, you are much more likely to be recommended by others. In the past, customer reviews on Yelp and other review sites really helped boost your profile on Google and on organic search results. For Facebook Graph Search, you need to get social buzz going on Facebook itself. Encourage people to share, like and comment on your service or products. The more recommendations, the more likely you are to come up when a person is searching Facebook Graph for friend recommendations for a particular restaurant, recruitment firm or whatever line of business you are in.

Have a high-profile in the local area

Currently, Facebook search results do have a “nearby” feature so that people can search business pages in the local area, but in the future they may have a full “local search” feature so that your business will have a higher profile on search terms of those people searching Facebook in your vicinity. Make sure your business is on Facebook Places and you are receiving the highest amount of reviews possible so Facebook will push you up in search results for the local area.

Many Facebook users are still waiting for this feature to be enabled. Here is a recent Techcrunch article that offers some updates.

David TullyThis guest post was written by David Tully, Digital Marketing Strategist for Fast Growth Club; an innovative new coaching program for small businesses.

Filed Under: Facebook, Social Media Tagged With: ,
Feb 14 2013
posted by

5 Tips for Writing Survey Questions that Don’t Yield Statistical Garbage

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Josh Pigford – Enjoy!

Survey Question GarbageWhile the end result of a survey might make the conclusions look cut and dry, there are many ways that data can be manipulated or misrepresented to change the truth. However, the sloppiest (and probably most common) method of fumbling the truth is when data is simply misunderstood.

Even if your survey questions sound great, if they’re not credible they won’t produce valid results. In case you don’t know the difference between discriminant and regression analyses (really, who does?), this post will cover five tips to make sure that your sweet survey doesn’t turn into a statistical bummer.

1. Think First, Ask Second

Think broadly about why you’re creating a survey. What are you really trying to figure out? When you have a clear idea, make a list detailing the kind of information that you’re setting out to look for. Now you can begin to write your questions, always keeping in mind that they must match your original informational targets.

If you realize after collecting all your responses that your questions are actually asking something rather different from what you originally intended, then your data will also be telling something rather different from what you intended. You’ll have to settle for either “different,” or a big lie.

2. Ratings vs. Rankings

Depending on the kind of information you’re looking for, you can either ask your respondents to rate or rank several items in a list. However, it’s important to realize the difference between these two types of questions.

A ranking will only tell you which items are more or less preferred relative to each other, but you won’t actually know from a ranking if a respondent likes or dislikes any items. For this latter purpose, you must use a rating question.

3. The Multiple Choice Golden Rule

Most surveys depend heavily on multiple choice questions since prepping for standardized tests have wiped out this country’s ability to formulate an original answer. Or we’re too lazy. Either way, the possible responses to any multiple choice question must be mutually exclusive. This means that no two answers could equally serve as appropriate responses.

Not only do non-exclusive answers annoy people (you’ve made them think too hard!), but they’ll make accurately analyzing your data nearly impossible. If someone could choose one of two answers and feel good about either response, you won’t be able to determine the respondent’s actual preference.

4. Surveys Are Not Like Airplane Exit Rows

More “legroom” in your question doesn’t make it better. You wrote your survey with a specific purpose, so make sure your questions are direct without giving your respondents too much leeway in answering.

If you want to know how to make your company’s logo look more cutting edge, make sure you specify your desire for responses regarding the logo’s impact, not simply ask about the company in general.

5. Don’t Get Too Excited in One Question

Surveys are awesome, we know, but that’s no excuse for asking more than one question at a time. Each question you ask needs to be aimed at collecting one unique point of information, or else you’ll end up skewing your data by mixing results that should be separated.

It’s even possible to get so excited that in a fit of survey-exuberance you accidentally put two contradictory questions together. That’s not only pretty weird, but it will also void the results for that part of the survey.

Statistics and the wild field of data analysis include another laundry list of Dos and Don’ts, but hopefully these five tips can get you started on creating surveys that also produce credible results.

If you’re ever in doubt about how a question comes off, ask some friends to test it out. If you don’t have any friends, well then you’ve got bigger problems than that tricky survey question.

Josh PigfordJosh Pigford is co-founder + CEO of  PopSurvey, where they’re building online survey software to try and make the survey industry a little less coma-inducing. They’ve got a huge collection of survey templates to help you get started with the click of a button!

Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing research Tagged With: , ,
Feb 7 2013
posted by

The Simple Truth That Everyone With a Coach Understands

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Robert D. Smith – Enjoy!

Coaches and Consultants

Image Credit: marcello99

After over 30 years in the artist management business, I’ve come to learn something about the difference between successful artists—whether they’re authors, speakers, singers, musicians, etc.—and unsuccessful artists.

The successful ones know a little secret that applies to much more than just artists and stage personalities. It applies to you, both in your personal and professional lives, regardless of the nature of your business.

Are you ready to hear it?

The brand cannot manage itself.

Why? Because the brand is blinded by its gifts. Not in a selfish way, but in a way that begs for guidance on how to maximize its gift’s value.

This applies to you because, no matter what you do (even if you do nothing), you are a brand. You give a feeling, a perception, to those around you. There are certain talents and gifts you possess, and nothing will serve them better than a trusted, outside perspective.

I’m talking about a coach.

Do You Need to Hire a Coach?

I’ll make this one easy for you by slightly rephrasing the response. You do NOT need to hire a coach if:

  • You do not want to advance your life
  • You do not have a dream
  • You do not want more
  • You are fully satisfied with your lot in life
  • You have already found your life’s purpose and feel you have accomplished it and are done

However, if you DO want more—to give more, be more, reach more people with what you are doing, it is imperative to have a coach, to get another person’s take on what you are doing.

You need to be able to see beyond the tunnel vision that we all have around the things we are doing.

At the very least, you need another person to be able to ask you the outstanding questions you have not thought of yet. And that’s what a good coach can do.

How to Find a Good Coach

There are certain qualities that you absolutely must be aware of and seek out when looking for the right coach. Exceptions are possible for every rule, but these are good general rules of thumb to help you on your search.

  1. Most likely, you don’t know them. Your friends are probably not going to make good coaches. That’s not to say you should never seek their counsel if you respect their opinions. However, the reality is that most friends are just too darn polite. And polite is something you do not need.
  2. You need honesty. Actually, what you need is a degree beyond honesty. It’s a kick in the butt, a 2×4 upside the head. You need someone who can look you in the eye and say, “What you are saying is not true.” If they can’t challenge your thinking, they’re not up for the job.
  3. They can be more affordable than you might think. Many people instantly brush off the idea of hiring a coach by telling themselves it’s just too expensive. That’s like saying a car is too expensive. Well, what kind of car? You can pay anywhere from $500 to $500,000 and get a car that runs. Coaches are the same way. There is a broad range of what is available to you.

The best part is that you don’t have to pay a ton to find a quality coach. There are plenty out there who do a great job and are still on the lower end of the price range.

Take some time and do the research. Most likely, you’ll be able to take coaches for test drives before you commit to anything. I’ve yet to find one who doesn’t do a free coaching call of at least 15-20 minutes to see if you’re gelling.

If you’re ready to take your brand, your business, your life to the next level, a coach can give you the map it will take to get there. Identify what you think are your needs, do the research, find the right person, and move forward with massive action.

It takes tunnel-vision-like focus to become great at something. A coach gives you the chance to keep that focus while also gaining access to the 10,000-foot view. Are you ready to see it?

Robert D Smith HeadshotRobert D. Smith is the author of 20,000 Days and Counting, a crash course in living every day with maximum purpose and intensity. He also writes on entrepreneurship, personal growth, and more at TheRobertD.com.

Filed Under: Coaching and Consulting, Marketing Strategy Tagged With: , ,
Feb 1 2013
posted by

A Laser Targeted Referral Strategy

Today’s guest post is brought to you by Tony Messer – Enjoy!

A funny thing happened in the Gym locker room today. I became an expert on corrective laser eye surgery!

That in itself was strange enough, but what makes this even stranger is that the person I learned this from wasn’t even an eye surgeon. Let me explain. As I was putting in my contact lenses just before going into the gym, one of the members remarked that I was using contact lenses & that he had done away with his years ago. He then explained that he had decided to have corrective laser eye surgery & he has never looked back since.

So, off I went with my normal objections: Is it safe? What if in 10 years’ time they discover that this type of procedure will lead to instant blindness? It looks painful. What If I move when they are performing the treatment – will the laser frazzle my cornea?

To my surprise, the guy was a walking encyclopedia on laser eye surgery. Every objection I could raise he addressed. I even know that the machines they use are made in Italy & that they use 2 lasers so no danger of frazzled cornea as one is used to direct the other if you should move your eye!

He had obviously done his homework. In fact, the reason that he knew so much was that he had contacted one of the world’s top eye surgeons who practices at the UK’s principal eye hospital in London & had performed the procedure on him. He made it sound as if they just put an eye drop in your eye & ask you to look at a light for a moment or two.

This got me thinking about the power of referrals & what makes a really powerful referral. In this case, the service in question is both expensive & one which many people would have serious concerns about.

However, in this case, my new friend was a powerful advocate for this particular eye surgeon & his practice. The reason for this was that he was not only happy with the result, but he was educated too. For the eye surgeon this is a powerful position to be in. If you like, we can think of it as follows:

Happy Customer + Educated Customer = Raving Fan & Referrer

OK, not all of us are in businesses with such a complex service which involves allaying people’s fears. However, we can learn from this example. If you can leave your customers happy that is great, but if you can educate them too then they will be a more powerful advocate of your services.

But this even applies to less complex products or services. I use a really great guy who is like a local Mr Fix it. He is a plumber mainly, but he has a really reliable set of partners who he can call on if there is something that he cannot do himself. He is my trusted single point of contact. If ever I have an issue then he takes time to explain the issue & he always looks for a sensible fix, rather than immediately telling me I need to replace this or that expensive units.

I have lost count of the number of people I have referred to him. It is not just because he does a great job that I refer him. It is because he takes the time to help me to understand why my boiler is not working & what is the best way to fix it & then prevent this issue in the future.

In fact, Pilar & I gave him a walk on part in my book “The Lazy Website Syndrome” – you’ll find him in the Social media section although I have changed his name.

So, try to look in your business & see where you can educate your customers & prospects. Maybe you can create a free report or download from your website to get you started. People love to share knowledge & you just never know who they’ll be talking to or when.

Now, where did I leave my glasses?

Tony MesserTony Messer, Author of the book “The Lazy Website Syndrome”  & founder of the UK web hosting company, http://www.pickaweb.co.uk . Alternates between his homes in London & the south of Spain. He is focused on helping his customers achieve great success online using his straightforward, jargon free approach.

Filed Under: Referral Marketing Tagged With:
Jan 31 2013
posted by

The 5 Fastest Ways to Get More Referrals for Your Small Business

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Andy Sernovitz – Enjoy!

Thank you

photo credit: woodleywonderworks via photopin cc

Most small businesses will tell you their new customers come through word of mouth, but very few can tell you how those referrals happen or where they come from.

But, it’s not magic and it’s not an accident. Great word of mouth is the result of a planned, well-executed strategy focused on earning raving fans and helping them talk about you.

The good news: It’s easy (and a whole lot of fun) to get started. Here’s how to do it:

1. Just ask

Wait, hold on. Before we go any further, have you done the most obvious, most straightforward, and most effective word of mouth strategy of all? Have you asked your happy customers to tell their friends about you?

Remind them on their way out the door. Add a note to your receipts. Send follow-up emails that include a request for a review. Include simple sharing links on your checkout confirmation pages.

Really, just ask. It’s that simple. Happy customers would be glad to talk about you.

2. Focus on the first-timers

As much as a longtime customer may love you, they’re not as likely to talk as the new one that just walked out the door.

Think about it this way: You may go to a local spot two or three times a week for lunch, but you talk a whole lot more about that exciting new place you tried for dinner last week.

When we’re used to how great something is, what else is there to say?

So, go out of your way to blow the minds of the newbies: Treat them like VIPs, celebrate their arrival, let them taste everything on the menu, give them a tour, and make sure they leave with something that helps them tell friends about the incredible experience they just had.

You only get one chance to meet each new customer. Make sure it’s amazing.

3. …and do something fantastic for the old-timers

While the new folks might be easier to get talking, your loyal customers still represent a huge and worthy word of mouth opportunity.

Give them something great to share — things like a special discount code, beta access to new products, badges and status, a reunion, or a spot on a special advisory board.

Sure, it may take a little more to get this group talking — but their experience and loyalty to you makes their referrals more credible and effective.

4. Always, always ask for feedback

Not asking for feedback is sort of like cupping your hands over your ears — customers are still complaining, but instead of doing it directly to you, they do it publicly on review sites, blogs, and social networks.

It’s not only a great way to find opportunities for improvement, it’s also a great excuse to remind happy customers to leave a review.

Start your feedback requests with a sincere focus on getting the customer’s opinion. Don’t waste this opportunity to hear about where you could do better. Ask them to rate your stuff, to share ideas for what would make things better, and to give open feedback.

Then, at the end of everything — here’s where you can add a coupon for a friend, a link to relevant review sites, and a simple checkbox saying, “Yes, I give [company name] permission to use my feedback in their marketing materials.”

For inspiration, check out how the folks at PrintingForLess.com use their feedback forms to earn referrals.

5. Learn to be great at saying “thank you”

Saying thank you to your talkers isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also a fantastic way to generate more referrals.

But, how do you find the talkers who deserve thanking? Easy, ask every customer how they heard about you. Leave room to share the referrer’s contact information and use it to send these talkers something nice.

Some businesses go so far as to send small perks (this dentist surprises his talkers with $20 Starbucks gift cards), but a friendly thank you note can work just as well.

The key here: Don’t try to buy referrals (it’s icky and often backfires), focus on thanking your existing talkers as a way to encourage even more word of mouth.

What about you? How are you earning referrals for your business? 

About Andy

Andy SernovitzAndy Sernovitz teaches word of mouth marketing. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking and CEO of WordofMouth.org and SocialMedia.org.

Filed Under: Referral Marketing Tagged With: ,
Jan 24 2013
posted by

How To Build a Business People Want To Refer

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Don Campbell – Enjoy!

What if - instead of relying on expensive paid ad campaigns and direct sales, your business thrived on referrals from happy customers?

That’s the promise of a book I read a few months ago that profoundly changed my business – The Referral Engine.

Customer service has always been important for my company Expand2Web. But reading this book made me realize something very important. Although we were getting referrals from our customers naturally, we weren’t really leveraging our heavy – and expensive – investment in customer service.

We weren’t setting expectations about referrals early in the sales process, we weren’t making it easy for people to refer us to others, and we weren’t ASKING for referrals, even though most of our customers are happy to give them!

The Referral Engine gave us a structure to leverage that investment in customer service and provide more value to our customers at the same time.

Following one of the exercises in the book, we mapped out every customer interaction to see how we could offer a truly exceptional experience, and build it in a way that customer referrals would flow naturally.

For our business, here’s what it looks like:

Customer Interaction Touchpoints

Customer Interaction Touchpoints for Expand2Web

As you can see from the map above, there are many ways we interact with our customers. Even more than we realized at first.

When you think about it, you start interacting with potential customer the first time they experience your brand, or land on your website. These interactions continue into pre-sales questions, the purchase process, support, and even beyond.

Our Referral Action Plan for Expand2Web:

Based on our map, here are a few of the things we did to improve our customer experience and encourage referrals:

1) We started setting expectations with potential customers early.

Before a customer even buys our product, we started setting expectations that we would ask them for a referral (when we deliver on our promise).

On the sales pages and other pages about our products, we explain that our mission is to make them so happy and successful they will want to tell their friends and co-workers about us.

This has the dual purpose of setting expectations that we are committed to their success and happiness, and that we will ask them for a referral once we’ve delivered on that promise.

2) We created a “Customer Welcome Kit” that welcomes every new customer, and helps them succeed.

Another excellent suggestion from the book was to create a customer welcome kit. We followed this advice and created a customer download area so that each customer could log in and get 24/7 access to the latest version of our software, our support, and step-by-step training guides.

3) We added some unexpected bonuses for our customers in the customer welcome area.

For example, we found that the biggest issue for many of our small business customers was learning how to do things in WordPress. So we licensed a series of 20 short WordPress tutorial videos and included them free to our customers.

We are also experimenting with other “surprises” for our customers, like written thank you notes and gifts, and other fun ways to let them know we care about them and their success.

4) We now ASK for referrals at key points in the customer relationship, and make it safe and easy for customers to refer us to their friends and family.

We’re learning the crucial points to ask for referrals, and how to do that in a way that our customers feel safe and want to refer us.

For example, in the book, John points out that there are key times in your customer interactions that are best for asking for referrals. Strangely, right after a support request is one of them. That wasn’t obvious to me at first. Now we’re working on ways to politely ask for referrals from our customers in a risk free way, and to make it easy for them.

Benefits For Us *And* Our Customers

This is a process that we are continually refining and improving. But already it has helped our business tremendously in four ways:

  1. An improved customer experience. Our new customer checkout experience and welcome kit has led to more happy customers, and lots of nice comments from them.
  2. A better product. By reaching out to customers in this way, we get better feedback that goes right back into making our product better. We’ve had several new releases based on insights and feedback from customers, and have another one coming out shortly that has some fantastic new capabilities driven by customer feedback.
  3. Better relationships. Not being a natural salesperson, it was hard for me to ASK customers for a referral. But asking for their help has led to deeper relationships with many customers that I never would have had before. It turns out many people welcome the discussion, and are very willing to help. They feel more vested in what we do and want us to succeed!
  4. Increased referrals. All of this has already increased sales for us in a significant way. I can see how continuing to improve and refine this process will lead to even more sales and help our customers get more value from our products and training.

Our mission now is to continue improving this process by creating an ever more compelling customer experience, from pre-sales through support, and making it easier for our customers to refer us to their family and friends.

Whenever we have to make a decision on where to spend our marketing dollars, this takes precedence. Referrals are now the primary marketing vehicle for us, and best way to grow our business.

What about you – do you have a system for asking your customers for referrals? If so, what has worked for you? If not, what are you waiting for?

Don CampbellDon Campbell lives with his family in San Jose California and is President of Expand2Web. His company provides tools and training to help businesses succeed online.

Filed Under: Referral Marketing Tagged With: , , ,
Jan 17 2013
posted by

6 Ways to Uncover Highly Targeted Referral Prospects

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Matt Anderson – Enjoy!

PresentationOne of the most important elements of getting more highly targeted referrals is to make it EASY for others to open the right doors by being crystal clear about what you want.

Stop saying “if you can think of anyone else who might benefit from my services, please have them give me a call”  because it hardly ever works and, if it does, the referrals will likely be unfocused at best.

Since no strategy can work every time, here are six ways to excel in uncovering the best referral prospects:

  1. Pre-planning

Before you meet, do some homework on who your client is connected to:

Google them, search LinkedIn contacts and think through what other people, groups or interests they have already mentioned in their life.

Before every meeting, ask yourself: what would I love to ask this person for? This is the one of the best referral habits you can have.

  1. Listen differently

Make it a goal in every meeting to identify 1-3 names of people who fit your ideal target prospect.

When you do, you will find that you pay more attention to conversation that in the past may have seemed frivolous or unrelated to your agenda for the meeting.

You already know that there are times when you don’t listen closely to everything someone says. When you make a point to listen closely for names, you’ll start to notice that sometimes they do mention specific people.

  1. Ask different questions

If you don’t know yet what people are in their personal and professional world, ask different questions! Remember the goal is to identify specific people or opportunities for you.

“What do you love to do?”

“What are you working on right now?”

Let them tell you. If something comes up that you believe you could help with: “How do you think it would be best for me to help you with this situation?”

“Who’s your ideal client?” This ought to then give you a chance to respond too.

“If you were me and building a business in this area, who would be the important people for me to know?”

Ask your clients:

“I’m curious: What do you tell other people about the work we do?”

  1. Use generic specifics

If have yet to identify anyone: instead of 30 family members say ‘siblings’ or ‘parents’; ‘best friend’ beats ‘friends’; and ‘favorite colleague at work’ beats potentially dozens of anonymous ‘co-workers’; “who do you most like to (e.g.) golf with that you discuss this kind of thing of with?”

For business owners ask about favorite clients, favorite vendors that they outsource to, and referral sources.

  1. Memory jogging stories

Educate people about the different types of work you do by sharing stories so they know all that you’re capable of. During general conversation, start weaving in more stories of how you have helped other people in different situations. The goal is to hear: “I didn’t know you did that. You know, you might want to talk to…” Look for flickers of recognition.

You could even legitimately ask: “Do you ever run into people in that situation?”

  1. Ideal client list

A few people have success presenting a list of prospects to others in their network. If you’ve got water in the well with someone, it is perfectly appropriate to say: “I’m curious to ask you about a list of area businesses that I put together the other day. (Show list) Do you have any decent contacts at any of these places? I’d love to talk to them about their (fill in the blank) because I’ve worked with a lot of similar organizations and they’ve turned into excellent relationships.”

Create an ideal client list of specific names, companies, locations or professions and life situations.

The results come when you make it very easy for others such that they do not have to think about it. So be very clear about what you want by knowing whom you want to meet.

Matt AndersonMatt Anderson, founder of The Referral Authority, is the author of Fearless Referrals. He leads seminars and coaching groups around the globe for business development professionals on how to develop the lifetime skill of getting referrals. Contact him at [email protected] or 312-622-3121.

Filed Under: Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Referral Marketing Tagged With: ,
Jan 10 2013
posted by

Videos and Secrets Draw More Referrals

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Scott Yates – Enjoy!

video referrals

photo credit: fensterbme via photopin cc

We are in a funny spot at my company, BlogMutt. We are a business blogging service for people that know how important it is to blog (all the smart ones), but who don’t have the time to write their own posts (nearly all).

I think there is no dishonor in hiring a blog writing service, just as there is no dishonor in hiring an accountant to do taxes, but on the other hand, I can see why people think a blog should be something they created themselves. For those people, we are happy to serve as ghost writers.

Because of that, however, our customers don’t necessarily want to say out loud on the Internet that they have hired a blog writing service, which can make generating referrals a bit of a challenge.

Any business that provides a product or service that people don’t necessarily feel like talking about suffers from this same challenge.

We’ve develop two powerful ways to overcome this particular challenge and develop a steady stream of referrals.

Video Referrals Work

When I visit a customer in person, I pull out my handy phone, that just happens to have an HD videocamera built in, and ask them to share what they think of our service. They don’t even have to give their name, so they are happy to say nice things. And they say very nice things. Their comments are really humbling in fact.

We add these videos to our site and let our current customers hook our potential customers.

I’m not the only one who’s figured this out. Zappos ran the numbers and reported that sales of products with videos attached jumped as much as 30 percent compared to products with no videos. If you’ve read The Referral Engine you know that prospective customers trust other customers more than they trust you.

Don’t have time to launch a whole video page? We use a tool called BuboBox; a couple lines of code and it’s done. If you don’t use this tool, use YouTube or use your brother-in-law with a BetaMax, but do get some video referrals on your site.

Dirty Little Secret of Referral Marketing: Shhhhh.

As I mentioned, not all customers of our blog writing service like to blab from the rooftops that they use our service. That’s fine, I get it.

And yet, when I look down the rolls of our hundreds of paying customers, I see that a huge percentage of them came from referrals. How can that be if there’s no trail of tweets? No flood of Facebook posts? No interest from Pinterest?

My hunch is that it’s related to fact that people like to keep secrets, but they LOVE to share secrets.

Every blog writer who’s been around knows that saying something is a “secret” in a blog post headline is a surefire way to get people to click. I, personally, would never in a million years stoop to such a gimmick.

I mean, unless it really was a secret… Or…

Ahem.

What were we talking about? Oh, yes. Secrets.

You see, I think the reason our customers love us is that it’s like a secret weapon. While they won’t post Tweets about us, if someone asks them what their secret to blogging every week is when they are so busy operating their small business, they first look around to see if anyone is listening and then they say in whispered tones that they don’t write their own blog posts, they use BlogMutt.

And those referrals take that to heart, perhaps even more seriously than if someone had said it out loud. We have a funny tendency to listen more when we think we are getting some insider information.

One way of describing that voice is sotto voce, which is Italian for a soft voice and is known by musicians and orators everywhere to be one of the most effective ways of getting the listener to lean in to hear what you have to say.

So, my secret tip about referral marketing isn’t a secret at all. The secret IS the tip: Harness the power of the secret. In the right situations ask your customers to keep their referral of you kind of hush-hush.

Tell them that you’ll give them a discount code for their friends, but tell them that they are specifically forbidden from tweeting it, or putting it on their own blog. Tell them that they can only spread it to friends, and maybe hint that those friends should be told that it is only for them. That may be just the thing needed to get the referrals they make to actually convert into paying customers.

If anyone asks, you didn’t hear it from me.

Scott C. Yates is Co-Founder of BlogMutt, his third startup. He built MyTrafficNews before it sold to Traffic.com, and started one other that is still operating today. Before starting his start-up life he was a writer and futurist. (He gets to say that because he actually wrote a book with “future” in the title.) Don’t tell anyone, but he also has lots more secrets. You can learn about them on the BlogMutt blog. (See what he did there?)

Filed Under: Referral Marketing Tagged With: , ,